Check this: "We have done very little about thinking for the last 24 centuries. I have developed tools for human thinking and am now working with Tata Consultancy Services [TCS] to turn these into usable digitised versions that can be utilised by all organisations across the globe," said Dr. Edward de Bono. 24 centuries? Not 23, or 25 centuries?
24 centuries ago was 395BC. Why did everyone stop thinking about thinking in 395BC? I can’t find anything in Wikipedia about 395BC, unless that’s just because no one has given 395BC much thought since, erm, 396BC? Answers on a postcard please.
This insight comes as Tata Consultancy Services, Asia’s largest IT services company, teamed up with Dr Edward de Bono [no jokes about whether The Edge will be helping it out, if you please] and de Bono Thinking Systems to offer solutions to organisations to aid business transformation.
But the press release was able to back up the need for the new service with hard, fast statistics, so there: "A Harvard Business Review survey shows, ‘Creativity and Innovation’ is one of the Top 3 items on the agenda of several CEOs across the globe," it stated. What was that? Several CEOs across the globe? Well that’s conclusive evidence then, isn’t it?
You’ve got to be kidding, surely. I may not be a statistician, but even my limited grasp of the field would lead me to believe that the opinions of "several CEOs" do not constitute a statistically relevant finding. In fact if they can only find several CEOs who say that ‘creativity and innovation’ is on their agenda, I would personally assume that for the vast majority it’s not on the agenda at all. It’s not even close to their agenda. Not within 24 centuries of it.
