The Surprising Course of Knowledge and Innovation #bbuzz
summary
Argues that disciplined measurement, record‑keeping and asking “what changed” beat vague theory: historical case shows Matthew Maury aggregates of ship logs cut voyages by 17 and 18 days after uniform templates; British lime juice change reduces vitamin C to 25% vitamin C and causes scurvy; lab failures trace to a contaminated reagent; A/B tests fail from bowl‑position bias but a recommender improves when using first 30 seconds of play instead of clicks; recommends streaming with Kafka and MapR Streams for replayable, auditable logs and broad metrics.
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chapters (12)
- 0:00Introduction and speaker background
- 1:10Importance of quiet time for innovation
- 2:34Matthew Maury’s data-driven innovation
- 5:22Lessons from scurvy research mistakes
- 10:18Asking what changed when things break
- 12:25Testing pitfalls in AB testing
- 14:56Why careful testing matters
- 17:24Lavoisier’s legacy of careful measurement
- 18:27Power of streaming data architectures
- 21:38Saving data for future insights
- 24:10Key lessons from old and new mistakes
- 25:12Book signing and resources
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