“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.” - David Hume
The World Cup Football 2010 has started. England fans and the British media are extremely unhappy with performance of their team. Two draws into the tournament and fans are booing the players off the pitch, newspapers are suggesting the coach must go, WaGs (Wives and Girlfriends) are being flown out to ‘boost the boy’s morale’. As the final group game approaches next week, a Sky News presenter offered a ray of hope, “England tend to perform better with their backs against the wall”. I noted the same media driven feeding frenzy happening at the recent congressional hearing for BP CEO Tony Hayward.
The debate over insight is becoming heated, particularly at Research-Live, although I think most of the differences are semantic. Nick Johnson first proclaimed that “insight is dead”, and I agree that the word is overused. However, his (very accurate) description of research outcomes with two hour and 80 page powerpoint decks, is about data and not insight, and his plea to look beyond the immediate data is absolutely on the mark. In his response to this, Anthony Tasgal defends “insight” as the currency of consumer understanding, and argues that insight is a process and not an object, and most importantly that insight always includes a creative element, and is always actionable (and actioned). He is right to argue that insight is about replacing the 80 page deck with an action oriented debrief process.
One of the key skills in developing insights and solving all kinds of problems is to ask the right questions. In Zensights, we identified six key themes for simplifying complex data, the first four of which revolve around asking the right questions: what is the real problem?, what is the context?, what frameworks can I use to understand the problem?, and how can I structure the information to simplify the problem?. At heart, problem solving and insight discovery are creative processes, where divergent thinking will give the best chance to find elegant and profound new truths. Although it may seem contradictory, divergent thinking can be structured through planning different ways to look at problems, or by asking a wider range of questions.
People are very much in need of simplification, balance and control in today’s jam-packed lifestyles. Just take a look at the number of self-help books and websites that encourage you to find focus, and to rethink what is relevant.
The sense of “Information overload” has reached every part of our lives. So much so that Barry Schwartz, in “The Paradox of Choice”, argued that “More Is actually Less”. He even suggested that eliminating consumer choices could greatly reduce anxiety for shoppers.
Treasure maps have long appeared in works of fiction to mark the location of buried treasure, a lost mine, a valuable secret or a hidden locale. In Sir H.Rider Haggard’s popular Victorian novel, King Solomon’s Mines, a group of adventurers led by Allan Quatermain, follow the clues on a mysterious map into the African subcontinent, to find the lost treasure of fabled King Solomon.
