Common sense or Super Sense

I've seen a couple of discussion on the web around How Common sense could be developed...nurtured.

Yesterday a young lady (6 years old by the way) asked me a question...Convert "IX" into six by adding a line...you can't rearrange/ re order/ Delete the existing lines. 

Most of us will approach this with the assumption that since "IX" is a roman numeral "9" hence the solution too will lie in this...also prevail will the assumption that line can only be straight (we all have been conditioned to belive that North Pole is always on top...while in reality the globe can be seen upside down as well without any change in the landscapes and/or geographies). since I've lost almost all of my hairs and a little inteligence as well in that process, I could not answer it correctly...the correct answer was adding an S.."SIX". This solution challenges the two assumptions I talked about earlier...Line can only be straight and solution should exist in the Roman Numerals.

My immediate response to the lady, who happens to be my daughter was...hey it is sheer common sense...How can I miss that.

Common sense is usually not that common and is usually masked by our assumptions, prejudices, experience etc etc. As a friend of mine rightly commented, "...most of the time it is "Super Sense" that people think afterwards as it is a "common sense" ONLY after the event has occurred and a lot of water has flown under the bridge..." 
I don't think when google founders 1st launched the search engine...they did that using common sense...and when they wanted to sell it out of the same sense, so called common sense prevailed on people that it will not work. Google has brought about a complete paradigm shift...there are 31 billion searches on Google every month...In 2006, this no was 2.7 billion...To who were these questions addressed before B.G (before Google)? 

The idea here is keeping the basics right...challenging the underlying assumption, changing the frame/ window through which we see the world, reinvent ourselves and continuously keep shifting the frame. We all get stuck and will get stuck if we look at things from one Frame...Google brothers never resigned to reality but created a reality of their own. We may call it a common sense or a super sense...words hardly matter.

Role of Quality professional in the Knowledge era

Look at some of these nos...

1. 25% of Indian population with the highest IQ's, is greater than the total population of US. Translation "India has       more honours kids than America has kids 

2. Top ten in demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004.We are currently preparing students for the jobs that don't exist, using technologies that havn't been invented, to solve problems, we don't even know are problems yet 

3. 1 in 4 workers has been with their current employer for less than a year, 1 in 2 have been there for less than 5 years. 

4. There are over 200 million registered users on Myspace. If Myspace were a country, it would be the 5th largest in the world 

6. #1 ranked country in Broadband internet penetration is Bermuda,#19 is US, #22 is Japan 

7. There are 31 billion searches on Google every month, In 2006 it was 2.7 billion, To who were these questions addressed before B.G (before Google)? 

8. 1st commercial text message was sent in Dec'92, today # of text messages exchanged everyday, exceeds the population on earth. 

9. Yrs it took to reach a market audience of 50 Million----radio-38 years, TV- 13 years, Internet 4 years, IPOD--3 years, Facebook--2 years 

10. # of internet devices in 1984 was 1000, in 1992 -1,000,000, in 2008- 1000,000,000 

11 Amt of new tech info is doubling every 2 years, For a student starting a 4 year tech degree this means that, half of what they learn in 1st year will be outdated by their 3rd year of study 

12. NTT japan has successfully tested a fibre optic cable, that pushes 14 trillion bits per second down a single strand of fibre, that is 2660 CDs or 210 million phone calls every second. It's currently tripling every 6 months and is expected to do so for the next 20 years 

13. During last about 5 minutes..57 babies were born in US, 274 in China, 395 in India and 694,000 songs were downloaded illegally 
Don't you think all this will have an impact on the Role of future Quality professional...?

The Info Age is an idea that the current age will be characterised by the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to knowledge that would have previously been difficult or impossible to find. 
The idea is heavily linked to the concept of a Digital Age or Digital Revolution, and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialisation, to an economy based around the manipulation of information. The period is generally said to have begun within 10 years of 1990, with the development of the internet seen as a key part of this change.
We are living in exponential times. Times are changing and so are the strategies to counter them. No one would have thought a year back that Lehman brothers will vanish and JP Morgan will sail through with flying colours. 
Few things that comes in my mind...the change is from 
1. Transactional to Transformational 
2. Managing Systematic as well as Abstract knowledge 
3. Ensuring Measurements are - Aligned - Integrated - Accessible on demand – Move away from data collection to Data capturing and real time analytics 
4. From Auditing - Checking to Ensuring tools for system and self Auditing /checking 
5. X-ray Technician to Being a Doctor 
6. Creating Integrated Development Environments

Cheers, Vijai