Insights require the ability to toggle between both focus and unfocus. When conducting research, it’s easy to get so fixated on the task at hand that we miss the bigger picture. We collect the answers but we miss the context. Borrowing from a popular mindfulness exercise, the 5-4-3-2-1 Technique is a simple way to broaden your focus before a research interview begins. More importantly, it establishes the foundation for a more sincere and empathetic conversation.

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Evaluating creative work can be tricky. It's easy to let subjective opinions get in the way. To control for that, many companies employ scorecards that help ground the conversation, often over-simplifying the evaluation of a piece of creative by assigning it a number on some 1-10 scale.

It's not enough to discuss creative ideas on this single, "good" or "bad," dimension. As strategists, we need to anchor the feedback in the strategy, of course. Using something like the “Good, Bad, On, Off” framework can help elevate the conversation and frame feedback in a more constructive manner.

We've all been taught that when conducting a qualitative interview, start with broad topics and then go narrow.

While that is great advice, it only reveals half the story. Too many times, interviews end before the really interesting discussion even begins.

But to get the full picture, there needs to be an "Act II" to the interview. This video – Framework 08: Flipping the Funnel – explains how to gather more and better insights by changing the way you think about structuring a qualitative discussion guide. 

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There's a lot of conversation in the industry around storytelling and the stories that brands can tell. Telling YOUR story is no doubt a critical part of building your brand and engaging with your audience.

But in order to keep "storytelling" a helpful construct and not just an industry buzzword, we need to put some structure around it.

It's important to understand and empathize with the journey customers are going through and how the brand plays a role in THEIR story rather than forcing the customer into the brand's story. 

If you ever need to develop a number of positioning territories, quickly, this framework will do the trick.

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To turn observations into insights, you need to answer four simple (but difficult) prompts:

What? Why? Clarify. Apply.

This video explains how to to use "Insight Cards" to dive deeper into the research and uncover truly penetrating, provocative and powerful insights.

If you have any questions or tips to share, comment below.

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You always wish you had more time. Especially when it comes to research. But a lack of time is no reason to not attempt to get to know your customer. Even quick man-on-the-street or Google Hangout interviews can yield substantial insight if each question is deliberate and purposeful. “The World’s Most Efficient Discussion Guide” provides a structure for conducting interviews that cover a lot of ground in not a lot time.

Our "Inspired Creative Briefs" course provides more background, tips and tricks for using the Proposition Wheel.

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There’s an art to crafting a succinct, compelling insight. And Simon Sinek is one of the best at it. In this video, I’ll show you how he does it.

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Whether an idea is strengthened or destroyed usually comes down to the quality of feedback. As Planners, our role is not to become judge and jury over the ideas developed within our organizations. It’s to provide insight that helps birth new ideas and feedback that sharpens them. The Evaluation Prism is a simple tool that can structure feedback in a way that is clear and actionable.

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The “impact window” for strategy work is getting smaller and smaller as results increasingly need to come sooner and sooner. While that won’t change anytime soon, the value of pausing to look further out into the horizon is perhaps more valuable than ever.

The most successful brands don’t lose site of a clear, compelling long term vision for its role in the lives of its customers and the culture at large.

This Framework video will dive into a tool that can get marketers to shift focus on developing a scenario for their brand that lives further out into the future, creating an anchor that can help them fight all the short term battles without losing site of the long term goals.

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