A new source in the education-testing business tells me about a “huge cultural collision” between the “sensate, feeling types and the new racetrack bettor types.”

Steve Rees comes from the publishing business, where for years he ran circulation for major computer mags. He’s been into data a long time.

In the last few years, he’s been developing and running School Wise Press. Its mission, as the website puts it, is “helping districts and state departments of education report their schools’ results.” School Wise does it with an online interface developed by my old friend and longtime database mogul Sam Hammond.

The “collision” that Steve describes sounds awfully much like the friction we see in business. As the sensate types put it, “I go by gut.”

I have a bunch of reading to do for this new TDWI story. Then the email and phone calls to sources in Tennessee, California, Belgium and Sicily.