The New Yorker - Open Secrets by Malcolm Gladwell

Interesting article in the New Yorker last week by Malcolm Gladwell concerning information. Titled "Open Secrets" it deals with Enron, intelligence, and the perils of too much information. Basically he discusses the ways and means Enron ran the company from a #7 company and media darling to bankruptcy and hatred and then compares this to military intelligence. His premise is that there are puzzles and mysteries with puzzles being withheld information and mysteries being inadequate information or trying to make sense of alot information. Not convinced that he thouroughly distinguishes the two all that well. Did think it was interesting in that most of what Enron was doing was legal in some respects although they took things to the extreme which obviously led to their downfall but the scary thing was that they were always forthright in their accounting submittals, unfortunately it would take a PhD in accounting to actually see what it was they were doing. As far as military intelligence it seems he is saying that oftentimes we have too much information and not enough connections being made to make this useful. During WWII there was an organization called K Street that basically studied German news to determine what the Germans were trying to do to keep the German people motivated. Overall interesting article lots of "info" but could use a tighter conclusion...I still not for sure if I get the difference between a puzzle and mystery but as he notes a mystery is often not understood by the individual so perhaps his article is a mystery to me...