1/ Lit surveys and discovery exercises serve 2 purposes, not 1: providing idea fuel and containing downside of potential blindside errors
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2/ Conflating the two purposes leads to misery and terrible work because very different subsets of discovery findings drive them.
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3/ For idea fuel, you want to throw to choose from the ends of the distribution: most-cited and least-cited.
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4/ The most cited work gives you foundations to build on. Obscure works give you novel starting points that have chance for high ROI
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5/ For the 2nd purpose of risk-containment, it's the middle of the distribution that matters. You'll illuminate your blindsides there.
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6/ If you look for both inspiration and risk mitigation in the middle, you'll do low-value, incremental work that is safe.
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8/ If you look for ideas in the middle, risk-mitigation in the edges, you'll end up with an uninspired, non-magisterial lumpensynthesis.
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9/ But if you look for ideas at the distribution ends and risk mitigation in the middle, you're in the game for potentially big hits.
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