Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm
One book, placed in its field — what Christian Madsbjerg's book gets right, where it goes further than the rest, and what the rest of the field adds.
Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide · bicycle.guide/guides/profile-sensemaking_the_power_of_the_humanities
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Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm
One book, placed in its field — what Christian Madsbjerg's book gets right, where it goes further than the rest, and what the rest of the field adds.
Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide · bicycle.guide/guides/profile-sensemaking_the_power_of_the_humanities
The problem
Cultural Insight erodes when it is left to instinct instead of method.
You were taught the moves piecemeal, never the whole model.
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
The model
- 01Rigorous Humanities Cultural Engagement
- 02Thick Data Collection
- 03Real-World Immersion (The Savannah)
- 04Care (Sorge)
- 05Algorithmic Reductionism (Silicon Valley State of Mind)
- 06Analytical Empathy
- 07Receptivity (Grace)
- 08Abductive Reasoning
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
Step 1 of 5 · Rigorous Humanities Cultural Engagement
Seminal texts and lived practices are the ground truth of a shared world; market-research abstractions are downstream proxies that discard what you most need.
Misconception
Practitioners believe cultural engagement is a research phase you complete—read a few key books, watch the documentaries, then move on to extracting insights.
Reality
Engagement is not a data-collection stage but a mode of attention that never fully closes; the seminal texts and practices keep yielding new meaning as your own questions change, which is why the immersion must be sustained rather than checked off.
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
Step 2 of 5 · Thick Data Collection
A behavioral trace tells you what someone did; thick data tells you what that act meant to them, and only the latter survives translation into good strategy.
Misconception
Practitioners believe thick data is simply qualitative data collected in larger volumes—more interviews, longer surveys, extra open-text fields alongside the dashboards.
Reality
Thickness is a property of depth and situated context, not sample size; a single afternoon watching how a family actually uses a product in their kitchen yields more thick data than ten thousand structured survey responses. The goal is meaning-in-context, not aggregation.
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
Step 3 of 5 · Real-World Immersion (The Savannah)
The most valuable insight is usually the discrepancy between reported behavior and observed behavior — go where you can witness both.
Misconception
Practitioners believe that if they gather enough survey responses and focus-group transcripts, they have effectively 'been there' and captured the customer's world.
Reality
People systematically misreport their own behavior when removed from the situation that produces it; what they say in a sterile room contradicts what they do in their kitchen, their commute, or their store. Immersion recovers the tacit context that respondents cannot articulate and instruments cannot detect.
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
Step 4 of 5 · Care (Sorge)
Salience is not in the data; it appears only to an observer for whom differences matter.
Misconception
Practitioners believe caring about their subject introduces bias and that detached neutrality yields more accurate observation.
Reality
Detachment does not sharpen perception; it flattens it, because meaningful distinctions only become visible to someone for whom the differences matter. Care is what makes an observer capable of noticing that this gesture, this word, this omission signifies more than that one.
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
Step 5 of 5 · Algorithmic Reductionism (Silicon Valley State of Mind)
Quantitative knowledge answers 'how much' and 'how often' but is structurally silent on 'what it means.'
Misconception
Practitioners assume more data and better algorithms will eventually capture human behavior completely, treating the humanities as a temporary gap-filler until the models improve.
Reality
The limitation is not resolution but kind: big data describes correlations within a world whose meaning it presupposes and cannot itself supply. No volume of behavioral traces reconstructs why an act matters to the person performing it.
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
A framework to use
The Five Principles of Sensemaking
This framework is part of the full guide. See the guide →
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
The cheat sheet
- Rigorous Humanities Cultural EngagementSeminal texts and lived practices are the ground truth of a shared world; market-research abstractions are downstream proxies that discard what you most need.
- Thick Data CollectionA behavioral trace tells you what someone did; thick data tells you what that act meant to them, and only the latter survives translation into good strategy.
- Real-World Immersion (The Savannah)The most valuable insight is usually the discrepancy between reported behavior and observed behavior — go where you can witness both.
- Care (Sorge)Salience is not in the data; it appears only to an observer for whom differences matter.
- Algorithmic Reductionism (Silicon Valley State of Mind)Quantitative knowledge answers 'how much' and 'how often' but is structurally silent on 'what it means.'
- Analytical EmpathyAnalytical empathy is theory-supported and systematic, not intuitive or affective.
- Receptivity (Grace)Insight that arrives 'through you' begins by refusing to force a conclusion before the material has spoken.
- Abductive ReasoningNew ideas come from tolerating doubt long enough for the best explanation to declare itself.
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide
Sources
- Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm — Christian Madsbjerg
Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm · Mike West, Editor · HR Leader Guide