#farrah bostic

4as strategy fest_leanplanning

That creepy yet energizing rush you feel when someone articulates EXACTLY how you feel. Happened to me after reading this. 

I often, at conferences and in client meetings, or with other planners, remark on how “insights” is another crime against the English language that Adland has perpetrated upon corporate culture.  I often joke that “insights” are not just strewn about the place waiting to be spotted by brand managers and strategists; they were not left, neglected, under your chair or a stack of papers on the corner of your desk.  You can not uncover, seek, find, or land on “insights”.

Insight isn’t a noun in the sense that a car or a nickel or a pen are nouns.  It’s a noun that names a quality or capacity, like beauty, intelligence, compassion.  We tend not to pluralize and objectify these nouns, because they are not about objects.  But in Adland, we call things “insights” because we are nothing if we haven’t (great big sigh) “productized” our work.

And this is where it all goes to hell.