understanding, relating, and planning

Not too long ago, I started thinking about how often we say, "I don't understand when/why people do _____." I got to thinking that it's something of a disservice to the term "understand," in the sense that the understanding is the easy part. Example: I may say "I don't understand why people hang toilet paper underhanded," but the truth of it is that there's usually only a small set of reasons why toilet paper ends up in such a way, all easily understandable.

What I decided is that by "understand" we more accurately mean "relate." As in, "I don't relate to the resolution crowds who pack into $40+/month gyms each day from 7-8pm Jan-Feb." I can certainly understand why it happens, it's just not my cup of tea. So I've been using "relate" a lot more frequently.

So I had this inspiring conversation today with Nguyen Duong from Needs vs Wants. He told me he had been doing some thinking on relate/understand, and had brought the idea to the planner level. We got to talking about how important it is for planners to not just understand audiences, but truly and deeply relate to them. To live and breathe their lives, even if only for a day. Especially when it means experiencing something entirely new that you haven't "understood" before.

It's such an important part of being a planner, and we had a lot of other great thoughts around it that I'll be sharing with you tomorrow.