Expired Insights: Why Research Must Evolve as Fast as the World Does

okay so I'm so excited to be here today we're going to talk about expired insights a jazzy title that you might be intrigued Ken insights expire do they we'll find out uh first before we begin a quick thank you to my mom and my dad and my husband David and my team Jessica Katie and I even ran this past uh the customer insights team my company Jet and Tom and of course if he's on my boss Ryan um all right so a little about me um I have worked all over insights um I've worked on consumers customers uh B Toc B2B B to human as some people call it Elemental P I've worked in advertising Innovation market research Divine uh design packaging design um on the agency side I've also been a small medium business owner at one point and now I am client side so do it all while you can uh so the flow for today is just a hello a step back what are we doing and then we'll go through some facts and observations um and then we'll dive into the rethinking insights and land in okay so what do we do what do we do with this now um so uh as a huge huge step back as I was writing this deck thinking about what to write about and um how to inspire and motivate I had chat gbt open to prompt a smooth discussion for for all of us um and I also had my washer my washer and dryer in the background my washer switched automatically to drying my clothes um in the background um I was also thinking how last night I I bought a movie um I didn't rent it I bought it so I could own it uh and and then weeks ago I was telling my Uber driver my preferred temperature um without ever talking to them and as I was thinking about all of the things around me I can't help but recognize just the vast difference of the world we live in um just one year ago to today so we're always adapting and we're modifying we're progressing and it did make me stop to think like is research is research progressing um so we have a shared lexicon together today for this next like half hourish uh what is research um so research is the systematic investigation blah blah and reaching new conclusions I think what's interesting here is the word new um and that's what we're going to focus on obviously because I have it on the right side new what is new um never exists before so it's never happened before it's new to the world not previously used or owned new power in words um so quickly new is hard and as I practiced this I was like I'm going to add a dramatic pause so doing something uh doing the same thing over and over makes finding something new that much harder so as we're trying to Envision what the future is we really have to let go of what has expired what is expired um expired is just ceased to be valid it doesn't exist anymore typically after a certain period of time so expired ceased to be valid uh before we dive into insights which I madly respect anyone in market research over time has a deep respect I think for insight and the way I was trained for an Insight was first you start with facts and then you dig deeper into observations and then you dig even deeper still and you go into insights um right now I'm just going to peruse through some facts and observations um not insights that have changed over time so a quick one and this seems to be popular again is uh Millennials can't afford homes due to spending on luxuries like coffee and avocado toast I am am a geriatric Millennial I'm one of the oldest Millennials I've heard this for so long and by the way my generation just doesn't age still we're always 18 and I'm loving that um this came up in uh my LinkedIn feed uh last week that people were still saying they just spend all their money on on coffees uh it came up in huffpo um earlier this week anyway the narrative has shifted we all know now uh that it's revealed there's stagnant wages there's Rising housing costs student debt there's real obstacles uh and it's not discretionary spending cool head nod let's see women in stem okay next one Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies are a niche fad well initially dismissed as Fringe uh cryptocurrencies and blockchain Technology they have gained mainstream acceptance major institutions um even just recently Fidelity which I think famously said they'll never do it uh they just they just announced their their crypto uh so we're all developing blockchain applications across various in Industries including finance and Bitcoin and crypt Andy definitely not Niche fad next one tattoos for Sailors soldiers and criminals uh these views have definitely changed over time um tattoos are now widely seen as right individualism um to the point where it's become so popular it might even be collectivism at this point uh younger generation are around 40% um tattoos if you got one you're you're bound to get many more uh and three in 10 of all of the US has at least one tattoo so narrative has shifted next is self-driving cars uh at one point they said this is science fiction it'll never happen there was a lot of ethical implications legality implication technical feasibility Etc as we know um especially if those of you on the phone are from the Bay Area uh Mo has now logged in over 22 million miles without human drivers so facts and observations are just changing over time and then if you're still with me and you're like yeah yeah yeah uh here's one um another one genetic modification is only for crops and animals and not human never humans not humans um while these concerns are still being actively debated advances in crisper and gene therapy have led to more nuanced understanding especially for treating genetic diseases um a fun fact on the very bottom found this interesting this was in 2023 so pretty recent last year survey and Science magazine found that nearly 30% of people would edit an embryo if it enhanced the resulting child's chance of attending a top ranked college so here we are facts and observations um you know narratives are changing and they're changing all the time and here's a story from my family to yours first all the way on the left we got my Boomer mom and when my mom was a kid she wanted automatic windows so she wouldn't have to crank it to roll it down um