forensic investigator of small data, or emotional DNA—a hunter, almost, of desire—a

Do any of us really know how we come across to other people? Are we aware of the haphazard sequence of small data we leave behind us every day—the rituals, habits, gestures and preferences that coalesce to expose who we really are inside? Most of the time, the answer is No.

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.

Considering that 90 percent of what people give off in conversation are nonverbal signals, our truest identities can be found by studying who we are in our real lives, cultures and countries. This amalgamation of gestures, habits, likes, dislikes, hesitations, speech patterns, decors, passwords, tweets, status updates and more is what I call small

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.

I’ve come to realize, too, that my capacity to link a single observation with another across multiple countries in the course of building or rescuing a brand amounts to a strange skill of sorts.

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.

Among them is the ongoing opportunity to observe people and the cultures they inhabit from their perspectives, and to try to answer questions like: How do groups of people form? What are their core beliefs? What do they aspire to, and why? How do they create social ties? How does one culture differ from another? Do any of these local beliefs,