In the movie, Moneyball, Peter Brand (played by Jonah Hill) says to Billy Bean (played by Brad Pitt), "It's about getting things down to one number. Using the stats the way we read them, we'll find value in players that no one else can see. People are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws. age, appearance, personality... Billy, of the 20,000 notable players for us to consider, I believe that there is a championship team of twenty-five people that we can afford, because everyone else in baseball undervalues them."

I don't know if this is a real-life, verbatim quote, but it illustrates one kind of different thinking-the kind that could promise survival in a competitive sports landscape, but one that flies in the face of decades of "success" that came with "traditional baseball thinking."

These types of conversation aren't limited to sports arenas; in board room meetings, traditional thinking is being reexamined as industries come under attack from non-conventional thinkers.

So what ingredients were necessary for Billy Bean and the Oakland A's to become a leading-edge analytics organization? First, they needed data-lots of it, with much of it gathered from sources outside of the team's legacy database. Then, they needed technology-to gather and mine the data, and to turn it into useable information. They needed capable people-to synthesize the mountains of data and isolate those key indicators that uncover successful decision strategies. Finally, they needed Billy Beane-an executive champion with the vision for what drives success, the fortitude to stick to his guns, and a management style to trust the insight of knowledgeable workers-a new kind of executive. v