“I went to school on Tom’s ideas!”
Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com
A Clear Eye.
On customers, brands and marketplace success
by Tom Asacker
“I went to school on Tom’s ideas!”
Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com
« How to do viral video | Main | Exchange creates change »
A recent study has found that most people are as fixed in their habits and unadventurous as worker ants, staying close to home and following the same routes every day. For six months, researchers from Northeastern University in Boston used personal cell phones signals to track the movement of 100,000 Europeans who had no idea they were being tracked (don't worry, the researchers never knew the identities of any of those studied).
The goal was to plot the average person's daily comings and goings. Most people, the study found, rarely leave the vicinity of their home or office, remaining within a 20-mile radius almost all the time. The subjects in the study visited the same places over and over, and could usually be found in the same spot at the same time.
Many insights can be gleaned from this "news," including the strategic importance of store location and the critical imperative of making sure that people always "feel good" about their routines. But here's what struck me: It's clear from the study results that people live their lives primarily in their own heads. So when you're with people, when you see them or imagine them, try to feel the reality of their experience. And that experience is not really about the world around them. Rather, it's about the world within them.
Note: Never underestimate how much people dislike change. A Romanian village recently re-elected Mayor Neculai Ivascu even though he died shortly before the election. Ivascu had been mayor for nearly 20 years. “I know he died, but I don’t want change,” said one voter.
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"Tom is timely, thought provoking and all about the new brand vision packaged as a Seinfeld stand up. I went to school on his ideas."
- Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com and CEO, Eons.
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I found the juxtaposition of this post and the one above it - Exchange creates change - very interesting. Do you realize how much the revelation of the second post makes implementation of the first so difficult?
Posted by: Jeff | June 27, 2008 at 06:31 AM
Indeed I do Jeff. :) Thanks for pointing that out.
Posted by: Tom Asacker | June 27, 2008 at 11:11 AM