Listen up, researchers. I’ve got some tough love for you.

We too often mis-classify facts as insights. Boring, run-of the-mill facts presented as if there’s something new and wonderful to them. Findings that could have been thought of without doing fieldwork, copy that leaves audiences asking, “So what?” Then, because we are scrambling to create a captivating story, we clutter our deliverables by making them long – throwing the kitchen sink at it so speak, in hopes that something will stick with our audience. I’m tired of making the audience work for it. I bet so are they.

Instead, I want an insight to stun me, make my heart beat a little bit faster. I want an insight to wake me up at night and make me grab a pen.

Insights should change our worldview, change our actions, but too often, the threshold of “insight” isn’t strong enough. So let’s change. Let’s be rigorous, over the top demanding, in what an “insight” is. Is this idea something you are so passionate about that you would want to tell it to a stranger? Is it something so emotionally captivating that you kinda well up when you think about it? Can you explain it in a sentence or less? Does it make your blood boil because of someone’s current plight?

Above all, insights must be meaningful, stimulate creative thinking, and most importantly, must have an inherent tension to them. Frustrations. Wish lists. Workarounds and hacks. The unstated need. This tension is what leads to breakthrough product and marketing ideas. As researchers, we should search for them high and low because they are like gold. So let’s go looking for gold while in the field. Something new. Something emotional. Something tension filled. That’s our charge.