Empathy drives innovation... how

I have written stuff about empathy before. But seeing this interesting book through the frog design blog it has given me a different angle to the same problem.

So there is a lot on looking at empathy for your customers outside the company walls ...which is great. But what about empathy inside the company walls. What about your staff and understanding what motivates them. How about walking a day in their shoes to gain a better understanding of how to truly connect and engage them in your future. Staff can often be the most tangible elements of your business. Gaining empathy for them and their situation will have the roll on affect to your customers. Everybody has dealt with someone who doesnt want to be in their job and someone who does. The difference is often small things like having a better understanding of the mission of the business. They feel they have been listened to, that their is an open culture to share opinions, that they have a sense of input in their future. Similar to the Hawthorne Effect which I have brought up before. So maybe you should start by looking at your staff first.

BUT... why cant we treat our customers with similar style ideas. How can we have a regular monthly staff meeting with customers. Innocent in the UK invited anyone and everyone to their annual general meeting. What about the company newsletter or the company away day. What about an employee performance review.. how would you do those for your customers.

Could be an interesting way to show your empathy for both groups of people...

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

The role of empathy is changing the industry

I have written on how empathy is changing the way we use research to develop products. This has been driven by technology products mainly. But here is an interesting video about how this design and I see the use of empathy in design is changing the retail sector in developing products people want... not what the company can produce. Talks about some other great interesting things going on in design at the moment

Empathy .. why is it not the norm

Friends and Enemies, originally uploaded by tomsaint11.

A few years ago a collegue of a friend of mine at Naked Sydney, Adam Ferrier... who is was a clinical psychologist now account planner, made a comment at an event that stuck in my head. He found it ridiculous that there were not more female creatives and planners, as generally they are more empathetic.

I thought this was really interesting at the time. But it fell to the back of my mind until recently when I was reading the guys at Adaptive Path's book 'Subject to Change' and the whole idea of empathy came up in terms of design and the research that is utilised in design. I am seeing it more day to day when you look at the mountains of research and data out there that doesn't give you an idea of a real person. The guys write about small things like when they saw a mother trying to change her baby's nappy. She only had one hand as she had to hold the baby with the other. So the nappy brand designed a simple nappy dispenser to make it easier for mum's to use just the one hand. Brillant idea. Could you see that in data. Dont think so

I have been involved in a number of ethnographic and other really interesting real life qualitative style research techniques lately. Which I love, as it highlights the small things. But you start to really get empathy for the people that you are dealing with. You really become in tune with what they are about. I have been doing a bit of work on mums lately and some of the research has made me wanna call my mum and say ...you are the best... how did you do it. But that brings on something that the guys from Adaptive Aath commented on. The difference between empathy and sympathy. You shouldnt pity them, as it will lead you down very different path, which is what I started to do with the mums work. So if I am starting to have empathy for the people and I want my brand to show empathy... how do you do that ?

Do brand utilities show empathy ? => I think they begin to

Does simplicity in design to show empathy ? => I think it does.. why make it harder for them

The ultimate question though. Does your brand showing empathy toward an audience build an emotional connection that every brief / client / brand seems to want these days ?

I will be back with more from this book, which is brillant. Go buy one