« Linda Stone on Attention | Main | Derek Powazek on Community »
Heuristicrats (ETech 2006)
In a talk on the Hunch Engine at ETech, Eric Bonabeau used the term “heuristicrat” to describe professionals who use years of professional experience in a black box decision process to limit choice. His example was an architect who says “no” to almost every question the client asks in an effort to channel the client into a small set of designs the architect is comfortable with. Heuristocrats don’t think outside the box, as it were.
Posted by windley on March 7, 2006 3:05 PM
Comment from Randy Gordon at March 8, 2006 9:51 AM
In the real world, saying no is verboten...the customer is likely to just get another architect who will say yes.
A far more common technique is to completely confuse the customer with contradictory answers until they give up trying to understand. The result is the same, but the customer is far less likely to complain for fear the architect will continue to try to explain.
It's effective, and in the hands of a master word spinner, deadly.
In some cases, too deadly...I once saw an architect blow a 1.3 billion dollar outsourcing contract to bits using the technique.