Framing thinking
In Don’t Think of an Elephant, George Lakoff provides a practical guide to the way that our mental frameworks shape the way we see the world, in turn shaping the goals we seek, the plans we make, the way we behave and how we interpret good and bad outcomes in life. These mental frameworks are often ‘invisible’ to us (he calls them the ‘cognitive unconscious’), consisting of structures in our brains which we are not able to access, although we can see their consequences in the way we reason, the decisions we take and our personal values (what we see as ‘common sense’). We also see them in the language we use, as our words are defined relative to these frameworks, and the stimulus of a word, triggers frames which are activated in the brain. Read more »
“All models are wrong, some models are useful.” - George Box
The flaw of averages
Market research reports are generally packed full of average scores and comparisons of means, and not often enough with distributions and extremes. In the real (business) world this is a mistake as, in the words of Sam Savage’s (f)law of averages, ‘plans based on average assumptions are wrong on average’. To put this another way, errors occur in the real world when we replace uncertain numbers by single (or simple) averages. Read more »
“There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation.” - W.C. Fields
Fundamentally flawed
In What the Dog Saw, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the effects of the fundamental attribution error (FAE) in several different articles. For example, in one chapter he discusses the Challenger disaster and the impossibility of having complete control of complex technologies and systems, arguing that attempts to find causes and scapegoats in such situations are futile. Without acknowledging the FAE, his argument in the chapter touches on the desire of all of us to attribute outcomes, and especially bad outcomes, to specific traits of the people involved rather than the situation they are in. Read more »
Pulling the trigger
Have you ever had the experience that something was on the ‘tip of your tongue’ but you couldn’t quite remember? That’s likely because you know the information exists, but you can’t quite find the right connection to trigger its recall. That’s why such memories sometimes come back later when triggered by a more relevant (but often random) stimulus. Read more »
Home Economicus or Homo Sapiens?
We have seen that the majority of human behaviour is controlled outside consciousness. This is in contrast to the classical models of economics which assume a model of man as Homo Economicus who is entirely rational, always knows what (s)he wants and is capable of calculating the precise consequences of any action. We all know that this is nonsense, and recent economic events have once again highlighted the inadequacy of such models both for economics and further afield. Read more »
What makes research valuable?
I had a great time running a Tapestry Workshop earlier this week on “Winning the Hearts and Minds of Clients”. One of the key, and often repeated, messages on the course is the importance of linking research to business value creation.
I have read several defences of market research recently, with articles by Spych, Frankie Johnson in the last few days. As a passionate market researcher, I love to read other passionate researchers standing up for the industry and the importance of linking everything back to the customer, and I applaud them for it. Read more »
“All right, brain. I don’t like you ad you don’t like me – so let’s just do this and I’ll get back to killing you with beer.” - Homer Simpson Read more »
“Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” - Aaron Levenstein Read more »
We have written at DoctorDisruption.com about the trend for innovation to be increasingly driven by emerging markets and recent articles at trendwatching.com and blogs.hbr.org provide some great examples of Asian innovation. Here are some of the most inspiring examples from China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines. Read more »
Is Market Research the iceberg that keeps the Titanic afloat?
At the APRC and JMRA annual conference in Tokyo yesterday, Hatsunori Kiriyama of Procter & Gamble gave a thoughtful keynote speech on “My expectation from research”. Although Kiriyama-san comes from a sales background, he clearly values research, as do his company, placing it at the heart of the business he runs in Japan, or as he described it, “our brand stories always start with the consumer”. Read more »
