Walt
Disney with the fawn Bambi that was kept as a pet at the studios and studied by
the artists, 1942.1
What do you see when you think of data?
Do you see excel, soporific powerpoint or hackneyed
pen portraits?
Do you see pre-testing debriefs driving brands
towards persuasion based communications, a methodology that creates less
effective work?2
Do you see Facebook and Twitter distorting
reality by counting 3 seconds of muted auto-play as a view?3
I don’t. That’s just noise.
When I think of data I see cab drivers, novels,
fields, footballers and a fawn called Bambi.
Data starts with what you want to know.
As
Einstein said, “I believe in intuition and inspiration. Imagination is more
important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination
embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It
is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.’4
Go
outside and you will see pen portraits of great depth and meaning.
‘Pick out a cab driver. He will look to you very
much like every other cab driver. But study him… [and he will be] seen in your
description as an individual, different from every other cab driver in the
world.”5
If
you want to understand situations you’ll never be in, read.
“A
great book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at
the end. You live several lives while reading.”6
If you want to see how people behave, look in
the right places.
Koolhaas did
this for the hallways of his McCormick Tribune Campus Center. Before the
building existed there was an open field. Koolhass observed that the students
had carved out fairly substantial ruts in the grass from walking the same
paths. The result was a highly irregular plan with diagonal hallways.’7
Stop
leaving competitor research to the work experience.
Don Revie
created one of the most powerful football clubs in Europe during the 60's and
70's, dragging Leeds from the brink of Third Division obscurity to become the
most successful football team in the country. "He compiled elaborate
dossiers on our opponents, and for an hour or so on the morning before a match
he'd analyse every one of
their players."8
Approach every question anew,
don’t be lazy and expect a one-size fits all formula to give you an answer.
‘In a
world becoming more and more this, and more and more that, but above all more
and more meditated, the only thing you can trust is the direct route to your
own experience.’9
Sources;
1. @ClassicPics
2. Les Binet & Peter Field, The Long and the Short of It
3. Facebook, Twitter
4. Albert Einstein, On Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and
Aphorisms
5. James Webb Young, A
Technique for Producing Ideas
6. William Styron
7. Quora, Rem Koolhaas
8. Jack Charlton
9. Martin Amis, Experience
