Often, because the workload is too heavy, I'll clip an article I want to read and hold off reading it because I deem it's not urgent. That's why I'm sending you this link two weeks later to "From Moore's Law to Barrett's Rules", from the May 16 WSJ (registration required). The thing that strikes me hard about it is this: When you read Craig Barrett's Rules, you discover that each one is like a Zen Koan. Here are two examples:
* "The business is bigger than the business."
* "Consensus is good--except when it isn't."
Each of Barrett's Rules (not just these two) is ambiguous, in and of itself, or in its application.
And yet at the same time each of them are powerful and, at some level, obvious.
Before the end of the article, strangely, I was thinking about IFRS - International Financial Reporting Standards. I do a bit of thought leadership content creation for a household name professional services firm, see, so I have to think about stuff like this from time to time. There is a transition going on in US financial reporting from GAAP to IFRS, and at least in part it is a transition from "rules" to "intent", if you will. It seems like now is an apt time for that change.
Everyone is talking about how so many markets are in flux right now, and that there are "new rules that haven't been written yet." But what if that concept is totally off base - it's just as far as our poor minds are able to go, for the moment. Perhaps the truth of what's happening is that our future will have no "rules" in this sense; instead, there will only be intent, and behavior. The rest you have to figure out as you go along, as each new situation, opportunity and market emerges.
I realize at some level that Barrett is grandstanding a bit in this article as he sits on the brink of retirement (his last day was May 20). Somehow, that did not lessen the impact of it for me.
From Moore's Law to Barrett's Rules
