What Is Your Problem?

Who's got the answer? Who's got the answer!?

Answers are the rapture of our intellectual passion. They come from rigorous collection and analysis of all available data. Smart people working hard. Now that is innovation! But what if it isn't?

We are taught from an early age that answering the question is what we are supposed to do. Yet, we dedicate meager consideration if this is even the right question to ask. Why should this be the focus of our efforts?

Answers can be cheap, plastic veneer – our lantern's light illuminates only so far. So, we take easy response to the ready stimuli in front of us. This must be our problem and we must solve. Or delegate to AI.

It is common error to solve the wrong problem, mistaking symptoms to be the real issue at hand. We then pursue answer only to find that this was never really our problem in the first place.

Finding the right question is the paramount goal, scouring nature for what we seek. It is too easy to run myriad experiments and conduct endless analysis only to end up where we started. We can't know where our answer should take us without concentrated effort at the outset to concisely formulate the right problem statement. 

This is not easy. Beyond the brute force work that an answer asks for, the right question demands the ineffable. Part deep expertise, part intuition, part listening to others, part rejection of status quo. A formidable witches brew concoction to distill down the essence of what is the real thing to be solved. 

I love a problem. A real problem. An issue stripped down to its quaking core, exposing the shimmering alabaster of our ignorance. The spots our lanterns miss. Let the many seek the easy answers, I want to struggle for the questions.

 - Jeremy