Why its all about Bill Buxton

Check out this great MSN video - Bill Buxton: advertising’s future technology

In 2009 I was working with Microsoft advertising division as a consultant helping them create and sell products to media agencies. I was lucky to get the winning seat at lunch at their imagine conference. Typical advertising people chatting about advertising stuff, I was one of them so I fit right on. Until Bill Buxton comes along and says something that stuck with me ever since.

'If you want to know what is going to be big in 10 years time then look back to what was created 10 years ago.'

He said eBay was the best place to find what will be big. He should know as he has one of the biggest collections of technology objects known to man. On the day he pulled out a bunch of touchscreen technology created in the mid 80s.

5 years later Im half way through a masters in innovation and one comment I saw in the video above from him is the basis of my view of innovation.

' ….anything that is going to impact your life in 10 years is already 10 years old now that changes the nature of innovation from one of alchemy, starting some great idea out of scratch to one of prospecting and discovery, insights and relationships'

thanks Bill

If you want insight, get out of the building

One of the things I found weird working for different agencies and with marketers is that they always talk about understanding the customer. Yet they never leave their building to truly experience their audience. A pitch comes in for an FMCG brand and the first thing they do is organise focus groups. What about just walking down to the local supermarket and just standing in the aisle for a while.

Quite a few years ago now I did a brand planning course where at the end we had to create a strategy, creative brief and creative concepts for a chocolate bar that had no fat. I did some data analysis and detailed that the bar should go after the chocolate bar market not the health bar version. I also did two particular pieces of research that stood out. I walked around a supermarket watching women in the chocolate aisle. What I found was that women would be less likely to grab a chocolate bar in the aisle and more likely to grab it closer to the counter. This insight around 'shame' felt like fertile ground. I then created some concepts and set up a movies night at my girlfriends house with a group of girls in the target audience, the perfect environment for chocolate. I let my girlfriend run the session as I thought the depth of understanding of that 'shame' would be harder to say to a guy. They not only validated a concept but built on it making the language more feminine and more specific.

I topped the class on the assignment and the teacher highlighted the amazing effort I'd gone to mixing a strong analysis of the market and a deep understanding of the audience. Building it all into a great concept and good creative work. That act of observation, creation and validation was very simple and all of it cost me not much more than a couple of chocolate bars and making dinner for my girlfriend. Yet I've sat through piles and piles of expensive research and got very little insight to that depth that can truly be successfully used for any advantage.

If you are in the business of understanding people why not get out of the building and actually experience those real people. There is something very human and empathetic about interacting with people in reality not just reading about it. Not just treating a situation like a test subject just being a human being in a human space. Then having the ability to truly pull out what matters to whomever you are studying is still a skill that is hugely undervalued.

How to create insights

How To Create An Insight

View more OpenOffice presentations from mickstravellin.

Insights are one of those quite subjective things that people argue about constantly and a limited amount of people have actually stated how to create one. In my recent education attempt of a number of countries and grads etc on creating insights. I put this little presentation together to help them out a bit. As per usual there is a little control c control v going on, but also the S.A.M. concept is something I made up in the shower one morning.

A special thanks has to go to Mat Milan over at critical mass and his insights presentation where he uses columbo as an example of an insightful person (I read the other day he has alzehemziers so sad).

Have a look. I hope you find it useful

The need to know about people still hasnt changed

₪ Cobija: Corporativa al atardecer - Flickr Meeting at Tusk ₪, originally uploaded by ►Voj►.

I think with a month away in the sunshine I seemed to have simplified everything considerably to my somewhat lazy brain can comprehend it.(Life is simple in Australia and maybe a month there has done that to me). But I read an article in this weeks campaign called 'Is insight more crucial than creative'?. Why does someone have to win this game. Insight is freaking important. Creativity is freaking important. Its like the rant I had about planners and creatives over at amelia's blog. We need to work together, stop trying to fight

Once again I think we are over complicating something that is really simple. Clients pay us to understand things they don't and do things they can't. Some of the best clients I have had have simply said. Mike give me a real life run down of the audience. Not a 90 page presentation. (even though I had written and read about 8 of them) they wanted for me to explain it like it was a they know person. It seems the bigger the client the less they know. I have sat in huge business parks where I sometimes question whether they ever leave that place and also what lives they live outside of that bubble. But that is a huge role we have and always will play. I know its a cheap trick but a couple of vox pops on the street still does wonders for the drama of selling your argument.

