Being Blind to the Obvious or Being Blind to Our Blindness?

Being blind to the obvious is part of the human condition.  There is a rather interesting experiment on the subject. It’s called the Invisible Gorilla.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJG698U2Mvo]

Subjects in the experiment are asked to watch a video in which groups of players are passing basketballs back and forth. Half of the players in the video are wearing black uniforms, half white.

The subjects are asked to ignore the players wearing black jerseys and count the number of times the players wearing white pass the ball to each other. Halfway through the short video, someone wearing a gorilla suit walks on to the screen, thumps his chest, and walks off.
Here’s where it gets interesting– about half of the subjects participating in the experiment don’t notice the gorilla. They’re so focused on counting the white team’s passes and ignoring everything else that their minds naturally filter out something completely obvious.

What’s more, when they’re told about the gorilla after the experiment, most people refuse to believe it. It shows without doubt that (a) people can be blind to the obvious… and (b) people can also be blind to their blindness.

As Albertan’s we are blessed to be living in one of the most economically robust jurisdictions in the planet where the economists predict growing GDP and employment into the foreseeable future.  But we are not immune to events outside of our control.  We have to force ourselves to wake up…to stop being blind to the giant gorilla thumping its chest right in front of us.  It’s easy to believe that nothing bad is going to happen and that this province is different.

From ongoing sovereign debt problems in Europe, questions surrounding future growth in China, student led civil unrest in Quebec, to overheating housing markets in BC and Ontario; irrespective of any current Alberta Advantage we cannot be blind to how future negative events may affect us.  Prudence in preparing to weather the next storm is highly recommended.

Considering the above we suspect that as a collection agency operating in Edmonton, Calgary and the GTA we will continue to have our work cut out for us with already highly leveraged businesses and consumers.