then we go to the middle beautiful car there in the middle when I was a kid I wanted to manually roll down my windows because the cars would automatically lock them on me and now fast forward uh to my daughter this just happened about a month ago uh my daughter asked the car to roll down the window for her um and when it did not uh she asked me SL blam me that I forgot to charge the car so here we are a lot of things changing over time um you can see some of the insights are changing uh definitely the environment is changing and next so if insights are a deep understanding of people and a situation so the definition on the right um if we all believe that insights are to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or a thing so deep understanding of people's situations and if the people and situations and the facts and observations are changing then shouldn't the Insight be updated so uh expired insights right when old methods often go unquestioned it makes change really difficult to happen so here is another example um I've worked in the smbo the small medium business owner uh Target customers for about a decade now um and I've heard over and over again the Insight even as recent as a year and a half ago the Insight that sbos are just they're so busy they wear multiple hats have you heard this I'm sure you've heard it and while this is true uh it has become trit right and trite is the meaning of trit is so overused it just has little importance anymore so this has become so cliched it doesn't fully capture the diversity the Strategic thinking or the Innovative approaches that many smbo small medium business size owners employ it it oversimplifies their challenges and it can Overlook their unique experiences resilient and the creative ways that they can scale and delegate so much respect for this audience I'm sure you've got an audience that you have so much respect for you have to pause and ask and this was the first time that I asked is this an expired Insight because I've heard it a lot right and surely if I've heard it everyone else has heard it and everyone's innovating off the same Insight um so just to go dramatic for illustrative purposes here uh if if we think about a long time ago so like before the 1800s I have to imagine I'm not a history buff but I have to imagine it was just manual for everything right and the lifespan was short things took forever everyone was really really busy okay snbo is for sure busy and then let's fast forward 1800s 1900s somewhere in there we've got Industrial Revolution we've got an assembly line things are organizing and yet the Insight is still sbos are just so busy and now we're in the early SS uh we've got automation you're offshoring you're Outsourcing um you're figuring out how to make everything Ro robotic Etc sbos are still busy the Insight is expired because people change over time right um if we stay within this metaphor of sbos or this example uh they can be their own accountants they can communicate globally they can distribute their goods worldwide the world has changed over time and insights really have to change with it uh and here's the danger of not changing if you rely on expired insights that can lead to outdated strategies inefficiency and missed opportunities for growth and Innovation so let's go from why to why not and here's an example of why do why not we all know the ending of this now at one point Point uh when the founder of Airbnb was going to get funding literally people said no one is ever going to stay in someone else's house and they really believe this um it reminds me of when people in college told me photos will never be digitized it'll always be film so despite the early doubts we know airbnb's Founders persevered they're innovating they're refining they're transforming the entire hospitality industry um and these initial rejections highlight just how unconventional the idea seemed at the time now we fast forward airbnb's got a market cap of 86 billion and more than that what's interesting here is when you get rid of the expired Insight when you stay fresh the Homestay Market this entire idea of Homestay not only changes Hospitality it changes the previous business model so the new ins new changes the old right so uh the how of the Homestay has redefined the previous business proposition so now hotels if you think about it hom stays are super popular right and now it's it's like all cyclical it's coming back and now people are like no no no I only stay at hotels now because they're more safe uh I don't need to clean my own laundry I need uh service in the middle of the night I want all this stuff so it it's it's changing things here's another example of this why don't why not why not get into a stranger car why not monetize um uh hitchhiking right so again people were like no one's ever going to do this I remember moving from New York City back to Chicago in the middle and people were just like shocked they were like absolutely no as we know we fast forward right everyone's got Uber lift Etc on their on their phones and despite all of the doubt and the regulatory issues and all of this um stuff for on demand the the sharing economy has blown up right and as of just November 1st their market cap is 154 billion um and again changes the model before it so ironically uh if you are huge into ride sharing if you're in an urban area I actually live extremely rural now and we do not have any ride shares if you can believe it no door Dash no ride share um but when I was living in urban when I was living in Chicago right we had I I was huge lift person and um what I noticed is uh they would cancel on you um you didn't know if they would come uh and it wasn't as fast and now ironically you're going back to the previous business model where where taxis are now um updating their entire business proposition to be about immediacy and reliability so again the the new uh modifies and adapts the old new changes old okay so if you're with me if you're still not in your head being like but insights don't expire if you're with me and we believe insights expire and we believe that we need new to change the old how might we Inspire each other to do better so I have a few