I came across a November 2002 article in the Harvard Business Review which is a novel approach to birdwatching. The title is Spotting Patterns on the Fly: A Conversation with Birders David Sibley and Julia Yoshida. Basically it concerns how the study of birds teaches one how to quickly spot patterns. A person in business would do well by being able to recognize business patterns and one of the best ways of learning this is to learn how to birdwatch since birdwatchers are very good at taking a little bit of information and coming up with an identification, recognizing a pattern. The short article is an interview with Sibley, and Julia Yoshida who is a medical doctor who also birds. The questions range from "At heart, pattern recognition is the art of finding order in often chaotic masses of data. As you go about identifying birds, just how many species are you dealing with?" to "can you describe how you begin to identify patterns? In business, pattern recognition still seems to be more of an art than a science."
"Sibley explained how expert birders draw on a wealth of tacit knowledge built up over the years to make split-second identification on the basis of incomplete information."

When I think of how birdwatching was evaluated back in the fifties when I started, this article represents a true milestone in appreciation and recognition. You can find HBR in good libraries or you can order a PDF document for $6 online at their website.

Jim Rosso
Arlington Virginia
703-685-2426
jlrosso at aol.com