The Art of Paying Attention
Why curiosity outlasts experience
When we start working on a brief, we’re already carrying something. An idea we've seen before. A solution we're hoping will be the answer. An execution we've been waiting to use. Or, more dangerously, an assumption about the audience.
The problem is that preconceived ideas don't just stop us finding better answers. They can stop us seeing any answers at all.
I learned this through photography. On a trip to Bhutan, I became fixated on recreating a photograph I'd seen online. A festival dancer caught mid-spin, his skirt frozen in motion. I knew I'd be attending a similar festival and arrived with that image already in my head.
I never got the shot. Looking back, that's hardly surprising. I wasn't really looking at what was happening around me. I was comparing everything I saw to a photograph somebody else had already taken.
‘The quickest way to miss an insight is to arrive with one’
hannah shore
You can walk into a project convinced you know where the answer lies. Sometimes experience encourages it. We learn patterns, shortcuts and frameworks. We recognise familiar challenges and start filling in the gaps before we've fully understood the problem.
But the most valuable insights rarely come from what we assume. They come from what we notice.
Working on a campaign for Facebook in Bangladesh, the breakthrough didn't come from the client briefing, or from a brainstorm. It came from spending time looking at the Instagram profiles of the women we wanted to reach. Noticing what they chose to share, how they presented themselves and what mattered enough to document. The strategy emerged from observation rather than assumption.
I found the same thing while developing a youth telco campaign in Oman. The answer emerged from conversations with young artists and creatives. Given the opportunity to create work for one of Oman's biggest brands, Ooredoo, I expected the output to be distinctly Gen Z. Young, modern and influenced by global trends. What I didn't anticipate was the pride they felt in their country.
As I worked independently with each artist, I found their work blended contemporary styles with references to Omani culture, heritage and identity. They weren't choosing between tradition and modernity. They embraced both. And they all did it.
It's not an insight I would have arrived at in a brainstorm. In fact, my own assumptions might have prevented me from seeing it altogether.
That's often where the breakthrough lies. Not in the answer we arrived with, but in the one we hadn't considered.
Experience matters. Brainstorming has its place. But experience can also become a filter, showing us only what we've already seen. The moment we become certain we know the answer, we stop looking for one.
In Closing
The best work doesn't come from certainty. It comes from staying curious long enough to see what's actually there, and being willing to let that change what you thought you knew.
