We can’t plan for the future, but we can prepare for it

Is it more important that a system be designed to be efficient or to be robust? Margaret Heffernan, in this amazing talk from July 2019 reminds us all that efficiency is no the only metric that matters…and at times, it is the goal that results in us being unprepared to deal with unpredictable situations. One example, which is particularly relevant right now, is the work she references of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness, which researches and creates vaccines for dozens of viruses. Because we can't plan for which virus will become the next epidemic, we can prepare by doing robust research. 

We put so much emphasis on being efficient and attempting to standardize a model for a world that is infinitely surprising...and what gets left out….anything that can't be measured….

….which is just about everything that counts