Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends

great brands have two advantages: (1) they evoke respect for their technological performance, durability, and effectiveness; and (2) they evoke love because, well, . . . we love them.

what are instincts if not experiences and observations accumulated over time that enable a person to make fast conclusions without knowing precisely how?

allow us to make sense of the culture we inhabit, but these same glasses can blind us to things outsiders pick up immediately.

in a transparent, overpopulated world where we spill our inner lives online, more than ever the concept of “privacy” and “exclusivity” has become the greatest luxury of all.

children attain social currency among their peers by playing and achieving a high level of mastery at their chosen skill, whatever that skill happens to be.

contrasts between people’s day-to-day lives and their unacknowledged or unmet desires,

I look for patterns, parallels, correlations and, not least, imbalances and exaggerations.

outsiders often see a culture’s idiosyncrasies better than the natives.

What desires lie in the gap between perception and reality, between reality and fantasy, between people’s conscious and unconscious fantasies? What are the imbalances inside the culture? What is there too much of, or too little? What desires aren’t being fed?