I recently enjoyed Nancy Ortberg's book:  "Unleashing the Power of Rubber Bands:  Lessons in Non-Linear Leadership." 

Typically, when I read a book, I'll underline things that resonante with me, or things I want to think about a bit more, and the mark of a book I really enjoy is the amount of ink on the pages and the number of pages that I dog-ear so that I remember to go back and explore the writing again...

This one looks like a heavily tatooed fat guy...so many pages are folded over, so much ink decorating the pages...notes in the margins; underlines and highlights in each chapter. 

What I loved about this book was that it contains simple metaphors and definitions for man of the leadership and strategy tenents that I leverage everyday, and because it helped me to think through my own leadership style with a healthy, growth-oriented eye.

Here's one of the simple definitions that Nancy provides:

"The disparity between the vision and the reality establishes a gap.  And what fills that gap is strategy.  Strategy answer the "how" question:  How will we move from our current reality to our preferred future?  Without a plan, the gap will remain." (p 36)

Often, I work with teams who have big dreams and can articulate their vision quite nicely.  They have lists of to-do's and steps, but don't have a way to connect them.  I've often said that strategy is what connects the tactics (the "to-dos") to the vision or the overall objectives a team or a business has...but, I think Nancy explains is much more simply and in a way that is more easily applied.

For example, if my vision is to be in great health, I may have a list of things to do:

• Eat a piece of fruit each day
• Walk up the stairs at work instead of taking the elevator (the day we have an elevator at Seek is the day we'll know we've really "made it"!)
• Have a salad for lunch today instead of pizza (I already blew that one...by the way)
• Join a gym

These are all tactics...what is the overall plan to fill the gap between today's rather sedentary life of fast food and snacks?

I need a strategies to connect my vision/objective to reality.  My strategies could be:

• Get regular exercise 3-5 times/week
• Eat a more well-balanced diet
• Ensure I'm getting proper rest

Now, suddenly, I can insert multiple types of tactis to help me reach my goals!  I can take the stairs, or take a walk, or go for a swim, or join a pilates class or dance with my kids in the living room for exercise.  I can plan out my meals across the week to make sure I'm getting a more balanced diet, and if I dont' get that piece of fruit one day, I can make up for it later in the week...see the difference?  The tactis might change over time, but the strategies are more consistent...

How can you use this thinking to help fill the gap between today's reality and your preferred future?

I've noticed a trend in business meetings and I'm wondering if you have noticed it, too.  I've noticed that very little listening is actually happening.

The biggest sign of this phenomenon, to me, is the layered cadence of our conversation style.  I've noticed that, in American business culture anyway, there is an overlap of the final few syllables of the first speaker's sentence with the first few syllables of the next speaker's sentence.  As in... as the next speaker (I hesitate to call him/her a "listener") hears the current speaker's vocal pitch and speed of delivery indicate the end of a thought, he/she begins his/her sentence while the first speaker is wrapping up.  It's actually interruption of sorts, except the first speaker generally finishes the thought while the second is piping in.

Even slightly more surprising, the first words of the second speaker's sentence are usually filler... a bit of a vocal stake in the ground to indicate that he/she is now taking control of the floor.  Words like, "well, I just think" and "now, I would say" are meaningless and generally useless (we presume that's what you're thinking, and of course we know that's you saying it), but they offer you an opportunity to let the room know you are the next in line without losing valuable information to syllabic overlap with the first speaker.  It's a little like the rhetorical equivalent putting a quarter on a billiard table while another game is going on... it says, "yeah, I know you're not QUITE finished, but I need the world to know I'm next."

I wonder if we're getting tired of listening.  We spend a great deal of time writing blogs, emails, comments, responses... we're used to having an open forum for our thoughts and feelings.  Heck, we even Tweet our every move, no matter how banal, just in case the world wants to know that I'm picking up my drycleaning or considering a milkshake.  Ours is an individualistic culture on the verge of another "We" oriented breakthrough (a topic for another post), but we're still largely convinced that the rest of the world could stand to benefit from our every thought and feeling.

I'm not immune either... I'm one of the worst offenders, and have gained a reputation for thinking my opinions important regardless of my expertise on a given topic.  But I still notice it, and it creeps me out.

Fortunately, my job is to listen to others.  By virtue of my occupation, I am learning to listen deeply.  I train in it, I practice it, and I even get to teach it to others.  That's what good qualitative research and ethnography are... are an opportunity to take in humanity, not to dish it out.  I love that.  And I think Western culture is on the cusp of a significant breakthrough in listening... I think we'll see a substantial trend back toward the ancient arts of focus, mindfulness, and presence... and that even the global market research industry as a whole will move toward exercises in deep, intentional listening.  We'll learn to listen to words, of course... but also to heart, to behaviors, to fears, to motivations...  and mostly, we'll learn to slow, and to stay present to those we're seeking to understand.

