Microslicing and Insight

I don't think marketing folk spend enought time thinking about the small things; by which I mean the really small, the nano, the granular, miniscule and the tiny. In amongst all the talk about big ideas, perhaps we should flip the telescope and look through it the other way around. In other fields we are seeing the world very differently through new detail, such as the example below, perhaps we can as well.

The world of insight gathering might benefit from some miniscule thinking. Though research may be getting faster, easier and cheaper - primarily due to the internet - I don't know if it is getting any better. In fact, I suspect the opposite. I also see lots of research being commissioned that is a triumph of process over thought and is probably a re-run of some previous research project that has already given us enough information to save us the cost of doing it again. I should confess at this point, I am thinking more about 'exploratory' research or insight development work. As a side point, and the subject of another post in the future, I suspect there is a business to be had in delving through back archives of research for answers before any more research is commissioned.

Anyway, back to the subject of getting more insight by microthinking. I am convinced there are insights to be found, hidden in the small nooks and cranies of the mind and behaviour that conventional research, especially internet research, will never find. They may be things that people are never able to articulate, and therefore can't tell us about, without some skillful input from the researcher, but they exist.

I love the idea of breaking down processes, psychology, and behaviour into tiny little units and investigating each little unit in turn. In those tiny moments there is some real, and new, insight.