Big Empathy How thinking small yields big empathy Big data is everywhere. But we humans arenot good at “big” anything when it comes to numbers. Research shows we identify with the feelings of smaller groups of people versus large Infact, when given identical scenarios, we'd sentence perpetrators who harmed three victims to longer prison terms those than those who harmed thirty. It’s called scope neglect, and it's ll around us. In short, 25 numbers scale up, our brains can’t ewiet quite scale up at the samerate. As they get too big we Sort of unconsciously subconsciously give up and channel our compassion tothe smaller data set. As marketers we suffer from this scope neglect too. The explosion of data in marketing and communications has 2 lot of people talking about “big data” and its abiity to do everything from predicting the future todevelop new products. But for every hour spent crunching the-rumbers, weneed to spend an hour focused on real, individual, people. Big empathy is the counter trend to Bbig Bdata. (or keep capitalized and do so in the next graf) To be sure, both poles are required for truly breakthrough work. gut test we use too much data,ene-we risk missing our ability totell breakthrough creative stories ‘on behalf of our clients. Here are five ways to adopt abig empathy mindset in your digital strategy teams: (or capitalize big empathy if itstays that way in the previous paragraph Social asa Focus Group Talk to your commurity manager on the front lines of branded communities on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Linkedin, and YouTube. They areor-thefronttires and know the affinities and characteristics of the audience betier than anyone. But don’t stopthere. The vast majority of user-generated content is unbranded. Seif you're using a listening dashboard tuned only to brand name mentions, you're missing 2 giant piece of puzzle, -Build in search queries designed to capture major moments along a customer journey. ‘seems like this sentance should be connactad tothe previous graflDcing so captures a broader collection of data, and ensures that important trends are ciscovered before they collide with or drift away from the brand’ core positioning.