P.S.: For the sake of complexity, big and bigger are used interchangeable in the post. If you do not understand this stop reading Right now. You are missing the big picture here....
The domain of consultancy and analytics can be a torment,
especially for the semantically unaligned. The evolution of language has found
new paradigms and undesirable effect on individuals who for example ‘Have to
touch-base’ with someone they don’t want to ‘touch’ in the first place. And
this is just ‘scratching the back’ I must tell you. Or ‘the tip of the iceberg’
on a cold windy night when all you want is to cuddle in a blanket and listen to
Himesh sing ‘Tera Tera suroor’ amidst heavy thump and infinite jazz. Not the
general ‘Jazz by the way/bay’ but the jazz which manifests itself in an all time
favorite wedding song.. ‘Jheemi Jheemi Jheemi.. aaja..aaja…aaja.’… You get my
point??
Of course you don’t. Because you are not looking at the
bigger picture. Which brings me to the daddy of all corporate terminologies: ‘Looking
at the bigger picture’
This is how a typical conversation with your superiors in
the corporate world would go:
Mathematical
Geek/Genius
MG: Boss. The R sq of the equation which
models the rate at which ice cream melts in a room and Katrina Kaif’s presence
in the same room along with a poster of Tushaar Kapoor in the other room is
~70%
Boss: That is not enough. Did you also look
at the possibility of an added variability of ‘Malaika Arora’s Z-balm’??
MG: But Boss, would not the Variable inflation
factor be more than 4? They both ARE highly correlated..
Boss: Of course it will…
MG(cutting short): ..which beats the point
of using Malaika in the equation then Sir… Katrina alone suffices for both.
Boss: See.. there you are missing the whole
point. You are not looking at the bigger picture.
MG: I beg your pardon Sir.. but I am. I am
probably looking at the biggest picture possible.. I have a 10X10 poster of
Katrina doing a ‘Chikni Chameli’ in my apartment…
Boss: So you will not account for the
variability and add Malaika in the equation…
MG: Mathematically?? No sir…
Boss: But you do realize that your client
is Arbaaz Khan.. What will he use Katrina for anyway?? You see… you have to think about all these parameters
before coming to me with such presumptuous solutions. You need to parameterize
the entire variable space and identify existing patterns which help Arbaaz run
his ice cream factory next to Salman’s school of Chastisement and Virtue…
MG: No wonder Arbaaz is moving to producing
of ice creams now….
So how exactly do you look at the bigger picture? Fear not
my fellow corporates. After mining through loads and loads of data.. about the
perimeter of Sonakshi’s forehead that forced me to use Big data paradigms, I
have devised a 3 point plan which harnesses existing data patterns to enable
your mathematical mind to harvest business acumen and not fail to spot,
identify and even understand ‘THE BIG PICTURE’.
1 Never
look at the Big picture directly: You can’t look at the big picture
directly. No Sir!! That is not acceptable. The route to the big picture lies in
magazines that teach you about the ‘5 most important foods that cut fat’, ‘7
things to ensure you are the most macho in a band of jazz players’ or ‘ 5 things
you should never do while eating breakfast on the moon with a dolphin’s infant
child, playing football in low gravity eco-space with a chimpanzee at the same
time’.
Wait for a leeway into the knowledge space
provided by hard working big picture enthusiasts. Read. Rehearse and then look
away… you will gain visibility.
2 Understand the consumer: Now
that you are done with your fancy analysis with shiny pies and cool bars,
without getting fat or hungover…. You are on to the tricky part. What you need
to understand that the output of any mathematical equation in the corporate
world is composed on two components: the mathematical equation and the ‘big
picture deviation’ (also called as error rate by sports enthusiasts). Getting
the first part of the equation is easy. To get the remaining of the component
you need to understand who your consumer is.
You need to gauge the frequency of your
consumer’s bowels, find his favorite brand of constipation pills, his most
preferred strip club and 5 strands of hair from his unborn child. Seems
difficult? Wait till you get to the last part.
3 If a
big picture does not exist, paint one: This involves breaking into your
customer’s office, picking a brush and painting huge potraits from the stories ‘P.S.:
I love you’ with the skill of a five year old and the adventure of Salman Khan’s
virtue… Untainted..that is… Once you are done, they will be printing about this
in the magazines all over.. then you move to Step 1.
P.S.: If you are unable to comprehend the intent of the
article and got lost at R sq… you definitely did not get the big picture. Wait
for my post on ‘How to look at the literature about ‘Looking at the Big picture’
’. I am co-writing it with Chetan Bhagat. He is paying for the ink I spend.
Also involved is a corporate firm predicting number of words I would write
without making any sense… the current count is 884.
