Our Thoughts
Casey Butler Harwood
That Je Ne Sais Quois: The Human Element in Marketing
Why instinct and psychological insight are as important to successful marketing as analytics.
A few months back, we Drawnies had a conversation about explicit and tacit knowledge. Explicit knowledge is the knowledge that you can convey to others using words. Tacit or passive knowledge is often difficult (impossible?) to explain verbally; it’s the stuff that you simply know. You’ve picked it up along the way and internalized it, putting it to use quite regularly — expertly, even — often without giving it a thought. It’s estimated that up to 95 percent of our knowledge is tacit. I believe that it’s this kind of instinctive knowledge that propels successful marketing careers.
"Tacit or passive knowledge is the stuff that you simply know. You’ve picked it up along the way and internalized it, putting it to use quite regularly — expertly, even — often without giving it a thought. It’s estimated that up to 95 percent of our knowledge is tacit."
"While data is now more abundant and important than ever, a marketing team will never be complete without people who have a deep understanding of human psychology."
