Planting new thoughts

... and why I find a blank sheet of paper is often my most effective tool. I spent most of my formative working years in advertising agencies, employed in a range of client management and strategy roles. Aside from being great fun, it also meant I got to work with some extraordinarily gifted creative folk, helping to develop some memorable and highly effective campaigns. A key part of my role was writing creative briefs, the key document that captures the essence of a campaign task and acts as the kindling to help ignite the creative fires. Writing briefs for such a talented, yet demanding group of people was challenging and required me to hone various skills that have proven to be invaluable to this day, long after I left adland behind. But there are three particular skills that I consider to be the most important of all - clarity, simplicity and brevity: Clarity – You have to be really clear about your message. What are you trying to get across? If you can’t crystalli...

Snapchat may have built an audience, but will the money follow? As most of you will no doubt know, Snap Inc. (the parent company of Snapchat) made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange last week, closing its first day of trading up 44% at a price of $24.48 per share which valued the company at a staggering market cap of more than $28 Billion. Despite some subsequent market corrections, this is still an amazing outcome for a company that has consistently been losing money . In 2016, for example Snap made a net loss of $514 million, with revenue growing at a lower rate than the direct cost of achieving that revenue. Figures at the end of 2016 also showed Snapchat has built an audience of 158 million daily active users, still growing, but at a slower rate than previously, raising questions as to whether its future growth will become far harder to achieve. Early investors are therefore taking a calculated gamble on Snap Inc’s future potential to turn a profit, based on thei...

The qualitative research technique that should be more widely used In a previous life, I used to facilitate qualitative research projects: focus groups, depth interviews, accompanied shops, ethnography…. that sort of thing. In fact, I worked out recently that over a 10-year period, I personally ran well over 1,000 separate sessions - that’s a lot of people to get to know and masses of topics to get my head around. Everything from Annuities to Zoos (yes, really) But despite the diversity of these projects, they had one thing in common – the people I was talking to were all recruited as ‘experts’ in that particular topic. Regardless of whether I was talking to a CEO or a main grocery buyer, a tradesman or a media planner, the reason they were there was because they all knew more about their subject than I did and my job was to learn from them. Sure, on some occasions I may have begun the project with a good understanding of the topic myself, but that was not important. ...

Why the term is in danger of becoming meaningless. This week, many of the industry’s finest minds are gathering in the beautiful city of Amsterdam for the annual Insight Innovation eXchange Europe conference ( IIeX ). I was fortunate enough to attend IIeX Europe two years ago, and was inspired by the clarity of thinking, quality of presentations, creativity of solutions, level of collaboration and, yes, the insight on display. I came back buzzing with ideas for new ways to think about developing insight and how the output might become better embedded within an organisation. Since then, I have spent time with other insight-focused organisations and conferences including Insight Management Academy , Insight Intelligence and the Insight Show . These interactions have further reinforced my belief in the power of insight. It also got me thinking about what true insight is and how it can make a real difference - given my job title was ‘Head of Insight’, I figured I should ha...

Why the actual is fighting back against the virtual. Over the last few weeks, I have read, heard and watched lots of predictions for the year ahead – the media and communications industry loves a prediction at this time of year. These predictions typically morph into a few meta-themes and for 2017, most were centred around the ever-tighter grip that technology will exert over our lives, both professionally and personally. Artificial intelligence, machine learning, virtual reality, chatbots …. unbelievable and exciting advances in technology helping us to automate just about everything. But whilst most predictions foreshadowed ‘traditional’ media coming under increasing pressure from the overlords of automation, I did detect something else. A mention here, an aside there, maybe even the odd demi-prediction. A recognition that the more our lives are dictated by technology, the more important it will be to ensure a human counter-balance. Focusing on ‘real’ rather than ‘reali...

Why brands should be cautious about the promise of drone deliveries. Late last year Amazon showed off their latest innovation in drone technology, with an entire click-to-delivery transaction being completed in a mere 13 minutes. You may have seen the video – a retired gentleman in Cambridge deciding he just must have an Amazon Fire TV stick and a bag of popcorn ….and he didn’t want to wait. His click sent a fulfilment team into a frenzy at the nearby Amazon distribution centre and before we knew it, the customer was ambling out into his massive back garden to retrieve his package from the drone which had affected a perfect touch down on his conveniently located landing pad. Minutes later, he was happily chomping away on the popcorn whilst trying to work out how to operate his new piece of technology. Aha, you may say. All very well if you live on a country estate, near to an Amazon distribution centre, but what about those of us who live in urban areas? Fear not, Ama...

..and why we should be reading more newspapers this year. Late last year, Oxford Dictionaries announced that their 2016 word of the year was ‘Post-truth’. That seemed particularly apt given the outcomes of two of the most seismic political events of the year were widely thought to have been driven by post-truth politics with fake news, social media bubbles and echo chambers all playing an influential role. The twin themes of fake news and echo chambers enjoy a symbiotic relationship that helps to explain why both have grown and prospered so much over recent times. Echo chambers exist on social media because we largely surround ourselves with ‘people like us’. People who share similar views, interests and values. Some express their views more stridently than others and are often keen to spread news that helps to underscore their point of view, regardless of how accurate that news may turn out to be. Fake news flourishes in the environment of such echo chambers because it...