Comfortable Disorientation

Listening to people talk green

 

A few weeks ago the following conversation bubbled up in a group:

There’s all this new thing about the carbon footprint and how many miles and what have you...

Oh don’t mention that! I had someone stop me in the street about that and they put me in The Evening Post! They said, ‘do you know what carbon footprint is?’, and I said ‘no’, because I didn’t.  Obviously you do.

If we use local produce or predominantly British ingredients then it’s not coming in from foreign countries or whatever and it’s not using so much petrol and things...

I’d never heard of it.

It’s very popular at the moment.  Something to do with how many flights you take, or how many miles you do in your car.

They’re talking about the unnecessary. Not doing the unnecessary...

I suppose it’s all to do with the ozone layer, protecting the ozone layer...

Or is it more like Fair Trade or Organic? 

Is that what they’re trying to say there?

What's interesting is that this response arose in the context of a group and stimulus that had nothing to do with green issues.  Inadvertently, the stimulus triggered something that was lurking below the surface of the womens consciousness.  The issues may not be top of mind, but people are soaking them up, unconsciously looking out for them or expecting to see them.

Understanding is partial and fragmented, often different issues are confused.  Some know more than others and pieces of information are being casually transferred like gossip. Terms like 'carbon footprint' become sticky because they're evocative and give us a feeling of knowing.  I sense that many of us feel we should understand more about this stuff than we do - but are not (yet?) sufficiently motivated to seek the information out.  Besides, anyone who makes a toe-dip attempt to find out more, soon discovers that the issues are terrifyingly complex and come with no easy answers. So we wait until the information comes to us, via all our normal communication channels.  "They'll tell us what we really need to know".

Green and ethical issues are just beginning to trickle in to what I find myself researching.  Apart from a climate change project early last year (pre An Inconvenient Truth - how different the response would be if we re-ran that project now), there's been nothing until the last few months.  Now it feels like the opening of floodgates, it's going to become a pervasive theme, just like health and healthy eating have been over the last five years or so.

There seems to be a similarity in how people approach world issues and healthy eating concerns.  I get the feeling that treating subjects like climate change as world health issues helps us to make sense of them.  The way conversations play out is fascinatingly similar.

Wobbles

This is a note to self really.

Sometimes when you're doing a group or an interview (or whatever) and everything's going smoothly, you stumble across a wobble.

Lets say for instance you are researching new ideas, putting them in front of a group of people and exploring their responses. Everyone seems to like an idea and are happily telling you why it's so great, but then you get hit by a wobble. It can be almost imperceptible - a slight pause of discomfort; a quaver of doubt; a teeny concern that is virtually whispered before being discounted. Perhaps you choose to probe it further and the group gamely considers the issue, but decides it's irrelevant. Or, perhaps they refuse to entertain it at all; the person who initially whispered it backtracks "I was just being silly, ignore me".

As a researcher you are left with a nag and the problem of knowing what to do with it. Suggesting it might be a bigger issue is unlikely to make you popular, just when you were already feeling on shaky ground to your lack of hard evidence. Or you could ignore it altogether, sticking to a straightforward story and convincing yourself it's the right thing to do.

It's not an easy one to navigate. But an inconvenient little wobble in a research context, could mean something more significant in real life. I think we have a duty to report them. Carefully.

Interview tips from the stars

What are your top interviewing tips?
Spend time with the person before you sit them down, have a laugh and put them at ease. Preferably get them blind drunk, then tape them making a series of terrible indiscretions.

Not sure the MRS would approve of Piers "I'm at the top of the A-list" Morgan's advice in today's Metro, but he cracks me up!

Spinach, at work

Richard Woods is a photographer we sometimes collaborate with on projects. He specialises in journalistic, documentary style photography and we work with him when tasked with enlightening our clients about the context of people's lives. He recently turned the tables on us, asking if he could use Spinach as a work-place case study.  This meant he spent two full days with us, watching and taking pictures. 

It's always useful to experience what you normally put others through.  Becoming someone else's subject I discovered that is almost, but not completely, impossible to let go of self-awareness when you know you're being scrutinised. 

Here are a few of his pictures of us, at work, trying to ignore the photographer.

 

More picture's here on this Flickr set

A few blogs by qual researchers

I'm a little rushed for time so this is not an exhaustive list, just those I had to hand. Do let me know if you're aware of any more:

Conversations with Dina
A qualitative researcher (and a whole lot more besides) based in Mumbai. Hers was the only research blog I found when I was looking for inspiration to start my own.

All This ChittahChattah
Steve Portigal, based in San Francisco has also been blogging for a long time now, though I only discovered him recently.

This Blog Sits At The intersection of Anthropology and Economics
The wonderful Grant McCracken, I'm not sure he'd approve of me lumping him in here as a qual researcher. His posts are typically long and densely thought-provoking - I have to remember to read them only when I have time to appreciate them properly. I love his recent stuff on cloudiness

furtherandfaster
John Griffiths is another researcher plus a lot more. I met him at a coffee morning where he gave me a pear from his garden, so he's very nice to boot!

art of conversation
A fairly new blog written by researchers at UK qual agency Wardle Maclean.