ideas um one is around continuous culture uh the second is around abstract problem solving and the third is storytelling these are fun first continuous culture so if you check your fridge um in talking to Jet and Tom my team and I were talking about uh market research and what we can do to better market research how we can Inspire and stay stay on top of culture and the biggest question here is the last one is are you even asking the right questions as they go from Department to Department everyone's on a Time bound due date right and uh you need it in field but are we taking the time to reflect about what we're even asking input to Output I know there's a lot of you nodding vigorously to this and the first one uh the first question here is how have you evolved your research practice so when new people come in the continuous culture is going from you know the older generations to the younger generations and making sure you're modifying you're adapting you're iterating you're innovating um have you evolved your practice have you stopped to look at how you're going about your practice the second one have you updated your screener I've worked um in Consulting for about 20 years and I've worked on giant Brands b2c um giant B2B they've had screeners that were 10 15 years old uh as we know the pandemic changed everything uh there's there's consumers and customers alike have vastly different behaviors check out your screener just just check it is it is it you know growing mold and dust or or is it sparkly new I don't know uh also Quant so uh both qual and Quant some Quant I look at some Quant and I think why are we still holding on to this question like yes I understand that there's trending data over time and how precious that is and if you get rid of it um it's all gone but do you even need it uh is is my question um and maybe that's a question for other departments too every single question you have on there is so precious you only get so many everything costs money so reevaluate um and then are you asking the right questions uh so abstract problem solving um how to get fresh so uh we're going to go through a few ideas and examples on um if we're leveraging today's advances uh where right so I was trying to really get out of the why I think we've been really in love with the why for so long um and why is great uh but there's so many more other questions and ways that we can think in a nonlinear fashion in order to change our input to inspire our output um so where are you brainstorming who are you recruiting Who's involved like think about all of the other questions beyond beyond the why okay and a nice little Tik Tock from my team to help modernize modernize the slides so first up is how how are you leveraging today's advances I came across this example um reading the latest uh MIT magazine at the airport and this case study is fascinating it's the Tera X Cube if you've used it I'm so jealous of you um but I was reading about how uh this is a brainchild of a researcher um and the founder of the institute for the Emergency Mountain medicine at Ure research it's a private research uh Center in Italy um and he was frustrated by the safety risks logistical difficulties and the huge cost of conducting experiments at high altitude so he began dreaming about an environmental stimulator that would allow for safe repeatable and controlled test conditions and thus this was born and basically what the terax cube is and and people from around the world can uh leverage this for their own research in product design in medicine in many different ways there's a button where you can say the exact climate that you want any climate from ex very extreme cold extreme heat and in a second the button will turn the cube into that um that climate that you want to test it in uh and I think this is just indicative of us thinking bigger and outside of how can we do the research we don't need to be stuck in the you know um do you have an omnius and a and a qual and a and a how else can we do things um things are getting so Innovative now uh an easier way if you don't have a lot of money you can't go to Italy um I think about this a lot uh so that's that's me if I were if I were that beautiful uh that's me in the upper right Corner if you see I usually work in these pristine gorgeous offices right and and white became very popular in the last decade or two and open offices with the latest and greatest Mac and everything's beautiful and you know the exposed brick and the lighting and how I could go on um and yet my customers for the past uh over a decade now a lot of the customers that I love learning about are in manufacturing construction the photo below and I think um as I think about trying to get into their mindset trying to properly empathize with the customer trying to be as so many com companies and organizations claim to be customer obsessed how are you truly being obsessive if you're not in the grit with them right like if you're not um sitting with the mother of a Suburban you know micro food need State at 3:00 to 400 p.m. if you're not uh iot headquarters when I got to work there they have an awesome basement filled with different rooms of each Hotel chain that they own and you can go their design teams can go and sit in there and brainstorm and they are in the environment so I think a big thing here is just you know change your input you're going to change your output um escape the algorithm uh we are in algorithms well beyond Spotify right uh rather than challenging your taste these algorithms will just provide constant Echo chambers of what you have already enjoyed um so get out uh uh do do your brainstorm change change where you're doing it um even one time I did a brief in elevator it was great it was the best best thing uh next another how um I'm guilty of this so this is totally pot Kettle at the moment but um when Distributing insights are how another huge complaint of Market res they just no one reads my decks no no one reads my presentation no one's listening like they don't know who our target audience is they don't know the latest research Etc I think part of that blame needs to go to us um our how expired when Tik Tok hit a billion users