Seth's Blog: The Billion-Dollar T-Shirt
Ontological uncertainty exists when, even if you perfectly know and understand the environment you're in, you still can't predict the impact of your actions because the system is changing faster than the ripple effects of your actions can play out. This is the situation Seth Godin faced when, back in 1993-94, he wrote a book instead of launching an Internet thing-y (like a search engine) and subsequently suffered an opportunity cost of a $1 Billion or so. (Hey, there's a lot of us in that club. :-) )
What really would've happened is anyone's guess, of course, but it's a nice parable that provides a framework for understanding some things that can constrain us, and also has got me noodling on how best to think about rates of change in different contexts.
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About john.mullinax
John Mullinax is a Platform Strategy Advisor with Microsoft's DPE Team. Before joining Microsoft in 2006, John held a vartiety of positions at Ford Motor Company, most recently leading IT services strategy to support explosive business growth in China. Other positions included: Enterprise Architect, Application Portfolio Management, Technology Governance, and Product Manager. Prior to joining Ford, John earned his MBA at the University of Washington. Before that, he was Director of Elections for Douglas County, Washington, where he conducted the first Federal mail-ballot election in the USA. Subsequently, he joined the Secretary of State's office as a consultant working with county election officials in Washington state to improve operational effectiveness, integrity, and security (aka, to prevent the kind of debacle we saw in Florida in 2000).
