I started this post title with a question. Why?
Children are beautiful at asking uninhabited questions as they have such an insatiable thirst to understand the newness of the world around them. As adults, we still seek to understand things, but the newness fades as we age and our cerebral accumulation of knowledge and answers, becomes the go-to, muscle-memory of our minds. With accumulated knowledge, we tend to ask fewer questions as experiences tally up to "I know it all” answers. Again, this is why I prescribe to the belief that we are all better served to see ourselves as always learning—practitioners, not as know it all—experts.
Because of this, I’ve seen people in early stage brand building, creative moments, skip over the important steps of curiosity questioning and go right to pre-harvested data for answers. This isn’t a criticism of valuable, factual data as something worthy but more of an understanding of how it that data needs to be questioned as well in order to best serve people. Data is only as good as it is interpreted, and sometimes it can be flawed, or interpreted without full context of the complexities of a particular situation. This is where basic, human, critical thinking and genuine curiosity in seeking the truth can be the difference.
When evaluating data that is in the pursuit of calculating new ideas. Humans need to be critical of what they are seeing in the data, challenging it at every intersection of the decision-making process to make sure the data is valid, before a commitment and trust in it is adopted. The creative process is messy. Asking questions and questioning data early in a creative process is healthy in achieving a valid outcome. Challenging data-driven ideas with hypothetical creative ideas begins with words like “What if?”. The creative outcomes from questioning everything can then be tangibly applied as creative concepts, then tested themself in controlled focus groups, or against any gathered quantitative or qualitative data.
Pure, innocent questioning is born out of someone’s own curiosity drive-train. Curiosity is the motor forward thinking, of creative ideas and creates the opportunity to advance ideas that change behaviors and lead to better designed outcomes.
Because of this thought, I stumbled upon a book I’m about to read by asking GOOGLE a search question — curiosity in the age of data? The book is Curious, by author Ian Leslie. I’m excited to read his take on the understanding of our most powerful, motivational forces we wield as sentient beings.
Has anyone read it? If so, what did you think? Did it change how you thought about being curious?