Play time
You know that feeling when someone asks a good question that just makes your brain crackle? Kids do it all the time.
Their worlds are far less defined than ours so questions like, “What are rainbows made of?” are perfectly pertinent. “Can you share the link?” has yet to enter their sphere of reality.
Last week I spent some time messing with ChatGPT from OpenAI. There are 100 reasons why it’s unreliable. There are a few folks with hot takes like, “See you later Google!”
I’m not particularly interested in either extreme but I am interested in the potential it offers. I think it opens a lane for strategists to explore how we ask questions. (Ethan Mollick wrote a great POV on how to use ChatGPT to come up with ideas.)
A critical part of how we do this job is how we ask questions. Over time we develop starting points in the form of resources (MRI, GWI, brand trackers) and frameworks (SWOT, PESTLE). From my work with startups I keep a list of about 15 questions that help me understand their business. If our minds are as active as we’d like them to be, the kind of information that comes from these standardized formats often leads to new questions: “If this is true about the product, and this is true about the audience, why do they keep choosing our competitor in times of critical need?”
Google has become a strategist’s best friend to the point to we try to hide who our best friend is; no one wants to be called a “Google planner.” Search is a powerful way to open yourself up to the depth and expanse of human knowledge and it would be absurd to shun it. ChatGPT may carry a similar stigmata for feeding our laziest instincts, but I think there’s a significant benefit to exploring a new way to ask questions of the internet — as a kid might, with a series of questions whose answers provide fodder for the next.
An imagined example, inspired by an afternoon coffee and some Miles Davis playing in the background:
When you can create some distance from it, consumer behavior is befuddling. This seminal piece from the world of sociology attempts to explore that by asking the question, “How would we see us if we weren’t us?” Out of the theoretical world and back to a real one, you may find yourself working on a brief for a breakfast or a chicken brand and ask a question like this:
Of course, that’s not the answer. And it’s definitely not one we should use without sourcing and validation. But like other sources that aren’t especially useful on their own, this gives us a prompt to ask the next question — of the internet and then of ourselves. What would make chicken the perfect breakfast food? What would we have to do to make that happen?
Kids ask questions in an unbound way that seems more like they’re expressing an irrepressible burp than a true desire for information. Last year my friend’s son asked me, “Who’s better, LeBron or Aaron Judge?” When I started to answer with “It depends how you think about…” he interjected “What about Mike Trout?!” He was just letting his mind play in the coolest way. Who cares who’s the best? It’s just interesting to think about.
The way we ask questions — IRL, of Google, of research, in ChatGPT, and of each other — can be clinical or it can be playful. We can look at research as tools or toys. We can try to validate what we know or stay open to whatever wandering path we go down.
Responsibility is the common language the business world will always come back to. Let’s pick up whatever toys we have in front of us and play a bit first.
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I write these posts, 3-MINUTE MONDAYS, every other week. My goal with them is to share a snippet of insight into how to do strategy, build teams, and grow. Comment here or message me on LinkedIn if you want to chat. — Ben
