The "Mighty" Middle.

Volodymyr Hryshchenko

A few weeks ago I was discussing a company’s decision to launch a product that in order to work would need a feature on smartphones which while already working in other parts of the world wasn't yet in these parts.

I kept wondering about the decision-making behind that launch. At some point, I concluded that I was the one not seeing the situations correctly because if it were so clear to me that the sequencing of events was wrong then it should have also been apparent to what I imagine to be the very smart people that spent months ideating, designing etc on that product and who also have launched smart products in the past. 

I started asking myself if I’m oversimplifying things by being reductionist.

“Reductionist; analysing and describing a complex phenomenon in terms of its simple or fundamental constituents, "a reductionist approach that leads to stereotyping"

Then I received this newsletter from MD&A called The Midwit Trap. I was like aha!! This is it. It took me a “minute” to understand, but the premise is from something called The Midwit Meme, used to defend a position that seems too simple and unsophisticated to be correct. 

The idea is that sometimes the correct solution to a complicated problem turns out to be very simple. 

Wesley yang

Almost like the classic bell curve where the majority of people fall in the middle, the “midwit” is a lot of us (that guy in the middle).  Those at the extremes the “dull” and super bright are said to arrive at more straightforward solutions through very different paths; the dull from lack of knowledge just picks what he understands (simple things are easier to understand right?) while the super brilliant from experience perhaps and being able to separate the noise from the real signal are able to figure out that things are not that complicated. 

Everyone else in the middle is trying to appear more intelligent than they really are and in effect neglecting the simple things and looking for more complicated solutions. Do you remember this embarrassing post? It happens to the best of us. 🤦🏾‍♀️

Using children and elderly people as our “dulls” (not that there is anything dull about those ones) and super intelligent extremes respectively.  Isn't it amazing how these 2 groups really understand what it means to just at our own terms? Children from naivety and older probably from seeing it all and knowing that all those things we thought were important were in fact not. 

Just look at this child, isn't this the epitome of freedom to do anything without caring about how we might be perceived? LOL. 

Omo Ure 🇳🇬 @iam__temmyy

Helper don sleep off! God abeg 🤣😭😭😭

Let’s keep it simple guys.

Keep going,

Ije