Preventing Litigation

Part I

Introduction

Chapter 1

How to Solve a Mystery

Malcom Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers and David and Goliath, has described decision making in the information age as if we have shifted from solving puzzles to solving mysteries. A puzzle, he suggests, is solvable by obtaining missing information, while a mystery is solvable by making sense of a problem awash in information.

In this sense, Gladwell belled the cat. We are awash in information, and the trick will be whether and how well we get value out of it.

Let’s put this challenge in context. Barclay T. Blair is the founder and executive director of the Information Governance Initiative,1 and he has put this sentiment in the Big Data context. In an October 2014 ...