I can’t stop thinking about an article I read last week in the New York Times about a patient with a rare disorder who was given a second chance at life thanks to an unconventional, AI-derived, combination of drugs including one that was ‘repurposed.’ While the idea of finding uses for medicines other than the ones for which they were originally developed and approved isn’t new, I love when the ‘ah ha’-ness of the answer to the problem is found in seeing what’s already available through a different lens.
Accelerating problem-solving takes curiosity and discipline. The path includes deep connection to the stakeholders, fresh insights, and contextual understanding. It also takes openness to the idea that the solution may not require the creation of something completely new. Adding AI helps immeasurably. When successful, a win found in a ‘repurpose’ can be huge. For the patient featured in the NYT article, it literally saved his life.
Communications solutions benefit from this approach, too. I refer to this – very unoriginally, I hasten to add — as finding the answer hidden in plain view. I’m not talking about tweaking a good idea a competitor came up with or anything that smacks of borrowed interest. That’s just lazy. Rather, I’m talking about seeing a challenge with a willingness to look at and under the stones. Using machine learning can help identify the right stones faster and more efficiently.
I was first intrigued by the ‘hidden in plain view’ strategy after reading a book by virtually the same name, by Erich Joachimsthaler. Erich is a business strategist and thought leader. We knew each other from chatting during our sons’ soccer games when the boys were small. Following our acquaintance on the sidelines, often in driving rain, we also did a little work together.
Erich’s basic idea was to teach leaders, whether C-suite or marketing, to become “unbiased observers of stakeholders’ consumption and usage behaviors.” Learning and then refining this skill, he said, would help companies spot the opportunities that are there for the taking and then capitalise on them to generate organic growth through products, services, solutions and experiences that would “truly enhance people’s lives.” His book includes examples of how GE Healthcare, P&G and others used this strategy successfully.
He also warned that not doing this work risks leaving revenue on the table for collection by a competitor. Consider this example he includes from Sony: Its success with consumer innovations like the Walkman blinded it to obvious changes in how, when, and where people wanted their music. Competitor Apple, capitalised on those changes in demand with the iPod, providing a new way of listening to music and of managing one’s entire music library. Although the example is dated, the insight remains timeless.
I adapt this approach to communications challenges all the time with the certainty that if we really know what our clients’ stakeholders want, what frustrates them, how they live, where and from whom they get trusted information and which day part they want to receive it, we know where to begin our search and build out the solution, including the potential for spotting a ‘repurpose.’
The first step is to mine the data. Most of our clients in healthcare companies we work with have reams of it. Companies in other spaces do, too–constant market and stakeholder temperature taking is not unique to healthcare. The thing about data is that these are only valuable when used – turning the findings over for fresh insights and intel. We supplement this with our own digging to uncover papers and case studies in industries and products we consider adjacent. Again, AI tools are amazing here. I have written about this before but a big key about AI is that it delivers the same information to everybody super quickly. The differentiator is our human capabilities – psychology, sociology, emotion, empathy—that we bring to its interpretation.
That brings us to the psychology and human nature – and for this, I turn to my favorite sources, Amos Tversky, Daniel Kahneman and Richard Thaler. I learn something new every time I read, or re-read their work, even their formative writings.
Then, we consider elements of future-readiness—trends, sources of influences and risk scenarios. In an uncertain world such that ours is today, this work is a must and invaluable.
Ultimately, there are many ways to create or find communications solutions. And a seeker will find valuable and illuminating published case Studies and industry leaders who share their own methods. One thing that is universal is the satisfaction in landing on and then selling-in a communications solution that is grounded, real-world, cost-effective, successful and yields value across a business. For me, ‘discovering’ it in plain view is that much sweeter.
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