"But, if you want the best person, ..."

In 1940, Frank Graham, President of the University of North Carolina, asked George Snedecor, a leader in statistics whom he had recently happened to meet on a train, for a favor. Could Snedecore recommend a man to lead the new statistics department in North Carolina? Snedecore responded with a letter that listed ten men, and then stated:

"These are the ten best men I can think of. But, if you want the best person, I would recommend Gertrude Cox."

Cox got the job.

_____

Source: "The Lady Tasting Tea: How Statistics Revolutionized Science in the Twentieth Century" by David Salsburg, 2001 (chapter 19).

Serendipitious Findability

Serendipitious Findability, aka, Chance Meetings.
What happens when we decide to live our lives in public, via Facebook, Twitter, etc., as defined by Micah Sifry, co-founder and editor of the Personal Democracy Forum http://personaldemocracy.com. "Chance meetings between people, facts, and people and facts."

Micah spoke last night at a wonderful new program called The Little Idea. In his short, 10 minute talk, he noted that "information isn't power: disproportionate access to information is power."

And on the topic of science and communication, Micah continued, "Geeks are taking over the earth. We feed information to them because they feed information to us."