Insight. What is it really? How does it work? Is it valuable—or do we live in a world so techanized and data driven that nothing but algorithms and digital code has any value. Stop here a moment and think on it. What’s your gut response?
I have no hesitation in my reaction. Yet, read the financial and business news and analysis, in any channel, and you will see that there is a debate. There are folks who really do believe (fervently I might add) that we are in the age of software coded response, i.e., the ability to predict based on past behavior is more relevant than “touchy-feely” consumer marketing of the past.
By now, you may have guessed (if you didn’t know before) how I feel about this issue. Then, I saw this quote from a US TV show of the last century and it became even clearer:
Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don’t necessarily understand, just decides to go to the store for a quart of milk.
Northern Exposure, Three Doctors, 1993
There you have it. Sometimes I just want a quart of milk; or a pair of pants in a color that I never before considered. And sometimes I just want tickets to a movie that defies my taste.
What is your thinking?
Yep couldn’t agree more with you – human beings are very complicated – even one-to-one interaction can leave you flawed (e.g. just look at all the failed marriages!). I think it comes down to the simple fact that you can never experience how someone else experiences – so you’ll never truly understand anothers behaviour… Unless you can climb inside their head and change their behaviour – Being John Malkovich.
I understand your point, but it’s not necessarily humans against algorithms, but humans PLUS algorithms.
Google realized that, and uses hundreds of freelancers worldwide to provide inputs to their complex pagerank algorithms. Pandora does the same, to classify songs and affinities. Del.icio.us does the same aggregating and categorizing the web.
Algorithms can be super-ultra-smart, if you give them a hand (or a brain)…
There’s a brilliant article by Tim O’Reilly on last Make Magazine about the same subject. See it here:
http://www.make-digital.com/make/vol08/?pg=15&pm=1&u1=texterity&liid=93a62ed593
ps: forgot to mention that, obviously, nothing will ever be a substitute for guts, for (human) insights. Nothing can even come close to amount of data the human brain can process in a fraction of second
)
Data is good for helping to inform a decision. There isn’t ever enough machine-generated data for you to come to a 100% conclusion based solely on that data when it comes to human behavior. I tend to believe that machines can’t track 99% of all relevant data when it comes to trending behavioral patterns. (Do machines track my state of mind? What I had for breakfast? Whether or not I just lost one of my gloves?)
Sometimes, data provides an insight on behavior that isn’t necessarily expected. The indicator that there’s an over-reliance on data is the view that the “insight” 1s overly valuable – to immediately lend it credence and reliability because it was unexpected…instead of inherently questioning it and/or trying to understand it.
Of course, the opposite is also true. When data comes back and validates your idea/insight, are you quick to say “See? We’re right!?” Or do you say “OK, how do we prove that both the data and our insight is correct?”
The danger is (and always has been) over-reliance on data. Good data isn’t a replacement for thinking.
In my wallet I carry a card that says;
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Albert Einstein
Data is knowledge, true insight requires imagination and without it data remains simply numbers.
And in my mind there is a thinking that says:
“If I’d like to get the peoples response coded, I guess I’m not really interested in them.”
I also keep that Einstein quote close to my heart — and he is the ultimate keeper of imaginative thinking — in my mind.
I also belive that the ultimate test of any marketing thinking is based on the human connectiveness — if that works technology can only make it better. But start with technology and you get nothing but software loops and hardware jungle.
Knowledge is extremely important. Even in a creative industry that is based on the fickle nature of human thinking, we can’t ignore the data we mine. However, we also can’t afford to default to “knowledge trumps instinct” as the two compliment each other so well. Knowledge can help prevent us from making gutsy, but flawed decisions; but when was the last time an algorhythm predicted the revival of the skinny jean or the gamer-term “pwned”? Pop culture is so incredibly random that reliance on data alone would lead to failure. Think about this example: based strictly on the data derived from the focus groups for Life cereal’s “Mikey Likes It” campaign, the ad should never have run. But the group followed their instinct and ran an ad that is still fondly remembered in the next century.
Your insights support the core meaning behind Einsteins quote, which is why I feel so strongly about it. Imagination is MORE important, this does not denegrate the importance of knowledge it simply highlights the import of imagination.
Well, this topic really has caused some debate…I think imagination is a more crucial ingredient, but i guess in isolation of knowledge the cake would flop ; )
Wayne nails it — data, science, rational thinking are critical — Imagination changes the paradigm….
for the Einstein fans out there — this says it all…
“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”
Albert Einstein
thoughts?
I guess, imagination will probably embrace even more than all there ever will be to know, and definitely more than to understand. I only can imagine, even Einstein went wrong sometimes…
By the way, does anybody know, when he said this? Or in which context?
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