Discover Valuable ‘Unknown Unknowns’ Hiding in Plain Sight! ✨ #149

What we don’t know could be a huge opportunity — if we open ourselves up to discovery.

Hey, 👋

I hope you’re doing well.

We start with a quote from ex-US secretary of state, Dom Rumsfeld:

“Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me.”

Rumsfeld was describing what was later paraphrased as ‘unknown unknowns’.

He also described:

“Known, knowns”

And when it comes to the web, we got that covered with data like:

• sales
• analytics
• CRM reports

There’s one in between. Where you know you need more information:

“Known unknowns”

But unknown unknowns fascinated Rumsfeld. I think there’s a good reason why — untapped potential.

When you don’t know what you don’t know.

That’s a tough one to take.

Your business could be missing out:

• Is there a group of people who could but don’t buy from you?
• Could you pivot your product into another market?
• What‘s your data NOT telling you?’

There’s safety in known knows and known unknowns.

But accepting there’s stuff out there you have NO clue about is scary.

Forget the fear–look at it another way: is it an opportunity for you?

Overcoming this means a fight against our own brains…

Our brains limited radar.

Our brains are wired to ignore stuff that’s not on our radar.

We cannot imagine things outside our current frame of reference.

We dismiss alternatives and potential scenarios. Worse still, we never anticipate they’ll ever happen.

Ever heard of Black Swan Theory?

The science of biases.

Behavioural science suggests we have a tendency to be overconfident in our knowledge and abilities.

We say stuff like:

“That‘s never gonna’ happen in a million years.”

Then it does. Think global pandemic, war in Ukraine and Brexit etc.

This is known as Optimism Bias.

Another bias that keeps those alien ideas at bay.

Confirmation Bias— our tendency to seek out and interpret information in a way that confirms our existing beliefs.

For example, someone who believes climate change is not caused by human activity may only look for information that supports this belief. They’ll ignore scientific studies that show the opposite.

These are both powerful biases. And yes, there are more biases but becoming aware of them is half the battle.

So what should you do?

A great way to overcome these biases is to go into the unknown unknowns space with eyes and ears wide open.

Research-wise, you’ll spend more time in the problem space rather than the solution space.

The difference between problem and solution space research.

Problem space research focuses on understanding and defining the problem that needs to be solved.

These might be problems you’re not yet aware of.

Solution space research focuses on finding and developing solutions to the problems you are aware of.

That’s all for now. Thanks for reading.

George.

PS. I’m running a webinar in Feb where we’ll cover problem and solution space. Book here.