INSIGHT + CREATIVITY will always matter. Some clients will care about one more than the other. But that's business and that's people. Where the interesting bit starts to happen. Is when your insights start working outside of advertising and into the business. Insights that started for an ad and ended up creating new products and services. But this can also happen with creativity. An idea can sporn as an ad and end up being far greater. I think that HP's Hype Gallery is a prime example. The other interesting part I feel is moving away from what I deem 'boardroom understanding' I have written here a few times about empathy and how there are new ways that we can address to gain a better understanding of people. Lets treat them as people. Not as images on powerpoint or numbers of data. My research department always say to me 'the only reason you like ethnographic research mike, is cause you like following people around'. Its true. I am fascinated by people. Their differences, their similarities, everything.

In light of this my sister is starting a therapists course on sexual offenders this year. I bought her a computer for Xmas , but she hasnt used a computer in years so it should be interesting. In less than a week she has already stated that she is going to start going into forums and chat rooms to find and get a greater understanding of these people for her own research.(must be a family issue) Simple but so useful. These simple things are what people do to find out about each other. Why cant we just do simple things to find out about each other.

Anyway I have had my rant. So in summary. Insight and creativity are like the left leg and the right leg. Without both ... you're in trouble. But I believe that we need to progress our insight development and processes away from the boardroom into the real world... with a little more empathy. Bringing all the information together for a client I am a huge fan of telling a story of something I have seen in real life... turning it into an analogy of the clients problem. Then linking it directly to some really expensive research they conducted. Usually works a treat

Paolo Coelho is even teaching us how to create insights

12/365 My night., originally uploaded by Miffy Hippo.

So I have already written about my love affair with Paulo Coelho and the way he writes but also what he has done with this genius. I am currently reading his book the Pilgrimage whereby a man is on a religious journey. I am not a hugely religious person but two things came up that I thought were fantastic. The first is he highlighted the reason why I love to travel

'When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak. So you are like a child just out of the womb. You begin to be more accessible to others because they may be able to help you in difficult situations. And you accept any small favour from the gods with great delight, as if it were an episode you would remember for the rest of your life.
At the same time, since all things are new, you see only the beauty in them, and you feel happy to be alive. That's why a religious pilgrimage has always been one of the most objective ways of achieving insight. The word peccadillo which means 'small sin' comes from pecus, which means 'detective foot', a foot that is incapable of walking a road. The way to correct the peccadillo is always to walk forward, adapting oneself to new situations and recieving in return all of thousands of blessings that life generously offers to those who seek them.'

Sorry to write such a huge paragraph but it just typifies the reason I love to travel. You do take your time. You do notice more things specifically and try to get a greater understanding of their beauty. One big thing for me was openess to new people that otherwise I might not have been. Which lead to a lot of great friends and experiences. But this is my blog for work and there is one great thing that was in that paragraph. ' the most objective ways of achieving insight'.

The story then goes on to create an exercise for the pilgrim to expand his view of the world. Its brilliant and I believe we all should do it. In the exact words

The Speed Exercise

Walk for twenty minutes at half the speed at which you normally walk. Pay attention to the details, people, and surroundings. The best time to do this is after lunch.

Repeat the exercise for seven days

What if we all did what we do everyday at half the speed for just twenty minutes. We read that brief, research, data, had a conversation with a collegue or a client or someone in a focus group. I have tried to make 3pm everyday my twenty minute time. I have even found a special place to do it. You really do start to notice things more and think them through. We all know its not possible to do it all of the time. But just twenty minutes. Trevor Beattie has always said its just the little things that matter. So just a little bit of time each day, just once. We might just become a little more insightful.

Account vs Media Planner - the argument continues

I went to one of the IPA debates the other day. To see Simon Francis the MD of OMD Europe take on Hooper Griffin of BBH on the topic of 'Who should own the consumer insight'. Im only going to highlight a couple of things I agreed with. As it is a long an ardious fight that I believe has gone on for too long, when its quite simple

1. No one owns anything
2. Be imaginative with any information you have
3. Dont stand behind your black box of information. Stand in front of it (love that comment Simon)
4. We should share everything - across agencies
5. Its not about the people that can read and present the information. Its about those that can interpret and utilise to their clients business are the ones that are truely the most important.

One thing that really stood out was the way in which Simon discussed how even as one of the biggest media operations in the world. How they kept good talent by continuing to build small companies for them to run. To really drive that Entreprenurial spirit. The MD of the London office was sitting there. He is 32. Goodstuff, invents all there other companies. It was good to see