In praise of a simple but brilliant word – “Think”
By Alec Hogg
I met IBM heavy hitter Vince Kasten last Friday. He visited the CNBC Africa studio to talk about a partnership with Metropolitan Health – one of the first commercial applications worldwide of IBM's revolutionary Watson system. Named after the group's founder, Watson is an evolution from the famous Deep Blue, the first computer to beat a world chess champion.
Kasten, like most IBM top executives, is terribly proud of his company's 104 year history. He left me with a book about it called, appropriately, Making the World Work Better. It documents how much IBM has contributed to mankind. Including its iconic slogan, "Think", introduced by Thomas Watson Snr a century ago.
The late Christo Kritzinger, my boss during a few short but happy years at the SABC, applied the same principle. Make mistakes, he urged, but before you do, "think" about what you're doing. That way every mistake will be a learning experience. Mistakes made without forethought are just a waste. Think. Something we can all do more of. A simple, brilliant idea.
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