MARKETING
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Recipe for insight Mix four ingredients, and stir, writes Anthony Tasgal
Insight. Everyone wants it. Track it, hunt it, snare it and display it proudly on the wall: “Got this one in the field. Tough one to track down, but now it has pride of place on the Insight Wall.” Sought like the legendary unicorn, holy grail and philosopher’s stone: marketers, researchers and blank-paper-to-gold-dust creatives are desperate to identify, control and monetize insights. But how do you find insight? Where should you look? And, most importantly, how can you think about it?
Worshipping at the altar of data We are all insight-blind. We live in an a society increasingly obsessed with measurement and analysis, striving for control and prediction, enthralled by KPIs and metrics. Too often, the predominant mode of thinking in business is rational, thoughtful and logical. It is, in the language of behavioural economist Daniel Kahneman, System 2 thinking – the conscious brain trying to analytically think its way out of holes or into pastures of disruptive fertility. System 2 does not lead to insight. To be clear: I am not against data. But, especially at a time of Mr. Robot and Westworld-inspired fear and awe, data should not be worshipped at the expense of human characteristics such as emotions, humanity and storytelling.
Putting up walls Compartmentalization is one of the most implacable enemies of insight. And, unfortunately, as companies grow and evolve, departments are increasingly fragmented. These fragmented ‘compartments’ tend to become self-reinforcing in-groups, patrolling their boundaries against all outsiders.
Taking shortcuts to frozen wastelands Our individual brains require constant challenge. This is because the brain relies very heavily on steadfast shortcuts, called ‘heuristics’, it – unconsciously – develops to minimise the burden of having to think for ourselves at every turn. If we let heuristics go unchallenged, however, our brains quickly become home to frozen assumptions and insight-barren tundras. Taking into account that we are so inherently and culturally ill-equipped to seek out the mythical beast of insight, I instead propose a new practice: insightment. Dialogue Q4 2018
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “eureka!”, but, “that’s funny!” – Isaac Asimov, science fiction writer and biochemist