78 / 132
BUSINESS
INTEL TIME
78
SEPTEMBER
Martin Lindstrom is a global
brand strategist and author.
His clients include the Walt
Disney Company, PepsiCo,
NestlŽ
, Red Bull and Lego.
His new book is just out,
Small Data: The Tiny Clues
that Uncover Huge Trends
.
For more information, go to
www.martinlindstrom.comWhen we spend too much time in the same
environment, we tend to become blind to
our surroundings. In reality, our culture glasses
are our biggest handicap... Try to imagine your
own industry through the lens of another industry
us lazy. It is easier to sit behind the screen,
flicking through reports and consumer data,
rather than getting out there “in the field”
to talk to customers. However, this closeness
to the consumer has led to some of the
biggest product and service innovations in
history. Some of the brightest, most
innovative business minds have always
known this. Often you’d find IKEA’s Ingvar
Kamprad running cash registers in his
stores. Why? Because he was determined to
understand not just what people buy, but
also why. Sitting at the checkout stand let
him interact with customers, one at a time.
“There is only one boss,” said Sam Walton,
founder of Walmart. “The customer. And he
can fire everybody in the company, from the
chairman on down, simply by spending his
money somewhere else.” You’d often find
Walton walking around his stores, interacting
with customers.
What these business leaders tapped into
was what I call “Small Data”. Seemingly-
insignificant observations made in
consumers’ lives. Tiny observations with
potentially-enormous impact.
I’m talking about first-hand observations
made in consumers’ homes, in restaurants,
in malls, in stores, in nightclubs, in sports
clubs, when driving or eating or on the
phone or even sleeping. These seemingly-
insignificant, seemingly-irrelevant
observations, once connected in unexpected
ways (often in moments of “productive
boredom”), have the potential to identify the
vital causation that Big Data so often lacks.
Where Big Data is all about seeking
correlations, Small Data is all about seeking
causation. Small Data is the key to turning
Big Data into the success story everyone in
business has been yearning for.
I’m increasingly realising that we humans
are ruled by inertia. We have a tendency to
cling to what’s comfortable, to what seems
to be working – until, finally, the pain of
remaining the same outweighs the pain of
change. Technology, by creating a shield
between business leaders and their most
important asset – the consumer – has
amplified this tendency to inertia.
Ironically, technology has added yet
another unfortunate dimension to the
picture. The blazing-fast pace of technology
has shrunk the lag-time between feeling the
pain and experiencing the collapse. These
days, industries that realise they need to
transform themselves have no time to waste.
They have to act faster than ever before.
“Transformation is much more than using
skills, resources, and technology,” wrote
Malcolm Gladwell. “It’s all about habits of
mind.” Of course it’s desirable to make the
consumption of your brand a habit among
consumers, but it’s dangerous for everyone
inside your organisation to “drink the
Kool-Aid”. If company leaders lose the ability
to truly “see” the company, no change is
possible. The marketplace keeps evolving, but
is the company evolving with it?
Is falling behind inevitable? Must you
become one of those brands that fade into a
dim memory? Not at all. In my latest book,
Small Data
, I write about the German term:
kultur brillen
, or culture glasses.
When we spend too much time in the same
environment, we tend to become blind to our
surroundings. In reality, our culture glasses
are our biggest handicap. There’s an old
saying: “To the man with a hammer, every
problem looks like a nail.” The downfall of
Kodak was to assume that the answer to any
question, forever and ever, would be film.
Blockbuster: that physical media would
always be the solution, and customers would
never tire of searching the shelves in
Blockbuster’s thousands of stores.
Try to imagine your own industry through
the lens of another industry. If you manage
a bank and one day find yourself acquired
by Apple, in what ways, both simple and
profound, do you think your company will
change? How about your car rental
company, acquired by Airbnb? Or a fashion
company, acquired by Ben & Jerry’s? If you
ask that question, even highly-conservative
companies are suddenly able to imagine
true transformation.
The reality is that the roadblock holding
back progress and transformation isn’t our
surroundings. Rather, it’s our own minds.
Our perspective. Our
kultur brillen
.
Unfortunately, your local optician isn’t
selling culture glasses.
But there is something all of us can do.
We can step away from the monitor, open
our eyes, become present in our
surroundings, listen to the people around us,
and begin to observe. We can come to the
realisation that the world is packed with
nuggets of small data. They are often so
obvious that, as soon as we notice them,
we wonder why we overlooked them before.