Discerning Perception

' Connecting Dots ' is arguably one of the modern day classics among motivational and inspirational stories. For those who still don't know about it and for those who have not clicked on the above link already, let me introduce it as 'Stanford Commencement Address by college dropout Steve Jobs'. As understood,  Steve Jobs  was once invited to deliver the prestigious Commencement Address of the  Stanford University , where he shared three of his own life experience, aligning them with the 'theory' of 'Connecting Dots'. He talked about how messy his life had been from the very beginning, till the moment his higher educational dreams were also shattered. Then he talked about how one of his finest recruits managed to threw him out of his own company and finally, about the challenge that came as a pancreatic cancer. You may have heard this story and watched that video over and over again  but  have you ever thought about the criticality ...

You might have read a story about a toothpaste factory that spent a large sum of money to come up with a sophisticated system to identify empty boxes before they reach the end of the production line.  For those who haven't read the story, reliabilityweb.com  has a nice write up by Cliff Williams, further explaining the story, digging deep into some unseen facts. Before reading that, let's focus on the other side of it. To sum it up, a toothpaste factory spent millions for a six months long project by a consultancy firm, which provided the factory with a solution. Whenever an empty box is detected,  the line stopped and a bell rang, so that someone had to remove the empty box in order to get the line running again. Soon after the modifications, the management could observe a huge improvement, where the empty box count hit zero in few weeks. Surprised by the level of value addition, they went on an inspection tour, only to fi...