they're well on their way to 1.8 billion 1.8 billion by the end of 24 so what's with our 100 page decks again I'm sitting here presenting off a deck but my team did add a Tik Tock here so um trying to make sure things are fresh uh another part of a how that I found really interesting when when finding some some examples for this is this quote uh same magazine might want to pick it up um so the quote is when Mass printing emerged it helped create a culture of news Mass literacy and bureaucracy and some argue the very idea of scientific evidence uh so how will Mass video shift our culture I think there's so many different channels that we can now leverage to find out how people feel um what their behavior is um how they act Etc so uh just changing our storytelling um and changing our input and output on both sides I think will help Inspire some some new fresh fresh air um so if we believe the definition of research is to reach new conclusions then we must do all we can to ensure that we grow and Humanity evolves so what does it mean to be human um same few ideas I gave are exactly what it means to be human and how we can Infuse that right how we can evolve our research so one continuous culture um first let me say humans and animals share a lot of biological traits right but there are certain key differences that set us apart and we should be just just go back to the basics go back to biology go back to our Humanity um continuous culture is making sure that like if your grandma learns something she's telling you and you are then telling your grandchildren or the Next Generation Um so as Jen Z is coming in uh to the office making sure they know um and can learn from the past mistakes and they're evolving it to go even even better that's continuous culture so constantly looking and making sure is this is this fresh or is it expired I think just that question uh would do does would do a lot um so again that's a Humanity abstract problem solving again we've got um cognitive abilities that that that others cannot we can deploy them in many different ways um and uh that's that's huge abstract problem solving and then last is storytelling um so making sure that um we have interesting ways of doing of doing the stories uh I think I skipped an entire part here yes who are we asking I don't know how this skipped but let me go back to the who because this is another thing that we can change and and make sure that we're keeping things fresh um one is to challenge the norm so one AI is now our audience um and if you don't believe me just ask the last time you were in a meeting and someone's like ask chat GPT um so as as machines around us and and robot we're living in this Robot World um MIT predicts in 75 years your house will be your roommate um so thinking about the future and how AI is is likely part of your audience um number two this is my own picity beef with market research uh marketers I don't know why we're still excluding them in screeners I ask this every time uh and we don't really have the answer to it um the they cost a lot of money uh if you want a a marketing consultant to come in so I think hey if they want to fill out the Quant and qual and you've already screened them for being a marketer I mean I find that to be a deal let them take it let him take the survey so I I don't know why why we still do that practice um and then last uh retired so we uh that's another one like are you working full-time who does it really matter um back back when when you know they used to be able to work for so so so long in the stability and work at a career for 20 30 years uh imagine all that untapped perspective that we could gain and what future did they Envision has it happened has it not yet um I think there's just a lot of unta potential there um and uh last who are we including um into the research my favorite case study by far is from Ford Ford designs group um they in included a cross Department collaboration and as the story goes um the researchers invited the engineers and the engineers went out to an ethnos sort of type setup uh where they were observing um uh people going grocery shopping and going back to their car and just putting the groceries into the car and when they saw that pain point and it was such an aha right they're out of the office they changed their wear the researchers changed who they invited to the research they got a whole new perspective and the engineers were the ones that said oh my gosh we could absolutely make it easier for people to open up the back right and put the groceries in um so just fostering communication between different departments it doesn't need to be just uh CX ux marketing brand and design in the little bubble invite other people in and see see what happens because you might you might end up with an entirely new innovation I love this story um so that's the who we we went through the storytelling of played it make it yummy that's that's the Tik Tok make it exciting um and make sure it evolves make sure it's human so if you're adding in continuous culture you're checking it um you're doing things in a new way the where the how the who um and storytelling uh if there's one thing that you could take away from this entire talk uh this this half hour it is this um I think we we must all humanize our research and uh one way is just just throw out the expired and that's it thank you so much thank you Adrien let's look and see if we've got any questions um I loved your analogy on cleaning out the refrigerator so um I think that that you know looking for those things that expired often would you recommend doing that um I think it depends on but it depends on a lot of things right on the Cadence that you feel comfortable with I think at minimum quarterly uh but just to say the obvious if a giant Global change occurs like we all went through in the pandemic you need to take a pause right and look at all of your research because the world changed people changed uh and and surely insights changed that's great thanks Leah um let's see do we have any questions coming through no um I just see a lot of head nodding and I'm so nodding really interesting stuff um all right y sounds good well thank you everybody