Not Everything Can Be Predicted By An Algorithm

What we can learn from the Harris/Walz 2024 Campaign

When I was younger I had a habit of reading the last pages of a book before I was finished. I would often be so consumed with trying to figure out how the story was going to end that I grew impatient. I had to know. I couldn’t wait another minute. I’d flip to those last few pages. Once satisfied I’d go back and continue reading that story, feeling less anxious now that I knew how it was all going to end.

Marketers are a lot like that. They want to predict what’s going to happen. They want to predict what new flavor of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream might go viral or what new shade of lip gloss is most likely to catch on with the coveted GenZers. They are fascinated with predicting your behavior so they can better target you with their products and services.

In much the way I was consumed with knowing whether the heroine in the novel I was reading was going to live happily ever after, marketers have become consumed with creating the perfect algorithm to predict what they should do next.

They’re not the only ones. Every industry has figured out a way to incorporate the use of algorithms into their business. One that made headlines this week for their questionable use of this technology is RealPage, a property management software company used to predict and set rent prices using data they get from the landlords.

Predictive analytics are tools that can help. They work. They can improve efficiency. They can help us do our jobs better. They can make our lives easier. But they can also give us the illusion that we will always know what will happen next. And we won’t.

In other words, sh#!t happens.

Stuff we did not plan for. Things we could never predict. Life is like that. No matter how sophisticated the algorithm might be, it won’t solve the mystery of what that sh#!t will be.

Just look at the last four weeks.

On July 21, Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the Presidential race in a message dropped into his social media feed. Many anticipated that was going to happen, but no one knew for sure and no one would have predicted our 81-year-old President would do it on social media. While everyone was catching their breath from that news he endorses Kamala Harris who not long after that launches her campaign.

No algorithm in the world could have predicted what has happened since.

No one could have predicted the overnight enthusiasm we have witnessed for Kamala, the candidate. No one was predicting that her choice of running mate would be Tim Walz, a relatively unknown name on the national stage. No one person and no algorithm could have predicted that in uncharacteristic fashion the Democrats would fall in love and in line. And no algorithm or desk full of talking heads could have predicted the DNC would flip the convention in such a short period of time into the polished production we witnessed this week.

But maybe the thing we were all missing is what can happen when we are too reliant on algorithms and make assumptions solely based on what was.

No one was paying enough attention to what is, to what people really want right now, that intangible that goes beyond the price of groceries.

People want joy and laughter.

They want to be inspired and reminded of what they have to be grateful for and acknowledge it so they have the energy and drive to keep going and create a better tomorrow.

Maybe after the dark years of Donald Trump and the lingering toxicity that got in the way of the good the Biden administration did to take us out of the despair of the pandemic people are being reminded that smiling and doing the hard work are not mutually exclusive. You can at once be serious about what you want to accomplish and have fun as you get it done.

Maybe if we had paid more attention to what was clearly staring us in the face we could have predicted. Or maybe not.

Sh#!t happens.