NORTHERN PLANNER

Rob’s post about that Vodaphone Groundhog Day ad reminded me of why we’re all doomed to repeat our mistakes. And the value of doing research with people in real time, at the event.

It’s sort of obvious we’ll avoid repeating something that went badly wrong, but it’s just not that simple, since our memories are very good at misleading us and dooming us to making the same cock ups.

We don’t really remember everyday stuff, we remember the unusual. That’s why you can say where you were on September 11th but not 10th. That’s why we think we always pick the slowest supermarket checkout – we only remember the times it was a bad wait, not those times it was pretty okay. How many times have you gone WOW! This is average! Brilliant.

In other words, the least likely experience is the most likely memory. When you think about missing a train, you don’t call up those days when another one came along soon after and nothing much happened, you remember the day it really messed up your day. That makes experience very hard to learn from. How can you predict what is likely to happen if so much of is is based on what happened least? And it gets worse.

The biggest impact on our memory is the ending. That’s why couples who break up find it hard to remember when they were happy.

They post rationalise the whole relationship based on the painful end. That’s why the little the added gag after the call to action in TV ad can be so useful. You really don’t want someone remembering ‘subject to status, terms and conditions apply’ as the most powerful memory. Russell talks about ending well in presentations (Download toptentips_for_presentations1.doc ). Makes even more sense now doesn’t it?

Even scarier, cultural memes translate memory for us. We actually misremember our own past feelings and experiences based on what society has taught us to believe. Parents will tell you their children are lifes greatest joy, yet tell a researcher they are at their happiest doing things that don’t involve kids.

Like how so many people believe OTHER PEOPLE were more emotional than them when Diana died, since they believe themselves to have a stiff upper lip, thanks to how the British tend to view themselves. In some cases, if you ask a female how sad she felt after an event, she’ll believe she was more emotional than she was, so powerful is that cultural fallacy that women are more emotional than men. It can work in the opposite for men.

We even say yes to things in advance and regret it just before the time has come. Like babysitting -we agree wholeheartedly a week in advance since we’re thinking good about WHY we do it – to help, to be charitable, to be nice. But the day before we think about WHAT we’re doing – dealing with  a screaming infant, missing a Saurday night out and stuff, so it doesn’t seem so appealing.

So you can’t always rely on your own experience, in fact you can’t rely on the advice of other that have gone through it, they’ll mis-remember too.

You can talk to people who are going through it right now though. I think this kind of stuff if interesting for the sake of it, but it also shows the value of being careful where you do your research in your job, and who with. The further you are away from the real experience, with people who are not going through it now, the less valuable it will be.Like they say….