We may receive an affiliate commission from anything you buy from this article.TV, film and media executive Barry Diller spent a decade at ABC, where he helped popularize the made-for-TV "Movie of the Week." In his new memoir, "Who Knew" (to be published on May 20 by Simon & Schuster), Diller writes about his career, including a lesson about the limitations of too much information – when instinct (for, like, what makes an intriguing Movie of the Week?) may be a better predictor of success.Read an excerpt below, and don't miss Tracy Smith's interview with Barry Diller on "CBS Sunday Morning" May 11!"Who Knew" by Barry Diller $27 at Amazon Prefer to listen? Audible has a 30-day free trial available right now.
Try Audible for free We were good on titles in the early daysWomen in Chains was one of my favorites; it was a horrible movie, but what a promotable title.Scream, Pretty Peggy wasn't bad, either.Sometimes the staff would ask, "Is it commercial?" and I would brutalize them, because rather than using their instincts, they were trying to predict the public's appetite, which I said then and say now, over and over again, simply isn't possible.Neither is using research to help make decisions.
No amount of research on ideas is worth the paper (or computer screen) it's printed on.Data can tell you what has happened, not what can or will happen. Data is often harmful to instinct, and I believe this to be true for making not only creative decisions but many business decisions.
PowerPoint can be the enemy; structured information often narrows the sieve just when you need to broaden it out in the spaces between information and real understanding.Overtraining our brains on data alone doesn't confer an advantage, and it can be a deterrent if it's the only decision-making component.
That's often the problem with MBA students, who come armed with all the business tools and case studies but lit...