The good of pigeonholing
In light of the zeitgeist, you could say – from an ethical point of view – that we should stop pigeonholing altogether. That we should throw personas and profiles overboard. But still, categorisation is a useful basic principle that helps us understand the world. There is a pigeonholer in each of us, as professor of social psychology Daniël Wigboldus explains .
Well-executed customer profiles or personas can therefore be a valuable tool, which, based on that pigeonholing principle, offers handles to, for example, improve customer experience in a very targeted manner. Data-driven customer profiles and personas help employees to recognize customers and, by aligning with needs and living environment, to offer them a better experience. Furthermore, they can help you, when solving social problems or initiating changes, to sketch (future) images that people want to go along with.
Categorization is a useful basic principle that helps us make sense of the world: there is a pigeonhole thinker inside each of us.
Data is not neutral
But of course there are pitfalls lurking. In 2018, uae telegram data Boudewijn wrote about it extensively here on Frankwatching , also then in response to the budget shopper persona of Albert Heijn. He argues that the key question is always: what does it add to link certain data (in this case: purchasing behavior and background or even skin color)? And concludes that even if a choice is based on clear data and facts, that does not mean that the choice does not contain (or: can contain) a judgment. Moreover, data gives us a false sense of security .
Albert Heijn profiles
The profiles of Albert Heijn (image via AD.nl)
The problem is: data and segmentation are not neutral . Without losing ourselves in a philosophical discussion, we mean to say that data is always based on certain choices. In this way, so-called neutral data reproduces a certain form of reality . Moreover, this becomes a self-reinforcing effect, as we then start to quantify that form of reality. In other words: make it measurable.
It goes without saying that data has a lot to offer us. Not only does data provide a factual picture of reality, we can also discover patterns and unexpected connections in it. This strengthens the feeling of authenticity and objectivity that data gives us , argues philosopher and essayist Miriam Rasch. And that in turn leads to us increasingly focusing on translating the world into data, based on the belief 'that every phenomenon you can imagine can be translated into digital data', according to Rasch. With this data we can predict, initiate or even accelerate changes.
