Oct 2005
I think most readers will know that I have two passions in life that have continued to support me as I go into my 11th year of writing for Sunstar. You can discern that this is business management and technology. Underpinning these 2 passions is actually also a lifelong interest in logic, and whodunit mysteries.
I grew up reading detective books, and the twists and turns, as well as the logic that they have brought into the discipline stayed with me, and inspired a continuing interest in puzzle solving and IQ mental tests, which in the last 20 years have been invaluable to me in terms of computer programming, as well as solving management problems and conflict resolution. In fact, I believe that the interest in computer programming, which is almost pure logic at play, came because of this earlier interest.
If you follow the logic of Sherlock Holmes, every detective ( and the police force) starts with the same blank slate. However, one detective is able to discern and analyze the facts, separate the chaff from the grain, and organize it in such a way as to come to an inescapable logical conclusion which then solves the case which escapes the others who have the same opportunity to the facts of the case. In some way, a manager or an entrepreneur is also like this person. He believes the information itself, properly analyzed, carries the seeds also of its resolution.
The manager who will win is the person who knows how to organize, as well as understand which are objective and subjective information. The facts itself is the detective’s friend, as well as the manager’s tool The better manager or computer programmer is simply he who is able to see solutions with the information that is presented to him. That is why I think very good logical skills are an important factor that would determine a good manager or a good programmer, and a good system providing good data and information therefore, also an indispensable tool to good decision-making.
This mental agility can be developed, and thus, I do spend a lot of time enjoying mental puzzles. That was why the moment I saw Sudoku, a Japanese puzzle, I was immediately hooked.
I am sure some of you have heard about it, and for those who do, you know that this is currently taking the world by storm and is the latest craze for crossword and logic puzzle fans. Thousands of newspapers now syndicate this puzzle, and Sudokus have replaced the crossword puzzles in many papers. You can see people solving it in buses in the United States, in parks of England, or in trains of Japan.
Some even say that it has gained a place in the national vocabulary. Instead of “Its not rocket science”, people have been heard to say, “Its not Sudoku”. Its popularity and craze now is said to equal the craze of crossword puzzle in the 1920s, the Rubiks’ cube in the early 80s, or the Tetris game in the late 80s.
The beauty of Sudoku, though it looks like a crossword puzzle ( its most popular version is a grid of 9 square by 9 square), you don’t need to know English or math to solve it. It is just pure logic play. I got my kids interested to do it, and particularly my 9 year old son is getting to be very adept on it. So it is not difficult, but challenging and moreover addicting.
I won’t tell you how to play, but if you do a search of Sudoku in the search engines, you will be able to get over 100,000 hits ( even though it started to catch on just this year). You can also visit www.sudoku.com to know more about how to play. There are numerous websites which gives you free puzzles, or offer contests for it.
As I said, it is not only fun, but it could also develop your logic skills.
Wilson Ng keeps a blog of his articles in www.bizdrivenlife.net