Thursday, May 24, 2007

Dr. Ivan Brady Strikes Again!

If you've ever gotten an email from me, odds are it's had this as the signature:
“Context is practically everything when it comes to determining meaning”
-- Dr. Ivan Brady

Dr. Ivan Brady was my favorite professor when I was in college. He almost convinced me to switch majors from Computer Science to Anthropology. Words fell like pearls of wisdom from his mouth. And this was one of his favorite quotes - he used it a lot.

And still, so many years later, I keep being reminded how incredibly true this is. On so many projects - and BI projects in particular - far too much time is lost on false starts and poor communication. Everyone seems to always want to start working, to start doing something, anything, instead of calming down, establish a common context, and truly understanding what the other parties are talking about.

I know, this isn't really news, but this week has reminded me once again how true, how profound, and how important this is. If more people listened to Dr. Brady, the world would be a better place, and we'd get a lot more done...

1 comment:

Scott said...

That is hilarious. I was looking for the source of that quote because I'm using it in a presentation tomorrow night. And I find it, on a blog, written by the person who I remembered telling it to me.