An eye for detail

Book review

Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends, Martin Lindstrom, St. Martin’s Press 2016

Sometimes it’s the little things that count. Particularly when it comes to telling a fuller story than can be told by big data. That’s the claim of noted brand expert Martin Lindstrom, who has spent his career in and out of people’s homes, making notes of the tiny, seemingly insignificant clues we leave behind but which tell a much bigger story than most of us would guess. His latest book, Small Data: The Tiny Clues That Uncover Huge Trends is full of these surprising deductions: from the way shoes are arranged in the hall way, the exact placing of food in a fridge, the extent of bookshelves in the living room, no clue is too tiny, no detail too banal, for the purposes of extrapolation.

Alongside these Sherlock Holmesian deductions are case studies from major brands that have finessed their products or services thanks to lessons learned from small data: LEGO (which the author worked for at the age of 12), P&G and Danone are some of the cases that prove, whereas big data looks at correlation, small data illuminates causation –  the why and not just the what.

As could be expected, Lindstrom has a novelist’s eye for detail that is a pleasure to read. While there are inevitably some generalisations that will cause some to scratch their heads, the book reminds us – with our obsession with big data – that the minutiae of human behaviour is equally as rich a source of information.