Spring Break
Brody's final speech
Departing president spoke at MSE Symposium last night
Issue date: 11/20/08
According to Brody, humans are by nature heavily biased creatures and experts can often be wrong.
"Although we say the truth will set you free, and we are rational thinkers, in reality we are really irrational and not good thinkers at all," Brody said. "However, we can work at it."
He offered the audience his own secret to success, jokingly instructing them to write down his advice.
He said that success is where preparation beats opportunity.
"How many of you can recognize good luck when it comes your way?" he questioned the audience.
Only one attendee at the back of the hall raised his hand.
In the next part of his speech, Brody tested the audience's observation skills.
He showed the audience a video that was developed by a professor at Harvard to test selective observation.
The 30-second video showed three people in white jerseys and three people in black jerseys passing basketballs among themselves.
The audience's task was to count the number of passes made between players in white jerseys.
In focusing intently on the players in white, many of the audience members who had not seen the video before failed to notice a figure in a gorilla suit run across the screen.
"You see only what you are looking to see," Brody said, "and often times you miss the really important things. In this case, you missed the gorilla."
Brody coined the term "gorilla spotters" as people who make major discoveries in areas in which others notice nothing of significance.
"Things can be so obvious in hindsight," Brody explained, showing the video again, "but going forward, you often miss the gorilla. We just had a very large gorilla in our economy, called subprime debt. No one noticed, though it was so obvious in hindsight."
After bringing the speech back to its original topic, Brody showed the audience another short video.
The video demonstrated the fallibility of economic forecasts.
"Although we say the truth will set you free, and we are rational thinkers, in reality we are really irrational and not good thinkers at all," Brody said. "However, we can work at it."
He offered the audience his own secret to success, jokingly instructing them to write down his advice.
He said that success is where preparation beats opportunity.
"How many of you can recognize good luck when it comes your way?" he questioned the audience.
Only one attendee at the back of the hall raised his hand.
In the next part of his speech, Brody tested the audience's observation skills.
He showed the audience a video that was developed by a professor at Harvard to test selective observation.
The 30-second video showed three people in white jerseys and three people in black jerseys passing basketballs among themselves.
The audience's task was to count the number of passes made between players in white jerseys.
In focusing intently on the players in white, many of the audience members who had not seen the video before failed to notice a figure in a gorilla suit run across the screen.
"You see only what you are looking to see," Brody said, "and often times you miss the really important things. In this case, you missed the gorilla."
Brody coined the term "gorilla spotters" as people who make major discoveries in areas in which others notice nothing of significance.
"Things can be so obvious in hindsight," Brody explained, showing the video again, "but going forward, you often miss the gorilla. We just had a very large gorilla in our economy, called subprime debt. No one noticed, though it was so obvious in hindsight."
After bringing the speech back to its original topic, Brody showed the audience another short video.
The video demonstrated the fallibility of economic forecasts.
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