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Issue 11 - January 2008 CONTENTS - Recession - A Time To Demonstrate Real Insight - Are You Politically Correct? - On political intelligence - Meet the Client - Enthusiastic Eve - Nurture a Good Nature - Recruit for attitude not aptitude - The Wicked Web We Weave - Learning Web 2.0 skills - Courses - next 3 months
INTRODUCTION Welcome to the 11th edition of 5-Minute Insights, the e-mail newsletter from Steve Wills and Sally Webb at Customer Insight Solutions (CI Solutions). We hope that in the few short minutes that it takes to scan the key messages, you will find snippets that are both informative and stimulating. If you want to find out more, we have provided links to longer articles for some of the insights.
INSIGHT IN PRACTICE RECESSION - A TIME TO DEMONSTRATE REAL INSIGHT
So, don’t wait for a recession to arrive before trying to work out what you need to do. You need to:
This could help to make your team indispensable during the recession, which afterwards will give you an ideal springboard for taking you all on to ever greater things! For a more detailed exploration of this topic please click here.
ARE YOU POLITICALLY CORRECT?
If you want insight to be taken seriously, you need to get your organisation’s key decision makers on board - otherwise your recommendations probably won’t be implemented. There are three key rules to achieving this:
Ultimately, you need to develop strong networks and relationships across different functions and at all levels. The more influential people that you have in your ‘court’, the better your chance of success! For further details, please click here. ENTHUSIASTIC EVE This is the latest in a set of 'pen portraits' of different types of internal clients, and the issues you may need to address when working with them.
Enthusiastic Eve Eve is a bit of a human dynamo – she is bursting with energy, enthusiasm and all sorts of ideas and can be very good at setting projects in motion. However, she unfortunately has little or no discipline. Although she may be good at initiating projects, she then tends to move on faster than you can complete the work. It’s difficult to pin her down so that you can get a detailed brief, and difficult to keep her attention for long. The best way of handling Eve is to find a way of harnessing her energy:
Encourage her good points so that you have a good working relationship with her – you should then be able to carefully address her bad points! For a few more thoughts about how you can control Eve’s enthusiasm, click here.
DEVELOPING SKILLS NURTURE A GOOD NATURE
When you are recruiting, look for enthusiastic candidates who have a positive, proactive attitude. As long as they also have a reasonable level of ability, they will usually achieve more than people with higher skill levels but with a negative attitude. To bridge any skills gaps, you can send them on training courses, and encourage ‘on the job’ learning. You could even encourage them to join one of our stimulating and comprehensive insight skills training courses! A well-rounded team Insight team will have a blend of people with two types of skills:
Most people tend to be stronger in one of these two areas, but you need a mixture within your team. Meanwhile, keep a look out for enthusiasm. It’s an infectious quality, so nurture and encourage it whenever you find it! To find out more about developing the right skills in the right people, please click here.
THE WICKED WEB WE WEAVE
Through over-familiarity, most people now underestimate the potential future impact of the Internet. Insight teams therefore need to:
We also need to recognise that our age affects our view of the web. So learn from your kids (if you have any). Actively encourage the younger members of your team to take the lead in monitoring its impact, and in keeping the rest of your team up to date. For more ideas in this area, please click here.
TIP OF THE MONTH YOUR NUMBERS UP!
But one of the main barriers to effective commercial thinking is simple maths! Watch Dragon’s Den and ask yourself “What is the key thing that so often ruins a pitch to the Dragons?” The answer is the person’s failure to show that they are good with numbers. What do the Dragons do when listening to every pitch? They sit and work out, using simple mental arithmetic, what the idea is worth. Unfortunately, a general adeptness at mental arithmetic is all too rare – even in Insight teams who deal with numbers all day long! So set yourselves tests: buy one of those ‘brain training’ games (for instance, as used on the Nintendo DS) – and just practise, practise, practise. See below for details of the next Commercial Thinking course
TRAINING Now with a regular 6-monthly programme, these are the courses coming up. Or contact us if you want to run one as an in-house course. Insight management: from vision to reality: 5th Feb 2008 Commercial thinking: 13th Mar 2008 How to communicate for maximum impact: 3rd Apr 2008 Click here for more details, and to book
FEEDBACK We want 5-Minute Insights to be as useful as possible. That's where you come in! Please email us at feedback@cisolutions.co.uk with any comments you have about its content, its style, or with requests for items that you would like to see. If you have a difficult problem that you are having trouble solving - such as a Marketing Director who insists on ignoring unwelcome insights; or an issue that is challenging your team on the journey towards insight - please let us know. If we can make helpful suggestions we will, and if several people have a similar problem, we will write an article for 5-Minute Insights. If you would like to pass this newsletter on to your colleagues, please feel free to do so. Equally, if you know anyone who would like to be added to the mailing list, please let us know. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.
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The prospect of a recession is an ideal time to find out if your Insight team has made the transition from being reactive to being proactive. It’s the time when a company needs to really understand how the market is changing and how it should respond. It therefore gives an Insight team a chance to give a powerful demonstration of its value.
Success for an Insight team (as for many other teams and individuals) can depend more upon not what you know, but who you know. This could make the difference between being just a backroom department or being an influential team.
"It's your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude." - Zig Ziglar, motivational speaker and trainer.
Recent Internet developments such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Second Life may not be the favourites of anyone over 40! However, becoming adept in the use of web-based communication and networking tools is one of the most useful skills you could develop at the moment.
If you want to develop your commercial skills, try doing regular mental arithmetic tests with your team, such as the daily Mind Gym in the Telegraph or the same kind of test in the Daily Mail. Over the last couple of years we have been running courses on Commercial Thinking to help Insight teams to see and present their work in more commercial terms. The benefits are huge – both in helping you to prioritise your work, and also in giving your results real impact.