People are consuming a lot of data and information on a daily or even hourly basis as they are unlimited and easily accessible especially if you have a smartphone and internet. But what people don’t and should do a lot is gathering insights. And insights can only be obtained through interaction of people and/or combining data with human’s interpretations or reading books which are merely shared thoughts and experiences by people/authors. While data is the future, it is just a tool. At the end of the day you still need the human touch.
Just yesterday, I had two different conversations with two different people whom I don’t interact on a daily basis. But I managed to gather two different insights, as follows:
- While breastfeed milk can be substituted by formula milk, the advisable duration for babies to consume either is still up to 2 years old. Once they turn 2, they can actually start drinking fresh milk. I suppose for me, I just thought that only breastfeed milk should be given up to 2 years old.
- Banks typically don’t provide loans to purchase lorries which typically range around RM50-60k. Hence people ended up taking ah long to get the funds, which is not financially healthy obviously. So there’s another underserved segment in the market which are currently not being tapped.
I wouldn’t have gathered the insights above had I not have the conversations with the 2 different people. Moral of the story, don’t be too obsessed with your phone, with the information on the internet; go meet more people, talk to different people in different walks of life. You’ll never know how their insights can benefit you be it personally or professionally.
Dayana Omar 