Trumblog

The belief that one’s own view of reality is the only reality is the most dangerous of all delusions.
- Paul Watzlawick

Not a week goes by when I’m not talking with someone who makes a sweeping generalization about how people act based solely on their own personal experience.  I know that I get caught up believing that the world is made of urban, middle class, college educated, liberal 40 year olds who are fluent in online social media and have 2 bilingual teen daughters. As easy as it is to believe that the rest of the world spends evenings eating milanesas con papas before settling down to watch Dr Who reruns on Netflix through their Wii while updating Facebook and Twitter from their laptops  it turns out that my family is pretty unique, as are those of my neighbors, friends and co-workers.

It is known as the “focus group of one” and it’s hard to avoid.  Do your parents in their 60s not use the internet, email or Facebook?  Then all people over 60 must not (despite the fact that this segment of the population has the highest rate of internet adoption I still get this a lot).  Do your kids live online, are digital natives and run the technology in your house? Then all kids must be like that (though I have one teen daughter who can barely figure out the remote control to our TV and I was on Faceboook before any of them).

It’s critical to remind yourself that there is no normal, there is no everyman, and you are certainly not them.  Assuming that that the way you act and how you do things or want things to be is a good guide to how others will want it is a viewpoint that leads to failure in strategy. Here are some ways that I avoid it and maybe they will work for you.

1. Identify the other – My father used the internet for business, as a government contractor, before I did.  My mother just got a home computer a couple years ago.  These are two opposing lifestyles, but both are valid.  Identify a friend or relative with an opposing world view from yours and use them as a persona when considering strategy.
2. Follow the 5% not the 80% – When looking at data the  majority is seductive.  What are most people doing, let’s cater to them.  But how about the outliers?  The 5% of people.  Are they the trailing edge or the early adopters.  Why are the doing what they are doing rather than going with the herd?  People do things for a reason; take the time to understand theirs.
3. Acknowledge that people do things for a reason – Remember that day when you realized that people aren’t just evil to be evil and that they wrongly thought that they are doing the right thing?  I know that it was a whole new way of thinking about Darth Vader.  Anyway people typically don’t do things for no reason.  They do things because of some benefit, no matter how small.  They do things because they are a little easier than doing something else.  They do things because it is a habit.  Find those reasons and walk a mile in those shoes for a new experience.

Give those a shot and see if they don’t help you avoid the most dangerous of delusions and in the comments let me know if you have other ways of avoiding the “focus group of one.”

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...