Rogue Analyst

I have been a little remiss on posting to this site, but my excuse is I have been very busy. And I still haven't finished reading The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?: by David Brin. But, I'm close. Anyway, he has covered much of the area that I have been researching, and he came to many of the same conclusions I have in deciding between transparency vs secrecy.

But, what I want to do now, is offer up a couple of analogies that I think are useful when thinking about information transparency vs secrecy. And, as I often do, I'm going to fall back on popular games to make the analogies. I will start with secrecy and work toward transparency. So, onward ho!!!

Governments and businesses that operate in secrecy can be likened somewhat to playing a game of Spades or Hearts. You know what your cards are, and you know your partner, in the case of Spades,and your two opponents each have thirteen cards to start, or in the case of Hearts, your three opponents have thirteen cards each. But you don't know their distribution, and the information is revealed one card at a time during the course of play.

The first step toward greater transparency may be likened to a poker game such as Five Card Draw. Here you have a little more information. You know how much money your opponents have available to bet, and you know how many cards they have drawn prior to the final showdown. Of course, they may be bluffing, but you still have this level of information in the course of play.

Moving further on, I think Five or Seven Card Stud games work well. You lose the information concerning your opponents' discards, but you still can see the money on the table, you know how your opponents have been betting and now, some of their cards, as well as yours, are now visible (transparent?). This may be the closest representation I make here, to how I think our current business model works.

Near complete transparency is maybe best represented by Chess or Go. Here all of your opponent's and your pieces are completely visible. The only aspect that is not 'visible' is your opponent's strategy. There are no hidden moves in these games, but you still have to try to determine your opponent's intent. This is also why I think a transparent market place might actually be achievable. It would still allow for the best business strategy to win, and it might actually be far more efficient since the information exchanges are transparent, thus obviously reducing information asymmetries.

Football works here as well, and football has a history as a popular analogy for business people to use. The point here, is that football is largely transparent. The only thing hidden to the opponent, unless you have information security flaws, is the play calling - the intent. NASCAR might make a similarly good example for largely the same reason. I had thought about golf. While golf is entirely transparent (there doesn't appear to be a place for 'hidden' strategies, it falls apart as a good analogy because opponents lack the ability to affect their opponents' play (aside from maybe 'psyching' them out).

Going back to football, I think professional football, may arguably be one of the most transparent of business markets. Everyone knows, or can know, who the players on a given team are, and the individual players stats. But, also, the players' and coaches' contracts are generally public. The cost of the stadium, the revenue from television, advertising, ticket sales and concession revenues, are all largely public knowledge, as is team ownership, management, etc. It is virtually a model of how a successful business can be run in a transparent market place.

Enough for now, but I'm going to reserve the right to comeback to this post, re-edit, and even add on.