Rather than trying to use empathy as a shallow marketing tactic, empathy should become a deeper, more transformational form of compassion:1 authentic empathy can actually make a difference in people’s lives.

As an example of this principle at work, the conception and promotion of number of useful inventions can be traced back to creative people who have attempted to understand and assist the disabled. Inventions such as the bendy straw, the telephone, the typewriter and icon-based keyboards have all become popular because the inventors tried to help disabled people they knew, and then the marketing people picked up on the broader possibilities.

‘In empathising with others, we create things that we might never have created for ourselves,’1 says a Co.Design article on the subject. ‘We see past the specifics of what we know, to experiences that might actually be universal.’

Which makes authentic empathy a powerful tool for positive change.

Gaia Grant and Andrew Grant