Entrepreneurial Ignorance
I first read about the Orders of Ignorance in an ACM article written by Phillip Armour in 2000. Since that time they have proved a valuable guide to both my software development and business decision making. I’d love to paste the whole thing here, but it’s (c) the ACM, and I don’t want to infringe upon them, so let me reflect upon them in relation to entrepreneurship.
The ‘Five Orders of Ignorance’
Ignorance Order One is what you know that you know. As an entrepreneur it’s OK to be arrogant about what you know that you know, that’s what drives you forward against all the odds and the naysayers.
Ignorance Order Two is what you know that you don’t know. You must adopt humility in equal measure to your arrogance about what you know you don’t know. Solicit advice from experts and listen carefully. Hire people smarter than you with the skills that complement yours.
Ignorance Order Three is what you don’t know that you know. This is about trust of your gut instincts. Don’t hire people who don’t feel right and don’t do deals with people you don’t feel good about. Believe in your values and principals.
Ignorance Order Four is what you don’t know that you don’t know. This is something to fear in yourself and others. Avoid the fakers and the liars. If they can’t be moved to Ignorance Order Two then you don’t want to be dealing with them.
Ignorance Order Five is not knowing about the Orders of Ignorance. Congratulations dear reader as you are no longer classified by this order 
I was prompted to write this post by this conversation about the US versus the UK entrepreneurial environment over at Vecosys. I spoke briefly about this during an event last week in London organized by Robert Loch of InternetPeople. He paraphrased my comments there, so I thought that I’d best flesh them out a bit.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:06 am
Level 4 is getting pretty close to Donald Rumsfeld territory.
I think one of the much overlooked differences between the US and UK when comes to entrepreneurial activity is the City of London factor.
In the US there are lots of commercial centres, some of them quite big. It isn’t just New York, there is LA, SF, Boston, Chicago, etc.
In the UK the only one of any size is London. And for anyone entrepreneurial the City is a big pull. There are rich pickings and they are reasonably low risk. There are lot of small firms servicing the big corporations and that is were they stay, people get to be “a little bit” entrepreneurial get some success and stay put.
In short the City distorts the whole market.
March 30th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
[...] • John Merrells posts up about the 5 Orders of Ignorance. Based on Order #2, I don’t know exactly how to apply these to entrepreneurship, but John asserts they will help. I also remember a Donald Rumsfeld speech using these orders and getting completely crucified in the press about it, but listening to someone talk about it is much harder to comprehend than reading it, this I (insert Order #1). [...]