Through the lens: Seeing the people behind data

"I'm a cyclist, that’s how I have always defined myself." This is how a middle-aged man presented himself during a workshop that we facilitated for Copenhagen Cycle Secretary. The statement surprised me because during an in-depth interview a few weeks earlier he said he drove his car on trips around the city almost every day. He saw himself as a cyclist, even though his behaviour would show him as a driver.

A core concept in market research is consumer insight. It is a slightly misleading term, if you start to think a little about it in an innovation context. Firstly, it reduces the people to consumers and thereby narrows our research focus to use and purchase of products. Secondly, it is based on a hidden premise that consumers must create value for your business, rather than vice versa: how do you create value for people.

The former Mayor of Bogotá (the capital of Columbia), Antanas Mockus, used very non-traditional methods when he created significant changes in a South American metropolis with massive problems.