Instant Insights - just add water?
Is there such a thing as an "instant insight"? The word crops up increasingly frequently in MR sales pitches - often in the slipstream of "agility".
We would do well not to confuse the two. Agility is a useful principle - smaller iterative steps, moving forward faster with more frequent customer feedback baked it - but it doesn't equate to "instant insights".
At least twice a week I get an email from a tech company venturing into MR, promising instant insights - on the back of fully automated DIY MR solutions with stats packages, variable functionality options, dashboards, and occasionally an option to buy in some consultancy if really needed.
The pricing makes them tempting - often a small fraction of the alternatives they wish to replace, meaning more research can be done by smaller brands, and by companies who traditionally didn't do MR. All healthy, disruptive stuff?
No - these are siren songs that can lead us onto the rocks.
Time to kick back IMHO - the term "instant insights" in particular commoditises our profession, oversimplifies. Here's my take:
1. Insights require data distillation, synthesis, business understanding
Multiple data sources are necessary to get anywhere near what you could call an insight - however you organise, using qual or quant, social media data, sales, tracker data, whatever.
That aha moment of suddenly having a light switched on in your head only comes after masses of data points have been digested and combined with industry/ company knowledge - not at the press of a button.
2. Humans are absolutely key for empathy, intensity and yes - insights.
Automation can and does accelerate mechanical, repetitive processes, productivity gains emerge - but MR isn't the same as a sausage factory, is it? How can automation surface tensions, pain points that matter in human's lives?
Often people struggle to express their feelings - as Stan Knoops said at IIEX Europe 2017, in perfume, participants often only have 3 words to describe a fragrance - the category is neverthless highly emotional.
Tom Anderson's company, Odintext, has a great blog highlighting the power of human empathy, where an eight hour hand-coding session brings an insights manager to tears - Of Tears and Text Analytics.
Efficiency is important - being effective more so in our industry, and yes that requires valuable (wo)man hours.
3. Humans are eminently unpredictable - psychology into predictive analytics does not go.
After many years of Behavioural Economics education our industry has "enjoyed", we surely all know that psychology doesn't slot in comfortably with the principles of classical economics. We do stupid things that don't maximise our personal advantage.
So talking of automating complex human behaviours and reactions seems a bit like saying you can deconstruct the most complex wine ever imaginable into powder form, mix it with water at your own ease, and - enjoy.
Really?? Why not laugh - to yourself, or out loud.
Which is really what we should be doing when we see something as complex and fascinating as MR reduced to the status of a commodity - and adding a touch of ridiculousness to it.
Instant pain relief as a claim hardly sounds credible, slightly desperate in fact. Instant gratification isn't a great concept either, in fact I can't think of anything other than instant coffee that sounds OK (I am a Brit), and I am sure my Austrian, German and Italian colleagues would also see that negatively.
So next time you're cordially invited to a Webinar on Agility, involving automation leading to "insight insights" - maybe you get in touch and we will see if we can get a crowd going to challenge the concept.
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.