We're now midway through the Cowboys Season, and despite injuries plaguing the team, we just had a fantastic 43 - 20 victory over the Rams.
At every game, I run into this guy, and every game he wears a different creative, and well-thought-out costume. He sits on the 50-yard line. He wears Ferragamo shoes and a nice watch. For his day job, he is the Head of Psychiatry at a well-known hospital in the area. Yet, something about this game captures his imagination.
Jerry Jones does a lot right in how he builds his "Disney Ride." But this post will focus more on what the coaches and players do.
I'm regularly surprised by the levels of innovation and strategic thinking I see in football.
Football is something I used to love to play. And it is still something that informs my thoughts and actions.
Some lessons relate to being part of a team, while others relate to the coaching or management side of things.
Some of these lessons stem back to youth football ... but I still learn things watching games – and even more, from watching Dallas Cowboys practices at The Star.
Think about it ... even in middle school, the coaches have a game plan. There are team practices and individual drills. They have a depth chart, which lists the first, second, and third choices to fill certain roles. In short, they focus on the fundamentals in a way that most businesses don't.
The picture, below, is of my brother's high school team way back in 1989.
To re-state, most businesses are less prepared for their problems than an 8th-grade football team. Now, that might sound offensive to some of you – but if you think about it ... it's pretty accurate.
Losing to an 8th Grade Team
I shot this video right before the COVID-19 shutdown. I encourage you to watch it. I think it's 3 minutes well spent.
Football teams think about how to improve each player, how to beat this week's opponent, and then how to string together wins to achieve a higher goal.
The team thinks of itself as a team. They expect to practice. And they get coached.
In addition, there is a playbook for both offense and defense. And they watch game films to review what went right ... and what they can learn from for use later.
Contrast that with many businesses. Entrepreneurs often get myopic ... they get focused on today, focused on survival, and they lose sight of the bigger picture and how all the pieces fit together.
The amount of thought and preparation that goes into football - which is ultimately a game - is a valuable lesson for business.
What about when you get to the highest level? If an 8th-grade football team is equivalent to a normal business, what about businesses that are killing it? That would be similar to an NFL team.
Let's look at the Cowboys.
Practice Makes Perfect
How you do one thing is how you do everything. So, they try to do everything right.
Each time I've watched a practice session, I've come away impressed by the amount of preparation, effort, and skill displayed.
During practice, there's a scheduled agenda. The practice is broken into chunks, and each chunk has a designed purpose and a desired intensity. There's a rhythm, even to the breaks.
Every minute is scripted. There's a long-term plan to handle the season ... but, there was also a focus on the short-term details and their current opponent.
They alternate between individual and group drills. Moreover, the drills run fast ... but for shorter time periods than you'd guess. It is bang-bang-bang – never longer than a millennial's attention span. And they move from drill to drill – working not just on plays, but also on skillsets (where are you looking, which foot do you plant, how do you best use your hands, etc.).
They use advanced technology (including advanced player monitoring, biometric tracking, and medical recovery devices ... but also things like robotic tackling dummies and virtual reality headsets).
They don't just film games, they film the practices ... and each individual drill. Coaches and players get a cut of the film on their tablets as soon as they leave. It is a process of constant feedback and constant improvement. Everything has the potential to be a lesson.
Beyond The Snap
The focus is not just internal, on the team. They focus on the competition as well. Before a game, the coaches prepare a game plan and have the team watch tape of their opponent in order to understand the tendencies and mentally prepare for what's going to happen.
During the game, changes in personnel groups and schemes keep competitors on their toes and allow the team to identify coverages and predict plays. If the offense realizes a play has been predicted, they call an audible based on what they see in front of them. Coaches from different hierarchies work in tandem to respond faster to new problems.
After the game, the film is reviewed in detail. Each person gets a grade on each play, and the coaches make notes for each person about what they did well and what they could do better.
Think about it ... everyone knows what game they are playing ... and for the most part, everybody understands the rules and how to keep score (and even where they are in the standings). Even the coaches get feedback based on performance, and they look to others for guidance.
Imagine how easy that would be to do in business. Imagine how much better things could be if you did those things.
Challenge accepted.
And, in celebration of a Cowboys win ... here's me doing a cartwheel. I'm sure my body will feel great tomorrow ...
