Throughout history there are concepts and symbols that seek to demonstrate life’s balance between structurally opposed poles. The most recognized is the Yin/Yang symbol and concept, others are the archetypes of modern psychology.

Polar conflict defines life in many ways including marketing research and innovation. Just as the Pivot and Preserve conversations lately there is a battle in research between the Gut and the Data. Even in the Bible there is a warning about Zealots. In research data or one person’s point of view can be a trap.

The data trap is easy to fall into as there is rarely an absolute point that satisfies all questions. We have all experienced the paralysis of analysis or jumped through hoops for a single client only to discover it was just and idea that didn’t pan out! UGH!

Then there is the gut only person who follows bright shinny objects. Each flash of glitter resulting in a tacking maneuver that never seems to find the shoreline anywhere. I had a client recently that had 20 plus products in what they called a “closed-loop-fully-integrated- complete solution”. So what was your fist clue that it was no solution at all but a lack of direction and ability to complete. For this company there was also weak understanding of distribution and willingness to sell but we can talk about that next week