I notice things.
Sometimes too many things.
Dutch people carrying almost anything on a bike.
Friends sending Tikkies for €2.35.
Kids copying what their sporting heroes do.
A suspicious amount of supermarket pizza.
Tourists photographing stray cats in Greece.
Most are probably nothing.
But what if one isn’t?
Perspectives is the system I use to find out.
FROM OBSERVATION TO CREATIVE OPPORTUNITY
An observation is only a starting point.
I collect the ones that make me curious, investigate what’s happening underneath them, challenge my own assumptions and see whether there’s enough truth to build on.
The process changes depending on the project. The principle doesn’t.
NOTICE → INVESTIGATE → VALIDATE → BUILD → LEARN
With AI: challenge / research / connect / refine / prototype
Some observations survive. Some change completely. Some get killed.
That’s part of the process.
HUMAN FIRST. AI IN THE LOOP.
AI isn’t where the ideas start.
I use it throughout the process to make the thinking work harder.
AI expands the possibilities. I decide what survives.
NOT EVERYTHING MAKES IT.
SUPERMARKET PIZZA
Living in the Netherlands, I started noticing what felt like a suspicious amount of supermarket pizza.
Maybe there was something culturally interesting underneath it.
So I looked.
There was some truth in the broader Dutch relationship with simple, practical everyday food. But not enough evidence that supermarket pizza itself was particularly distinctive.
DROP.
No campaign. No clever line to rescue it. Just an observation that didn’t survive.
Strategy should validate an interesting observation, not manufacture significance around it.
BUT SOME THINGS DO
REHEARSAL
Observation
Kids don’t just admire their sporting heroes. They copy them.
Strategic turn
What athletes practise beyond their sport can be rehearsed by the next generation too.
Where it led
They practice this too.
CATS ARE NOT MONUMENTS
Observation
Kids don’t just admire their sporting heroes. They copy them.
Strategic turn
What athletes practise beyond their sport can be rehearsed by the next generation too.
Where it led
They practice this too.
STILL LEARNING
Perspectives wasn’t designed in a room and then applied to the work.
The work built the system too.
One project taught me that an observation can be true without being distinctive. Another changed the explanation I started with. Another showed me that there doesn’t always need to be a problem, sometimes there’s simply an opportunity.
Even AI getting things wrong has been useful. Convincing research routes, strategic explanations and visuals still need to be questioned, rejected or rebuilt.
Each project leaves something behind for the next one.
PROJECT → LEARNING → SYSTEM → NEXT PROJECT ↺
START HUMAN.
Use AI to expand and challenge.
Research to validate.
Judgement to reduce.
Want to go a little deeper?
INSIDE PERSPECTIVES →