A communication insight is not a statistic from Gartner (no offense, love the graphs).

The process (and the output) of a good communication insight looks more like the following.

Here's a short and sweet tweet storm by Mark Pollard.

How do you get to an insight?

Before you begin...

A. Define “insight” (to me, it’s an unspoken human truth that sheds new light on the problem you’re trying to solve)
B. Squad goals - collect insights from books, movies & aim for them
C. Observe constantly

Here’s how I do👇🏼
— Mark Pollard (@markpollard) July 23, 2018

1. Define the audience - but see if you can do this in an unusually specific way (most segmentation and personas lack sharpness)
— Mark Pollard (@markpollard) July 23, 2018

2. Research - collect quotes and behaviors from the audience, emphasizing the quotes that hit you in the gut (“I haven’t heard it that way before”). Collect this stuff with an open mind, no rushing.
— Mark Pollard (@markpollard) July 23, 2018

3. Stew - if you have time, let the research marinate for a bit. Top it up with books, video.
— Mark Pollard (@markpollard) July 23, 2018

4. Catch the problem - to me, the problem statement is the first insight so I start riffing on the problem behind the problem. A sentence, a phrase, a word.
— Mark Pollard (@markpollard) July 23, 2018

5. Wordplay - I look for an insight that opens up the problem, so, keeping the research in mind, I bounce thru various writing frameworks (___ but ____, ___ despite ___ etc) while keeping in mind what makes the product unique in people’s minds
— Mark Pollard (@markpollard) July 23, 2018

6. Bounce - I’ll write as many of these words and phrases on paper as I can or I catch them in Notes. I usually haven’t touched the computer other than for research at this stage.

I’ll bounce between insights and strategy statements.
— Mark Pollard (@markpollard) July 23, 2018

7. Write and tighten - I usually want 3-5 Problem-Insight-Advantage-Strategy things, then I tighten and see which linger longest.
— Mark Pollard (@markpollard) July 23, 2018

Check out Mark Pollard's full tweet storm and dig in comments from fellow strategists here.