Who killed the insight...

Lets be realistic, we all use words we aren’t exactly unequivocally clear about the meaning, it’s normal and we do it on a day to day basis…not to say we use words we don’t understand, but we do use words on a daily basis that if asked to drop everything and throw in a proper definition of, we might struggle with. This results in the loss of a specified meaning through broadening of meaning. The signifier remains the same, (the word) but the signified is in a minor state of flux, assuming slightly different meaning in each context it’s being used…thus the loss of it’s original meaning and a words expansive connotation.

’Insight’ is one of those words. We use it so often in our industry; it tends to be on our corporate websites as a means to building business and unlocking growth. But you ask people in the industry and I’m pretty sure many would struggle to define a word they use in almost every meeting, you ask research arms and they’ll throw the lame and mundane obviousness that had been drilled with a Black and Decker into everyone collective consciousness, ‘youth want to express themselves’.

What once started as a beautiful word with some sort of virgin epiphanic magic to it, has been beaten, raped, slapped and abused in boardrooms into an unrecognizable state that means everything and nothing…

Ask 10 people in our industry what the difference between an insight and an observation is, I’ll be willing to bet that half haven’t a clue…