Seeing data

Traditionally and being human, we have used our eyes to look and our brains to see. In modern times we use our hands and ears to browse and connect, still our eyes to look and still depend on our brains to see. In many ways, our brains have evolved over the past few internet decades, and our thinking processes have adapted to these same decades; to now be able to see at a worldview level. Being able to do so has become a necessity, and Design Thinking uses this idea of a worldview of ideas to jump-start innovation.

This piece is about frame(s) of mind to see data in many ways, and to know that there are many tools freely available online to help us jump start thinking processes. A globally acknowledged example is Edward de Bono’s thinking tools for Lateral and Creative Thinking, such as the PO Tool, The Six Thinking Hats, Plus Minus Interesting and Consider all Factors are some of these.

The key words for today are “insight” and “trend”. Insight is to give us the Thundercat’s sight beyond sight, and trend is what will inform us about what the world thinks or is talking about. How do we learn to see these insights and trends?

There are steps and tools in the Design Thinking process itself of course, to delineate data into ways that make them easier to visualise and understand. The methodology was developed because collecting the data form crowd sources is perhaps half the battle. The big struggle is having collected so much data from so many people, it needs to be analysed and understood. The purpose behind this is to finally use the intelligence to build ideas and to then make the ideas real through fast prototyping.

So…insight and trend.

Insight, in any situation I dare say, can only be gained when full understanding of a particular person, issue, problem, situation and what not, is achieved. One of the ways to gain that understanding is when full emphatic immersion has taken place, and meaningful data has been collected through tried and tested instruments, and harvested via personal experiences and interactions.

An example of an insight is when we have immersed ourselves in the Research and Design process of a particular problem, and suddenly the invisible trends that run through the data become visible. The focus and the lens we see through change because of the immersion process and the mysterious workings of our subconscious logic and intuition. If we have been working on a Design problem and applied the methodology in say, a problem that deals with employees form many organisations that were asked, “When and why do employees job-hop?”, some trends that pop-up that lead to insights might be:

1. Eleven upper management subjects took at least a three day holiday before submitting notices of resignation.
2. Seven subjects from all levels handed in resignations after taking part in a community project to provide aid for the homeless.
3. Fifteen middle and upper management subjects handed in resignations after the CEO had a sudden stroke and was paralysed.

These are the observation only of course, but leading from this, connections can be made and insights achieved. In the examples above, perhaps these inferences can be drawn.

In the case of:

1. Top level employees would apply for other top level positions that require a few days to be blocked for meetings and interviews by opposition companies. Keeping an eye on this might forewarn an organisation whether it is time to up the ante or to let an asset go with their blessings.
2.  Having taken part in community projects and immersed themselves into a situation where direct exposure to human suffering and the greater meaning of life was made, employees decided that they no longer wanted to be part of the rat-race, and resigned.
3. When the CEO, healthy, wealthy and wise was struck down by a stroke, employees in the inner circle decided that there were other more important things in life and fate was too random with its wicked hand. Of course, it could be also a loss of inspiration, or that new styles of management pissed everyone off. The important thing was that this kind of period is extremely VUCA, and some type of intervention is necessary.

Now, don’t go quoting me on these, as I constructed these examples in the past three minutes as I wrote them. It may be right or wrong, and if you look hard enough for deeper insights and trends, you will find a heck of a lot more. Hence the need for my disclaimer.

But then, this is why we conduct Design Thinking research in the first place, to know what people are thinking BEFORE they even know it.

Isaac Asimov had a great thing going with Hari Seldon’s Theory of Psychohistory which could accurately predict how people as a large community would act and react to any situation. In a sense, that is innovation. Having a product and service ready in that instant before people realise they need it. Or having a solution for an old problem ready for that same problem under new conditions.

Innovation!

What a splendid game you play!

Yeah baby!