Riding The Data Wave - Data Is Becoming a New Asset Class
Data is the fastest-growing commodity, and is today’s “wild west” and the battlefield of today’s tech titans. We talk about AI as this gold rush, but data is the underpinning of it all.
A staggering 328.77 million terabytes of data are created daily, which means around 120 zettabytes of data will be generated this year.
Video is still growing rapidly, but so is IoT, with more than 15% annual growth. There are now almost 20 billion connected devices.
Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft all have unprecedented amounts of data (and power).
Rapid growth means little time to create adequate rules. Everyone’s jumping to own more data than the next and to protect that data from prying eyes.
As a great example of this, I often warn people to keep their intellectual property off of ChatGPT or other hosted language models.
I also see it trading, but it’s pervasive in every industry and our personal lives as well.
Collecting basic data and using basic analytics used to be enough ... but not anymore. The game is changing.
For example, traders used to focus on price data ... but there has been an influx of firms using alternative data sets and extraordinary hardware and software investments to find an edge. If you’re using the same data sources as your competitors and competing on the same set of beliefs, it’s hard to find a sustainable edge.
Understanding the game others are playing (and the rules of that game) is important. However, that’s only table stakes.
Figuring out where you can find extra insight, or where you can make the invisible visible, creates a moat between you and your competition and lets you play your own game.
Here is a quick high-level video about Data as fuel for your business. Check it out.
It is interesting to think about what’s driving the new world (of trading, technology, AI, etc.), which often involves identifying what drove the old world.
History has a way of repeating itself. Even when it doesn’t repeat itself, it often rhymes.
With that said, the key to unlocking the pathway to the new world often comes from a new or alternative data set that lets you approach the problem, challenge, or opportunity from a different perspective.
Before e-mails, fax machines were amazing. Before cars, people were happy with horses and buggies.
These comparisons help explain the importance of data in today’s new world economics.
gapingvoid
Data as the New Oil
Petroleum has played a pivotal role in human advancement since the Industrial Revolution. It fueled (and still fuels) our creativity, technology advancements, and a variety of derivative byproducts. There are direct competitors to fossil fuels that are gaining steam, but I think it’s more interesting to compare petroleum to data due to their parallels in effect on innovation.
Pumping crude oil out of the ground and transforming it into a finished product is not a simple process. Yet, it is relatively easy for someone to understand the process at a high level. You have to locate a reservoir, drill, capture the resource, and then refine it to the desired product – heating oil, gasoline, asphalt, plastics, etc.
The same is true for data.
In a sense, data fuels the information economy much like oil fuels the industrial economy. The amount of power someone has can be correlated to their control of and access to these resources. Likewise, things that diminish or constrain access or use of these resources can lead to extreme consequences.
Why Data Is Better Than Oil
The analogy works, but it’s just that, an analogy, and the more you analyze it, the more it falls apart. Unlike the finite resource that is oil, data is all around us and increasing at an exponential rate, so the game is a little different:
Using alternative data gives traders an advantage, but it doesn’t always have to be confidential or hard-to-find information. Traders now have access to vast amounts of structured and unstructured data. A significant source that many overlook is the data produced through their own process or the metadata from their own trades or transactions.
In a word of caution, there are two common mistakes people make when making data-driven decisions. First, people often become slaves to the data, losing focus on the bigger picture. It’s the same mistake people make with AI. Both are tools, not the end goal. Second, even the most insightful data can’t predict black swans. It’s important to exercise caution. Prepare for the unexpected.
The future of data is bright, but it’s also littered with potential challenges. Privacy concerns and data misuse are hot-button topics, as are fake news and the ability of systems to generate misleading data. In addition, as we gain access to more data, our ability to separate signal from noise becomes more important.
I think one of the biggest problems facing our youth - and really all of us - is how much information is thrust at us every waking moment of the day. No previous generation has had this much access to data. As a result, many are actually less informed than in the past. Soundbites become the entire news story, and nuance gets lost in the echo chambers.
The question becomes, how do you capitalize on data without becoming a victim of it?
Food for thought!
Posted at 03:58 PM in Business, Current Affairs, Gadgets, Ideas, Market Commentary, Science, Trading, Trading Tools, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0)
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