The Nursery - Blog
Another UK qual agency with a blog. I like the way they talk about the experience of doing qual research. I used to work with Emily, and she's great (I think she must be close to the top of my 'people I really must contact, it's been so long it's embarrassing' list)

The Qualitative Research Blog
I found this by searching Technorati. Unlike most of us, Reshma focuses on qual (though she's also a hypnotherapist)

Should I post more about qual research?

I've talked myself out of this post more than once over the last few months. But now I'm drinking red wine, feeling reckless and have decided to go with it come what may...

I didn't start this blog with the intention of it being about what I do for a living. Though perhaps this is untrue - after all, my first post asked why there seemed to be so few qual researchers in the blogosphere. I feel uncomfortable writing about it for a number of reasons, here are just a few:

- Some planners read this blog, and I worry about teaching proverbial grandmothers to suck eggs
- In the online world, research often gets a lot of stick and I'm rubbish at arguing
- I'm chicken
- The mechanics of qual are much less interesting than what you learn from doing it. But I'm always wary about being too open with the interesting stuff because it feels 'owned' by my clients

A couple of things recently have got me thinking I really ought to address it a bit more: An email asking if I knew of a qual equivalent to russell's planning blog (I've found a fair few blogs by qual researchers - I'll do a round up tomorrow - but none that perfectly fit the bill); and this conversation with John Grant.

So, as being scared is no reason not to do something, what do you think? Should I post more about what it is that I do, or carry on as normal? Are you sat there with burning questions about the dark art of qual research? Or, do you have a load of qual-related gripes you want to get off your chest? If so, I hereby declare open season...

(I've always flouted the rule of asking just one question at a time)

Post-group nonsense

Before I head off to play in the snow for a week, I thought I'd post this. I wrote it about 6 months ago, while sitting in a hotel room, wondering whether 1 glass of red wine would be sufficient to overcome my wired post-group energy. I decided not to post it at the time, thinking (sensibly) that I might not be so keen on the idea in reflection. I've just found it again now and am obviously feeling braver. It's almost unedited.

Spend too much time online and you will start to think that focus groups are the root of all evil. And you know, they're just a tool - but crikey, sometimes they can be interesting.

Tonight I ran two groups. The first was slow, stuttery and awkward. I was feeling around, sometimes flailing. The stuff that was there was very, very interesting, I just couldn’t always quite get a it. In the second group things just clicked: it had pace; it was dynamic; it was fascinating.

In those 4 hours, I discovered so much. I think the people in the groups did too. We were all exploring, questioning, wondering. Most of all we were expressing things that had been there all along, we just had never seen them before. Or, if we had, never thought to mention them. Right now I am purposely not thinking too much about it. I know if I try to make sense of it all I will spoil it. I need to let the back of my brain take over and find the connections that are there.

The last thing I want is to become a qual research apologist, but sometimes I get so much out of doing groups, I’m astonished that people hate them so much.

Have fun while I'm gone!

"I like your shoes"

It's always nice to receive a compliment. And when you're complimented by a 4-year-old, you know it's heartfelt.

I've spent the last couple of days exploring how pre school kids spend their time in front of the TV and online.   Watching and interacting with them whilst chatting to their mums about how different their experience seems to us, has been fascinating.  Having also overheard this conversation at the weekend, I've been doing a bit of thinking about youth. 

Whenever I get an opportunity to research youthy-type stuff, I experience both a personal anxiety (just how old and uncool am I going to look?) and a professional anxiety (is their experience going to be incomprehensible to me?).  Thankfully, my fears on the latter have alwaysbeen unfounded - I generally find their thoughts, concerns and attitudes painfully familiar even if their lifestyle and experience is different. 

I was going to expand on this, but Anastasia Goodstein does it much better than I can. Anastasia is something of an expert on youth issues, particularly with regard to technology.  She writes two blogs: Ypulse , aimed at marketing professionals; and Totally Wired aimed at parents, teachers etc.  My favourite posts are those where she explains how many 'new' youth behaviours are just technology enabled manifestations of the stuff we used to get up to, like this one on cyberbullying. 

Amazing people

An inescapable fact of this job I do is that you meet a lot of people.  We call them respondents, but really they're just people.  A lot of them are lovely, many are fascinating or unusual, a few are infuriating, just occasionally you meet someone truly special - someone that touches your life and changes it.

About five years ago I met a man named Jack, who fit this mould.  An man in his 70's with who exuded such energy, passion, creativity and curiosity about the world that he managed to totally change my perspective on life after just a couple of hours spent in his company. Often, when I am confused or frustrated I recall him, and ask myself 'what would Jack say to me now?'

It happened again on Friday with an amazing lady called Kathy.  I was lucky enough to spend a whole afternoon in her company - we ate together, shopped, explored and conversed - yet I knew immediately that she was something different because she kissed me as I entered her house.  What made Kathy special is much harder to pin down - in many ways she was unremarkable.  But there was something there, I can only say that time spent with her gave me a deep feeling of profound peace. I know I'm not the only person to have seen this in her - she described how many people she helps out in different ways, it was obvious they are all drawn to her ability to make everything feel ok.

It's worth noting that the only times I have uncovered such individuals is when I have gone to their homes and spent longer periods of time with them one-on-one.  I wonder how many other 'special' people I have met but not had chance to appreciate?