I recently read an article about a company called Cue Ball who have discovered another effective way to get consumer insight.  They ask customers what they are doing three minutes immediately before and three minutes after they use their product or service.

One of their products provided investment analysts with financial earnings data.  When they applied the three-minute rule — they discovered that immediately after getting their data, their customers were painstakingly importing it into Excel and reformatting it. This observation led them to prioritize developing a more seamless Excel plug-in feature with enhanced formatting capability over other product development initiatives. The result was an almost immediate and very significant uplift in sales.

The three-minute rule also helps highlight unique cross-selling opportunities such as finding out that disposable cameras are often bought straight after the purchase of new born nappies.

The three minute rule is useful to overcome product myopia, produce cross selling opportunities and design better (and more lucrative) selling experiences. Customers seek solutions, but you might only be providing part of one.  The three-minute rule is a forcing mechanism to see the bigger picture and adjacent opportunities.

Currently we have 1.5 million children in England who are overweight or obese, which increases their risk of health problems such as type 2 diabetes, cancer and heart disease.

The National Heart Forum has significantly downgraded its forecasts of a continued rise in obesity among children in England, following a new analysis of data. The rate of increase in childhood obesity may be starting to slow. It now predicts that by 2020 the proportion of boys aged 2-11 who will be overweight or obese will be 30% (not 42% as previously predicted) and for girls they now predict 27% not 48%. A similar trend his being observed in other countries, such as the US, France and Denmark.

The researchers said it was not clear why obesity levels might have levelled off, but thought government interventions and media coverage may have played a role. From my experience of talking to mothers and children about food over the last 18 months, I would certainly agree.

Parents constantly mention the new school programmes which focus on healthy eating. They are even bemoaning when their kids tell them the food they provide is not healthy enough! I believe it’s the kids who are dragging their parents kicking and screaming towards healthier eating, as their schools educate them on what they should be eating and the consequences of not doing so.

My hope is that this next generation of kids will be more thoughtful when feeding their children, rather than setting their kids out on a lifetime of illness, easily prevented by a simple change in diet.

1. “Research is for the guidance of wise men and the obedience of fools.” (Steve Dunn)

2. “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts – for support rather than for illumination.” (Andrew Lang)

3. “Research stops you making mistakes, but it does not produce ideas.” (Anon)

4. “The important thing is not to stop questioning.” (Albert Einstein)

5. “Research is the process of going down alleys to see if they are blind” (Marston Bases)

(Borrowed with pride from all over the place)