I'm barely dipping my toe in the practice of deep listening... but I'm enthralled.  It's possible that the world's next great brand is the one that doesn't speak to its target consumer, but learns to listen to him.

Cheers,
Justin

Wanna know what's happening the grey matter a split-second before you make a choice?

Read this article... it will take you 4.5 minutes, and it’s worth it:
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/subconscious-decision.htm

If you’re so busy you can’t spare the 4.5 minutes, let me give an inadequate summary:  you know what you’re going to do before you know that you know what you’re going to do.

It raises some questions for traditional quals, just about spits on “why” questions in quant, and sounds a trumpet for something Seek (and I) have believed for some time... you can’t truly find out why somebody does something by asking them why they do something.  To get to the real why of the activity, you have to watch the activity, understand its context, know the doer of the activity (including his lifestyle and lifestage motivators), and get to beyond the conscious / liminal level to get him to react to sensory stimuli... you can’t just ask, “why?”  The truth is, a lot of times, we don’t know why, and we’re being asked to confabulate a plausible answer after the fact.

It’s a little bit like asking a witness what the perp was wearing on the rainy day that the crime took place... chances are good, he’ll tell you the perp had a coat, or a hat, or an umbrella... because we’re being asked to recreate something we either never knew or stand no chance of remembering.  And our conscious minds are extremely advanced computers whose whole job it is to take in information, filter out irrelevant details, and draw connections between ostensibly disparate phenomena to fill in the gaps.  Likewise, when we ask, “why do you like blue caps” the truth is, we may as well ask, “why do you jump backward when frightened?” or “why do you dream that you’re flying?”  He doesn’t know why, but he will efficiently, quickly, and subconsciously make something up using the symbology and folklore of his life heretofore:

Blue = Water.  Water = clean and cold.  Clean and cold = Fresh.
So he answers...
“Because it’s fresh.”

This process takes him 1/1000th of a second, and he may be right; it may symbolize just that to him.  But he has no idea why it symbolizes fresh to him, and it may turn out that blue motivates him for an entirely different reason that he can’t conceptualize (his favorite blanket growing up, for instance, was blue... and this reminds him of his mother’s comfort and safety).  But he has been asked a question he cannot answer by a professional question-asker and amongst a group of strangers.

To me, this underscores the need for observation, for association exercises, for real symbology and semiotic understanding in decoding the male mind, and for letting our experts be experts... using the consumer expert to bring the learning and its rich context, letting the color/form expert bring us the color/form that will respond to the depths of that learning (instead of taking the consumer at his word and simply making the cap blue), etc.

That’s all... I hope we are up to this challenge, and that we continue to revel in the mystery of the decision.

Cheers,
Justin

It's been a while since I've written.  Business has been booming since the first of the year.  I've spoken with some others in the industry and we believe that companies are looking for ways to turn their business around and are seeking out qualitative solutions.

A lot has been happening at Seek.  We've been busy with ideation during this season.  I love getting to represent the consumer perspective and focus the team on what the consumer needs, not just what we'd like to make or think is important.

There's a lot happening in the qualitative research world as well, I'm sure I'll end up writing more about that.  I'm sensing a shift to more holistic thinking, which is great for consumers, product developers and marketers alike.

Check out this recent article in Fast Company, featuring a project some Seekers worked on:
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/135/smells-like-a-billion-bucks.html?page=0%2C1

From Jane Stephens' study on leadership...I love this explaination of chaos, and the re-framing against a child's fearless quest for adventure.

Innovation finds the trail where there is none...Never has this been more important than in a challenged economy. 

How is your company approaching this? 

I've been tempted in the past few months to be lulled into believing that we're already innovative enough...we're already finding plenty of new trails.  But, then I realized...if everyone else is striving for that level of trail blazing, many will be successful...and the bar of what's "innovative" will be raised.  

So, the business of challenging paradigms takes on even more importance.

What leadership practices are we employing that are sheltering paradigms that keep us from new approaches? 

What barriers are we putting on ourselves that prevent us from thinking REALLY differently?  

What books are we not reading, or blogs are we not following because we "don't agree" with what they hypothesize or support? 

What would happen if we truly immersed ourselves in new ways of thinking...

I'm anxious to find out!

So I’ve been cooking more than I used to cook.  In relearning my way around the kitchen, I’ve noticed that I was missing a vital tool in the preparation process – a good cook’s utility knife.  All the knives we own are older, duller, and not too sexy.

We’re in Nashville this weekend visiting the boys.  We were on 21st Avenue in Hillsboro Village, one of our favorite shopping districts, when I noticed a little shop that I’d never been in before – Davis Cookware (1717 21st Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212).  I stepped through the door found myself face to face with Ted W. Davis III, the owner and proprietor of Davis Cookware going on 41 years.

