A healthy dose of insight

My wife is currently studying medicine – through Google, it seems.

Whenever she or one of our sons is sick, her first port of call is always to type some pithy description of the symptoms into the search field. That way, she can at least rule out any terminal diseases before preparing herself for discussions with her assistants at the local surgery. It all comes down to access to the right information – not that there's anything wrong with that.

But what I'm finding more and more is that the age-old adage knowledge is power is no longer true.

In fact, it's now more accurate to say that information is power.

And that, I think, is a problem because you'd have to be crazy not to acknowledge the gulf that exists between the two (as does my wife, fortunately).

Knowledge comes through understanding and experience, whereas information simply litters our lives, an often random sequence of data, symbols and other bits and pieces. Knowledge makes sense of information, whereas information on its own can often be senseless, unless of course you know what to do with it.

Which brings me to research.

Focus groups are typically the whipping boy for why research is so often so flawed, but that's too easy and obvious a target – plus, my friend Ingrid over at Aesthetics of Joy (the Christmas trees, remember) already wrote this article a few years ago that perfectly summarises the bigger issues.

But what frustrates me is the seemingly blind proliferation of information churned out by your typical research agency.

They can tell you what was said. In fact, they'll happily write dozens of slides in 8-point type, and even throw in the odd piece of Clipart for a little light relief – if there's space on the slide, they'll be sure to fill it.

But they can rarely tell you what it means.

They'd rather leave that to a mother of two from Castle Hill who you've just paid $80 for 90 minutes of her time to design the pack or write the tagline for you. Easier than making the decision yourself, plus you've now got someone to blame just in case.

Research has its role to play and there can be no doubt that the most successful brands are consumer-informed, but they are never consumer-led. If that was the case, then we'd all be riding faster horses, to paraphrase Henry Ford.

In the case of research, knowledge typically makes sense of information through insight.

But unless more research agencies are able to transform all this information into even the smallest morsel of insight, then my wife may not be the only one turning to Google for the answers.

Bitter Twitter

In a week when NSW Premier Nathan Rees was colourfully described as "tweeting with the energy of a 12-year-old with Tourettes", we've had our own graphic experience of web 2.0.

Google infamously puts "You can make money without doing evil" at #6 on its list of "Ten Things We Know To Be True" that describe its philosophy. Nowadays, that statement is being questioned more and more as Google evolves, and I, for one, very much hope that they stick to the script. But it's odd – although perhaps not surprising given the nature of competition (think Darwin's "survival of the fittest") – that so many of mankind's inventions end up being turned against ourselves.

And so to this week's shenanigans...

When ex-employees turn bad and inject their Twitter updates with malice, lies and innuendo (allegedly) – or at the very least, a large dose of naiveté.

Attacks on one's reputation are never much fun, whether launched at an individual or an organisation. And they are even harder to bear when they have no basis in fact and simply satisfy the author's personal vendetta. And the final straw is often the convenient lapse of memory they suffer when they reminisce on their time as employees: the fact that leaving was agency was not their choice.

That said, in spite of their tirade, they are happy enough to include their time at they agency on their résumé – presumably, in the hope that the collective and well-earned reputations of thousands of agency employees around the world will help bolster their own by dint of association.

You can't have it both ways. You can't assume the accolades of association on the one hand, but then go and bite the hand that feeds you on the other.

As time goes by and the world becomes more connected and transparent, all of us will have to make an increasing number of choices about where we stand. I certainly don't have the answers when it comes to what those choices might mean, but I do have one piece of advice. Be honest.