Sounds like one of those old B movies about some totalitarian country or another, where the bad guy leans over the hero or the heroine (it’s always a bad guy…) and threatens him or her with implied mounds of information. This also always begs the question why torture, but read on the answer might be near…

It’s also the cause of much angst today as Google and others make similar claims – although not in black and white and without the ubiquitous cigarette smoke.

Every week new companies appear on the horizon touting some new technology or another – technology whose application will lay all bare, give us everything we would ever want to know about consumers and strip away all the secrets…

No wonder the average Joe/Joanne resents intrusions of privacy – even implied threats of intrusion. No wonder Google is the cause and target of a growing conspiracy industry that attributes everything from mind slavery to Global Warming to the newest evil empire.

So here is the good news. Obi Wan and Luke Skywalker don’t have to come out of retirement – yet. You see all of the information – all of the so called facts, all of the feared invasion of personal privacy – does not yet amount to much in real terms.

If it did, would we do anything, anywhere other than Google? Would we shop for anything anywhere other than Google? Would we eat, sleep or drink anything but Google?

Why do completion rates on the Web hover around 4%? Or said another way, why do we leave 96% of all deals on the table?

Could it have something to do with all that information? Maybe it’s not what they think it is. Maybe they don’t use it right. Maybe…

Think on this notion:

“It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.”
~Alec Bourne

Computers are only as good as we are. And the application of information is only as powerful as we can make it. Most important, we are human and don’t behave like machines or follow business rules in our daily lives…

If we can store our minds with a million facts – computers can store them with billions upon billions – I leave the rest of this thought to you…

What do you think?

Is prediction all prophecy? Is foresight really divination? That is, do you need powers beyond the ken of mere mortals to understand where we are headed or what we might do?

Or does insight and forecast and…here’s the business pitch…you guessed it! Data and analytics lead to predictions that might not get you 500+ plus years of publishing contracts like Nostradamus but will get you more business for your clients. And, (you guess it) lead to more business for us!

It seems to me that our job is not just to predict. That is fairly simple to do. And it’s lowon accountability–look at Nostradamus.

Predicting has too many variables: the weather was bad; the economy fell; the dog ate my homework. You can add as many as you like…

Our job is to help people along the acquisition/buying continuum; to give them tools that make their life easier and expose them to enough reasons and alternatives so that prediction is not necessary but rather good product/service management.

The best advertising of times past (and yes, we all know the media waste issues) was about creating reasons to buy. And some of it was wildly successful. Check out Hula Hoops (http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/hulahoop.htm) or the Bic Flick (http://www.enotes.com/marketing-campaign/bic-corporation#flick-your-bic-wins-dubious-battle) to see some of the best used paid mass media and word of mouth. Think social networks. Think about how California, where the Hula craze began, was a long way and an expensive telephone call away from New York. Think about that and how it contrasts with the power you have today…

And add your own examples, as there is lots to learn from them.

The good news (in fact, the great news) is we are no longer limited to only mass media or the vagaries of word of mouth.

We can still drive demand through good communication, emotional/rational appeal and exciting creative. In fact, we don’t spend enough time thinking about this…

And we can use PR and other techniques to drive great product news through word of mouth.

The exciting factor are the tools that help share, build and expand social networks and create true CRM – Customers Really Manage – campaigns.

Take the Hula Hoop case and think about how you would build it today. Look at the initial take up and tell me if any “new” product had as quick a build in the last few years with all of our technology…and what do you learn from that?

So here is a thought to help this along

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
- Alan Kay

The Hula Hoop guys didn’t rely on prophecy, they created their own future.

I’d argue that is what our business is really about…

Thoughts?

Is it primarily deliberation and analysis? If so, our ability to access reams of data is surely a boon. Yet, to me, it doesn’t look like anyone, anywhere (being a little political here…) is making much better judgments than they did years ago—before we had access to digital data. Maybe…..our conversion rates using all that data are not much higher than they were when we were strictly analog and using the printed data cards Lester often talks about.
For years we have counselled clients to avoid the “seduction of data,” i.e., the notion that “I now know everything about you.” You know that mantra. The truth is only some data are useful; only some data are “actionable.” If “knowing everything” is really the goal, then businesses like Amazon already would have put everyone else out of business instead of continuously struggling with its own success.

Not to mention, by the way, the privacy fears we have created, often needlessly…

However, on Thursday (September 7th), at a Microsoft marketing conference I was privileged to hear one of my favorite speakers/writers and he reminded me of how important the art of our business is; how critical the human element is; and how central to success is insight and understanding. He said:

“Truly successful decision making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking.”
Malcolm Gladwell,

I recommend his book Blink (he also wrote the Tipping Point) but Blink really speaks to what can be one of our sharpest competitive edges: actionable-insightful data; human motivation; understanding the customer/consumer/user/buyer.

Microsoft had him there for a reason……….I’d like to think we are ahead of that curve.

We read about new channels and talk about agnostic planning. We play with our iPods and other cool gadgets and gizmos and then we give our clients predictable and safe program ideas.

We say we believe in insights and preach the need for consumer/user understanding. We are passionate about how we make the consumer the hero. Yet how often do we really use the tools we have to dive deeply into the psyche of our targets and deliver richly layered thinking to drive our ideas and programs? How often do we just go with what we have or what we think?

Data is the bedrock of our business; the price of entry; the basics. How many of our engagements really, really take advantage of true data sources and provide us and our clients with informed thinking and planning? How often do we just let it go because “they” won’t let us at it?

Needless to say, the creative product – as in “the stuff” – is the tipping point for all we do. It is the element that can make or break us more than any other. It’s “the fun”, and yet too often it becomes our Achilles heel; the element that sours client relationships; the big disappointer. And, how often do we blame the client for the bad work?

Bottom-line – I know I’m being harsh and that some of you are shaking your heads thinking not me, not our work. No doubt that is true for some, yet too often – way too often – we have the answers before we even know the questions, and the results are some of what I have wailed on above.

One of the great hosts of late night TV in the USA put it all in perspective for me:

“I went into a McDonald’s yesterday and said, ‘I’d like some fries.’ The girl at the counter said, ‘Would you like some fries with that?’”
- Jay Leno

Next time you get asked for fries – offer the burger and a shake too…