One of the reasons I love blogging is being able to look back on what I was right about, and what I was wrong about.
I predicted building messenger lists would compete with building an email list back in 2012. I was right.
Back in 2013, when Facebook announced that they’d be diminishing organic reach for pages, I wrote a post encouraging brands to focus on empowering their employees and becoming social businesses. I was right about that approach, and the advice is still good in light of Facebook’s recent announcement. (Sadly, few businesses took that path. Instead, they began throwing money at Facebook. Aren’t they glad now?)
One thing I’ve noticed when looking back on my predictions, is that I had a higher likelihood of being correct, when my prediction lacked an emotional bias.
As an example, I prefer iOS to Android. I don’t think it is objectively better, I just like it better personally. Therefore any prediction I make about mobile naturally leans toward iOS. By contrast, when I observe something, and take my own emotions and preferences out of it. I find I see things much more clearly.
I’m sure that approach would map onto more than just predictions, and that by removing emotion and bias, I could make more effective decisions. Though I predict that I’ll probably continue having emotions and bias like every other human.