NORTHERN PLANNER

"Opening his eyes, he would know the place by the rythm of movements in the street long before he caught any characteristic detail"

Robert Musil, The Man Without Qualities.

Every place people come together has it's own, unspoken body language. If you're prepared to listen, it can tell you all sorts of things.

If you're in the midst of building your thinking, or reviewing work and you haven't met your audience there, get a move on.

Because, our mirror neurons present an invaluable gift of seeing the world through others' eyes.

Just you got excited by that song and played it to someone, only to hear it through their ears.

Just as that presentation suddenly got better once you rehearsed in front of your colleagues and experienced it from their point of view.

When go out to where your audience congregates, you very quickly see your thinking, or the work from their side of things.

You realise that what you thought was cultural dynamite was pretentious twaddle.

That the fights over that endline are not the point, this lot won't even care.

That your strategy that was fine in theory won't work in real life.

That finding a way to matter to the people will only come from starting with their lives, not their buying habits.

Suddenly you get them.

And when you get them, you can find a way to matter to them.