So tomorrow I head off to Seattle for my date with Microsoft.
Because of that, I don’t think I’ll be doing any posting for the next few days – which means regardless of what you think of Windows, VISTA or Windows 7, you have something to thank Bill Gates for.
To stop you feeling too pleased with yourself, I’m going to leave you with one of my overlong, over-rambly posts.
So I recently got asked to name the single most important thing I think a planner needs, to be able to do their job properly.
The sad thing is, when I told them, they looked at me with surprise … you see it wasn’t things like ‘curiosity’, ‘intelligence’ or ‘creativity’ [though they are all obviously quite important] it was empathy.
I must admit, I am getting a bit fed up how many planners diss human insight.
They act like it’s old hat, irrelevant or serves no purpose whatsoever when it’s anything but.
While I am a big believer that insights can – and should – come from many different places and perspectives, I still firmly believe that understanding what’s truly going on in your audiences heads and hearts is still the best way to drive the biggest change.
Before I go on, I should clarify something …
Understanding society doesn’t mean you simply do things that addresses what they want or think … god no … great brands have a point of view and a set of values that they stick to, that defines what they do and how they do it and if they gave those up, then they’re basically chasing success rather than attracting it.
That said, if you truly understand what is happening in people’s lives – not just in terms of how they interact with a particular brand or category, but in the wider aspects of their life – then new opportunities to be truly creative and meaningful will present themselves and suddenly you move from creating ads to creating fate.
And this is where empathy comes in.
I am aghast at how few planners get people beyond the sort of commentary you’d expect from a robot.
The questions they ask, the views they feedback … cold, one dimensional and lacking in any understanding of the issues, views and situations that are driving it.
Sure, on one level human beings are very similar … we all tend to have 2 arms, legs and eyes and have emotions that cover everything from eating to shitting … but to think that is all you need to know, or that all people’s thoughts and frames or reference are the same is both despicable and offensive.
Too many people are only focused on hearing what people say rather than feeling it – and yet the ability to genuinely understand the situations, issues and complexities that forge many of societies decisions is what turns communication from being a moment of attention into something that has much deeper meaning and value and that is why a planner who can ‘connect’ to people on a deeper level is far more valuable to me than a planner who can simply tell me what the latest trend is with a particular group of people.
Don’t get me wrong, that sort of stuff is important to … but I genuinely believe the greatest way to make a powerful and interesting difference – to brands & society – is to understand WHY things happen, not just WHAT and the only way you can really get that is to have empathy not just curiosity.
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Don’t forget to enter Northern’s awesome A[P]SOTW assignment!