(Quote from Richard Hamming an American Mathematician and the founder and president of the Association for Computing Machinery)
As an Experience Planner at Conchango an important part of my job is gathering insight, adding value to business by finding what has escaped the sight of others.
Insight is a favourite word of mine and one that is often bandied around, but what does it really mean? Perception, seeing clearly, intuition, understanding, deduction, problem solving, I could go on ...
Definitions often imply a mix of rational understanding and irrational intuition (in fact in italian insight translates as intuizione). So what's the unknown factor that gives the capacity to discern the true nature of a situation or the hidden nature of things?
In psychology and psychiatry, insight is the ability to recognise ones' own mental illness. Two forms of the experience are described; the first a feeling of sudden illumination (a 'Eureka' moment!) and the second a slower, more gradual process producing a feeling of the obvious (an 'of course, why didn't I think of that before' moment!).
Businesses are now recognising the importance of insight and many even have departments that carry the word in their titles such as 'Insight and Planning' or 'Customer Insight'. What we should remember is that insight does not replace contact and research with the customer but adds to it.
Here's what got me thinking about this, a really interesting slideshow put together by Matthew Milan of Critical Mass.
In the words of Thomas Carlyle "Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight."