Blind spots can inhibit understanding

New knowledge can suddenly open up doors to new thoughts and ideas. The corollary of this is that knowledge gaps can keep us trapped in a blinkered mind set that handicaps progressive thought. This is best explained with a few examples.

Generally acknowledged as one of the best movies ever made, the movie of the year in 1973 was "The Sting". It was a story about a young scam artist, Johnny Hooker (played by Robert Redford) whose partner is killed by a ruthless New York racketeer, Doyle Lonnegan (played by Robert Shaw). Seeking revenge, Johnny Hooker enlists the help of an experienced, old time con artist, Henry Gondorff (played Paul Newman) to run a gigantic scam on the racketeer.

With a brilliant script, this is movie magic at its best. Every line, every scene builds on what comes before. With twists and turns all the way through, the final ending is breathtaking in its ingenuity and audacity as the racketeer is fleeced of a huge sum of money.

The audience is also conned because the plan is so complex that at times it seems as if the action is far removed from the main theme of cheating the racketeer. It is only in the final moments of the film, when the racketeer, hurries away after being fleeced, that all the machinations of the plot are exposed as clever smoke screens: to ensure that not only would the racketeer be cheated but he would also be completely unaware that he'd been a victim of a scam.

Yet, if the audience had been observant, the reason for all the complexity of the plot was revealed right at the beginning of the movie when the experienced Gondorff had explained to the novice Johnny Hooker, that the secret of pulling off a really great scam is for the victim to remain totally unaware that he has been cheated. If you'd have missed the significance and importance of that remark (and it was deliberately played down) most of the movie would have been perplexing. However, seeing the film a second time - and thus knowing the reasoning behind all the complex arrangements - all the pieces fit logically together.

This is an example of the kind of paradigm shift that can occur only if a particular piece of knowledge known. Without that knowledge there is a lack of understanding; with that knowledge there is an understanding. It is through such knowledge gaps that people can easily be led astray in the world of e-business.