> On a podcast dealing with the rise of alt-right political views, and how some in that movement pule over distinctions over pride in their heritage not equating to white supremacy, the following telling point from an activist: how this side is so confident in their views and beliefs, despite the long march of history noting how they've been wrong so often.
Slavery, apartheid, colonialism, Jim Crow, intolerance towards LGBTQ... it's just a long line of, well, white guys acting with complete certainty that what they believe is correct, only to find out later, well, no. (Let's exclude the very real possibility that so much of this was done just for the money, just because that's not the track I'd like to follow here.)
And yes, everyone always thinks they are right about what they are saying, because if you think you are wrong and say it anyway, you're a sociopath. Tangent, moving on.
> One of the people I met while doing ride sharing, who while conceding the fact that climate change is real, told me that's he's not going along with the idea that it's done by humans. Might just be something the Earth just does, since we've had Ice Ages before. When I noted that he was confusing geologic history (eons) versus modern (at most, decades), his counter was that there's just no way to solve the problem without an untold number of people just ceasing to exist. (You get all kinds doing ride sharing, by the way.)
Not seeing how these relate to the effectiveness of your ad campaign? Hold on, we're getting there.
The worst experiences of my life all share a common thread: a lack of information that led to the wrong conclusion, and actions that were predicated on that conclusion. In my personal life, this manifests as various people who were important to me having severe issues that were beyond my power to assist, or their ability to change. In my professional career, that certain lists or channels were the products of faulty data, that management or venture capital didn't have the same goals as the rank and file, that promises weren't going to be kept, and so on. (By the way, to be perfectly clear -- I have no regrets. You work in this field, and with the kind of start-ups that give you front-line knowledge of the way the world works as it changes in real time, and you have to accept that the road isn't always going to be smooth.)
This lack of information translates to macro levels as well. If we had a clear cost to the environment for various energy choices, plane travel might come with a 5X price addition for a carbon offset, new phones may be 2X cost for the requirement to re-use rare elements, gas might be a boutique items for hobby cars as electrics powered by mandatory solar roofs dominated the roads, and so on, and so on. Instead, we all act on incomplete information -- the gallon of gas or plane fare just reflects the cost to the consumer, not the cost it creates when consumed -- and do the best we can.
Because, and this is the hard part...
If you wait to have complete confidence in all of your decisions, you will never make any, because complete confidence is impossible. Even for something as cut and dried as a digital marketing campaign.
So, to sum up.
1) If you are utterly and totally sure of something -- anything -- that's more about your faith in your story, rather than the merits of the decision.
2) If you never go back and test the stuff that you know is right, you are at significant risk of acting on wrong information.
3) A little humility and flexibility is more than warranted, especially in the face of all of the times we've been wrong before. Even if it's not matched, say, in public discourse, or by "strong" leaders.
Making wrong decisions isn't an indictment of your career, or the value you bring to a client or organization.
Failing to learn from them is.
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