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What Are Your Assumptions?

January 29, 2013 by Guest Author Leave a Comment

By James Ellis

closeup_donkeyPeople don’t read the web, they scan. People don’t like to click. People don’t look past the first four Google search results. People only search Google with 2-3 word search terms. People don’t open their email on the weekends. People don’t spend money online. People don’t trust strangers online. No one cares what you had for breakfast. No one will want to look at a picture of your lunch. People buy most Christmas gifts online on the Monday after Thanksgiving. No one will download a movie to watch on their phone.

All of the above statements were once considered gospel at one time. Gospel. Carved into stone tablets. Given to marketers’ children to recite every morning.

But you should all see at least one statement that you know to be patently false (in fact, I’m pretty sure that they almost all are, depending on circumstances). But they linger on, because they are based on assumptions.

These are just examples of online/web/tech assumptions that linger in the minds of people close to us (especially clients and bosses). There are plenty of business, blogging and personal assumptions we make and live by that simply aren’t true anymore (assuming they ever were).

Assumptions are the blind spots in our vision. We see them without acknowledging them every day. We work around them instead of challenging them, when challenging them is how we create success. Think of Kodak and Poloroid, who assumed we’d always want printed pictures. Think of Ford (circa 2009) who assumed Americans only bought big cars. Think of the music industry, who assumed that we wouldn’t like to download our music whenever we wanted.

Businesses fail every day because their assumptions were wrong. Businesses thrive every day because they took a chance on challenging assumptions. Think of Starbucks, who didn’t listen to the assumptions that people wouldn’t pay $5 for a cup of coffee. Think of Apple, who didn’t listen to the assumption that people didn’t want to check their email every second of the day. Think of Rick Bayless who didm’t listen to the assumption that Mexican food is cheap food.

What are the assumptions you live with every day? Are you challenging them? If you don’t, what happens when someone else does?

Author’s Bio: James Ellis is a digital strategist, mad scientist, lover, fighter, drummer and blogger living in Chicago. You can reach out to him or just argue with his premise at saltlab.com.

Photo credit: Dieter van Baarle, Flickr CC.

Filed Under: Bloggy Questions, Inside-Out Thinking, Outside the Box, Successful Blog Tagged With: assumptions, bc, challenge, innovation

Is It Time to Reassess What You Think?

August 27, 2009 by Liz Leave a Comment

STOP

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In most companies, employees are asked to participate in a yearly performance appraisal. In the good situation, the employees actually take part in evaluating their own as well as hearing what their managers think. It’s a tiring, but important process. It gets us to STOP and look at where we were and where we are now — something we often forget to do unless we make it a priority.

If we don’t stop now and then, we get stuck in thinking things that aren’t necessarily true … about ourselves and about the folks we know.

Resorting and Re-evaluating

Meet Carol. Everyone at the company thought she was a pain. Seriously. If you asked her for a phone number she’d tell you to get a pencil and paper, then spend 7 minutes reciting out 7 digits. Any sane person could have walked 7 miles to talk to the person that the phone number led to. Carol loved details. No else like details of her specific brand.

Then one day I went to work, thinking that everyone had put Carol in a box. No one liked her. People often made her a topic of conversation.

It dawned on me that I’d been going along with the wisdom of the crowd on that….

One day I decide to wipe the slate clean. I pretended I’d never met Carol that I’d never heard a word about her before. What I found was both unsettling and amazing.

I actually liked her a lot and found her affinity for detail valuable to me because I don’t like details at all.

I’d let other folks put Carol in a box and I’d kept her there.

My loss.

One reassessment and now she was a friend and a resource to me. Challenging assumptions is a great strategy.

Is it time to reassess what you think?

I make connections.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to do some strategic thinking?

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

Filed Under: Strategy/Analysis, Successful Blog Tagged With: assumptions, bc, LinkedIn, Strategy/Analysis

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