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Strategists, Planners, Graphic Designers, Experience Architects (XA), Developers and Writers are basing strategic decisions off of phenomenon without knowing why the phenomenon exists. Is this a smart move or just ballsy?

The New York Times has an article in its Ping section on the business of ‘link sharing’. As you’ll notice visiting any site designed in the past 18 months, virtually every page and every article features some type of toolbar or list, which enables the user to post that article on their Facebook profile, ‘Digg’ it, ‘Stumble Upon’ it, Tweet or re-tweet it, etc. The hope is that readers will serve as article evangelists and generate awareness amongst their ‘friends.’

You know what: it really works. My news sources these days are the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and generally whatever people post on their Facebook profiles. One of my colleagues loves posting interesting obits. A friend from gradeschool – before 3rd grade! – is in charge of social media for Schwarzenegger and posts cool articles on the power of Twitter . A recent colleague and friend ensures I know everything that’s going on with the latest and greatest technology, always with a bit.ly link, so I can read more.

As much as I’m ambivalent about new technology, I am astounded at the evolution of information communication. I do love it, but I wonder which human impulses are driving the tremendous growth of information dissemination:

• Craving connections
• Our desire to know as much as possible, in a timely way
• Positioning ourselves as ‘know-it-alls’
• Journalistic passions
• Triumph of being ‘first’
• ‘Do gooder’ practice of disseminating information for our friends’ benefit
• The need to feel busy all the time, regardless of the productivity’s value

These types of questions may be impossible to answer via quantitative or qualitative studies, because the subjects might not have a clear understanding of their actions or might have a necessarily subjective (and typically altruistic) interpretation of their behavior.

This points to the fundamental problem of planning: basing strategy on subjects’ opinions of their actions, which are inherently biased. Analytics gurus have shown that analyzing clickstreams can show what and how a phenomenon is happening, but it doesn’t help explain why it’s happening. Even if we were to ask consumers why, they might have a tendency to sway their answers towards our pre-formulated why. It could be because most of time people don’t really know why. It’s just them acting intrinsically.

At times, it seems planning requires a leap into philosophy to fulfill its promise of insight and inspiration. How often is the planner subject to his own biased perspective on phenomena? It may be more often than we realize.

Jonathan Cohen