Our Self-Tinted Glasses

The above was a quote from Tim Rowe, professor of paleontology at University of Texas at Austin, in an article discussing a new species of dinosaur discovered recently in Arizona. It immediately grabbed me as it relates to how we can often be tempted to look at the world.

As humans, our nature over time has been to fiercely outcompete each other and other species for control over land and resources. It's true throughout our history. It's true today. Just look at the organizations and institutions we've created. Nearly all of them fiercely compete to grow as big as possible.

Prior to this finding in Arizona, we applied that same logic to dinosaurs. They were massive creatures who dominated the land, so they must have been like us, right?

I think this too is in our nature—to look at things in ways that make us feel good about ourselves or in ways that support our point of view for analyzing ideas—rather than really digging in to find the truth, especially when it's likely to be counter to what we want to believe.

As a modern proof point, look at how businesses are viewing social data. We're creating dashboards that pull up every mention of our product, service, company and competitors, but nothing else. That's all we care about. What are people saying about us and our competition?

We ignore the truly important stuff—everything else the people who talk about our products/services/companies are saying. We don't care about what their lives are like. We only care about what they think about us versus the people we compete against.

Looking at research through self-tinted glasses is a great way to make us feel good about ourselves and what we're doing. It's also a great way to figure out the things we need to say in response to people's comments. But when we get so caught-up in the minutia of ourselves, it makes us blind to things coming about which could make us extinct and it doesn't help us see the things we need to do to keep that from happening.

I hope we pull off our self-tinted glasses in time to keep ourselves from going the way of the dinosaurs. Then again, part of our nature is to fall into old habits so maybe it's best if the people who prefer to see the world this way just keep them on while the rest of us build a better future without them.

Comments

[Bridget]

You write: We ignore the truly important stuff—everything else the people who talk about our products/services/companies are saying. We don't care about what their lives are like.

Interesting post, but I do think there are a LOT of businesses actually paying attention to what their customers are saying, but may not be changing their business model on purpose.

If you've ever sat in a usability test for a website, changed your site based on emperical data, and tested it using Test & Target, you may find that what the customer says they want is different than what they will actually use.

If you need proof, examine the current obesity rate in U.S. adults and the way to solve it. A lot of the public is saying they want to lose weight. The ethical weight loss companies know that in order to do that, they need to create a program involving exercise and a healthy diet. This is a solution to what the public or 'customer' wants. However, in practice, very few people are actually losing weight. We (customers) say we want one thing, but we may not use the solution...

Herein lies where the truly innovative marketing comes in. We can't change what the people want, so we must be creative and give them what they need, not what they (necessary) say they want.

[paul isakson]

Thanks for the first-time comment "Bridget."

I think you're missing the point of the post. The quote you pulled went with the paragraph before it—the part about companies only caring to listen for when their name gets mentioned or something related to them pops up.

I'm not advocating that businesses should change their business model based on what people say about them.

I'm promoting the idea of businesses seeking a deeper understanding people's lives beyond only their product or service so that they can add greater value to their customers lives instead of just creating more clutter for them.

[Taulpaul]

I would mostly attribute that behavior to PR leading the brand reputation management charge. You're already starting to see more interesting manifestations and insight gathering for the same data.

There's a lot of qualitative "filling in the blanks" when you look at these data sets. I find it pretty intriguing.

[Homosemiotikus]

Interesting article. I like the "self-tinted glasses" metaphor, it reminds me the metaphor Jostein Gaarder uses in Sophie's World to describe idealistic philosophies.
About this need to see the consumer from a broader perspective, I heard that some agencies have built their core positioning on it, such as Strawberry Frog who claims to work on the consumer from a "cultural" point of view, but I don't understand yet how different their methodology really is. What do you think ?

[simone]

utter nonsense ... companies spend millions every day on the issues you raise

[paul isakson]

Thanks for the constructive comment Simone.

Companies do spend millions on research every day. The thing I see is that most of it is spent asking the world if they look fat in their pants.

If they started looking at how the people who buy their products viewed the world instead of only looking at how the world views their products, they could learn a lot about how to do things with and for people that matter.

That's the point I'm making. If you still disagree, tell us why...

[paul isakson]

Homosemiotikus - Thanks for the comment. I don't know enough about Strawberry Frog's process to comment. I do believe in this approach. It's why we're putting anthropology at the core of what we're doing at Thinkers & Makers.

[Homosemiotikus]

Hi, do you have by chance any presentation which explains how account planners can integrate anthropology in their daily work ?