Why Does Context Matter More Than Memory?

Sit in enough boardrooms over the years, and you start to notice something.When a project fails, people almost never say there wasn’t enough information.They say nobody saw it coming.

Those aren’t the same thing.In many cases, reports, data, expertise, and meeting records may already have been available.What changed wasn’t the amount of information available.What changed was the world that information was trying to describe.That’s a distinction that is not discussed often enough.Information may create risks not because it is incorrect, but because it remains technically accurate while no longer reflecting current conditions.

People continue making sensible decisions based on facts that no longer describe the situation they’re facing.That’s why experience is so valuable.Experienced people may not necessarily possess more information than everyone else in the room.

They simply recognize sooner when yesterday’s explanation no longer fits today’s conditions.That’s exactly the distinction Vertus was designed around.Its cognitive reasoning architecture begins with the assumption that understanding a problem isn’t the same thing as remembering information about it.According to the company, as conditions change, the architecture continually re-evaluates the relationships between facts, assumptions and context before committing itself to a line of reasoning.

In other words, it treats understanding as something that evolves rather than something that’s retrieved.Take medicine as an example.A patient’s medical history matters, but every new symptom changes how that history should be interpreted.

The history hasn’t changed.Its significance has.The same thing happens in financial markets.

An earnings report doesn’t change because interest rates move, but the conclusions investors draw from it often should.A warehouse manager has been tracking the same supplier’s on-time delivery rate for two years.Ninety-eight percent, steady as anything, the...