Learnings from the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Paris

Today I spent a pleasant 2.5 hours at the musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris (which is a museum about science). As is my want, as well as enjoying the museum I opened my mind to ideas related to my field (i.e. that of deriving insights from data). Today I tried to focus on looking at the exhibits with less Western eyes, having had an interesting conversation about science with a new friend from Asia whose academic field includes the history and philosophy of science. Here are some of those thoughts.

We focus on the people, not the history.?Focusing on innovators such as Cugnot, Foucault, Pascal etc makes for a better story – more engaging and easier to remember. However, the focus on people obscures the point that most ideas have a moment in time when they will emerge, and the first to become famous is fortunate, compared to all the others who are also likely to have the same ideas. In this sense, history is about the process, not the individuals, it is about why changes happened and what were the consequences of those changes. In marketing and insights, this is similar to the problem for hunting for ‘influencers’ in situations where influence is not a key feature, for example where homophily is the key driver. Similarly, all too often in marketing we overstate the importance of a product or campaign and understate luck.

A good idea produced too early is likely to fail.?In 1769 Nicholas Joseph Cugnot produced what is widely felt to be the first self-propelled vehicle – the Cugnot Steam Tractor. However, cars and vans etc did not take off until the late 19th?Century and really springboarded with the Model T Ford from 1910. When we assess an idea we need to consider a) is it a good idea, but also b) is it the right time for this idea (e.g. do we have the supporting technology, is there a market etc). A more recent example would be the Apple Newton – a personal computer from Apple that bombed, it was the wrong time. By contrast, its descendent, the iPhone, was developed and launched at the right time. We can see a similar story with the Segway and eScooters.

Some developments lead to other developments, some are dead ends.?Exhibits such as the one on storage media (including floppy disks), the section on radios and the one on TV all show a relatively linear line of progress. However, the Minitel terminal is a great example of a dead end. Before the Internet Minitel was the world’s most successful online service. From about 1982 it was available throughout France. However, it was not aligned with where the World Wide Web went and was closed down in 2012. Japan developed powerful mobile phones that were well ahead of the rest of the world until the iPhone was released (followed by the Android smartphones). For a while, the Japanese market pressed on with its domestic phones, but they were developing separately from the rest of the world and eventually were inferior. The Japanese refer to these phones as garakai – a portmanteau word that combines Galapagos (where Darwin studied separate strands of evolution) and keitai (the Japanese word for phone). When we look at products, we need to keep evaluating whether they are on a journey somewhere, or whether they have become a dead end (in the way that Kodak film and the Blackberry phone did).

One person’s history is another’s current affairs.?There were several exhibits that I have used during my life, such as floppy disks, manual typewriters, and the Apple Lisa. There was also a model of Telstar which was launched in 1962 and which was used to transmit coverage from the Tokyo Olympics in 1964 – things which I remember clearly, and which shaped my vision of the world. For other, younger, people these items are history, but for me, they are current, in the sense that they have shaped my vision of the world. In marketing, we need to remember that customers are not necessarily the same as us. If they are younger, poorer, older, richer, more educated, less educated, differently educated, or from other cultures, their world vision will be different – which is one of the reasons why we need research.

A visual story can really help.?The most famous exhibit in the museum is probably Foucault’s pendulum. This is a ball of lead suspended on a long line from the high roof. When the ball is released, it swings backwards and forwards. But each time it swings back it has changed its position slightly, it has moved (in the Northern Hemisphere) clockwise by a small amount. This movement is caused because the Earth is spinning on its axis. I was lucky enough to see a presentation by a member of the museum staff, who set up several metal cylinders and set the pendulum swinging. As she talked through the story, the pendulum progressively knocked the cylinders over. A good reminder for us that when we share insights we need to make them accessible, and therefore combining a demonstration, an explanation and a visual aid is a good idea.?