I started off by pleading complete ignorance when it came to good kitchen knives.  This seemed to be exactly what Ted wanted to hear.  He proceeded to get our four large knives and placed them on the counter between us with the points facing away from me, 

I was expecting a sales pitch – since I noticed the prices on the knives ranging from $20 all the way up to $120.  But instead of berating me with the reasons I should by the expensive one … he started asking questions.

He let me talk.

He wanted to know what kind of cooking interested me.  He wanted to know how often I plan on cooking at home.

He let me talk.

He paid rapt attention.  He seemed to be interested and even enthralled as I spoke about my experience in the kitchen. 

He let me talk.

After several minutes of this – he finally spoke.

“After listening to you, I think I can recommend this knife to you because it seems to fit your needs better than the others.”  He gestured to the $36.98 Fibrox Carving Knife made by Victrinox.

I asked him about the $120 knife.  He said he could sell it to me if I really wanted it, but he really thought the other knife would be more to my liking in the long run.

How often to we listen?  How often do we really listen?  How often do we think we already know what would work best for a client before we’ve even asked the most basic of questions?  How often do we want to recommend the newest and coolest methodology that we have to offer when in fact – if we’d listen to the client – we’d change that opinion immediately?

I don’t know, but I think I learned quite a valuable lesson from Mr. Ted Davis.  Whether we are doing qualitative research, an ethnographic study, or ideation - listen, listen, and then listen some more.

For now – I’m off to cut stuff up.  I don’t know it needs to be cut up … but dang it – I’ve got a new knife.

I was recently reading a book about writing, and the art of writing, when I came upon an apocryphal tale of the power of brevity.  I’m not sure where and when and even if it happened, but it’s rumored to, and it doesn’t matter if it did because the story is just as powerful as a story...and the implications for qualitative research, new product concepting and ideation, and ethnographic storytelling are interesting.

The story tells us that Ernest Hemingway, an American literary deity who was maligned by Classics scholars for his undecorative, straight-to-the-point writing style, was dared by a friend and contemporary to “write a compelling short story in six words.”  The only rules were that the story must have a beginning, middle, and end, and must be compelling enough to get published.  Hemingway accepted, and spent an evening or two with pen to paper, scrawling out miniature narratives.  He returned with a story so compelling, and with such depth, that it was published the very next week in The New Yorker.  The story read:

For Sale:  Baby shoes.  Never worn.

As I read this little gem of writer’s folklore, I was struck by how powerful, rich, and deep this six-word story was.  It brought so much to mind...let my imagination fill in the plot gaps and the faces and the names... but what was more remarkable was how much it explicitly told me.  In six expertly selected words, I could access 29 years of human experience to instantly and powerfully fill in these gaps with more than just conjecture... I could lean on my gut to fill in the gaps...and without wild subjective conjecture or speculation.  Someone had a baby on the way (pregnant, likely), and planned ahead.  She anticipated that child, she looked forward to it, and even planned far enough into the child’s life to invest into shoes the baby wouldn’t need for several months into his/her life.  Then, something happened.  Likely something dreadful.  The baby was gone, the dream with it, and the shoes rendered a purposeless reminder of what should have been.  The would-be parent even went so far as to sell the shoes; to post an ad to both remunerate her now useless purchase, and to excise this tragic memento from her home.

This is a tragic story with a beginning, middle, and end, and is every bit as emotionally compelling and haunting as some of the best short fiction I’ve read.  And it reminds me that, when crafted carefully and artfully, even a few words can tell a very big story.  Whether in a letter to a loved one, a Carlos-Williams poem, a song lyric, a quotation scrawled on a blackboard, an epithet yelled at an enemy, a commercial concept, a political mantra, etc. etc., it only takes a few choice words to make a huge impact.  And when I sit down to write long summaries of research, or tell a neverending tale to a friend, or to pen lengthy blog entries (such as this one), I do well to  remember that, and to flex the power of selection a bit.

As an aside, if you haven’t explored this genre of “flash fiction” (stories written in a few words or a single sentence), I encourage you to check out onlineflashfiction.com and onesentence.org.  There are some very funny, sad, and encouraging pieces on there [one read something like, “‘I’ll never do that again,’ he thought, as he slipped cautiously into the warm tub.”].  And I hope you’ll try to write your own...you can’t possibly claim you don’t have the time.

Cheers,
Justin

There is a social experiment spreading rampantly on Facebook right now.  The big idea is that you post "25 Random Things" about yourself, tag 25 of your friends, and each of them replies with the same.  It's a bit like the old chain-mail scams of the early days of the internet, but without all the bad karma and "FW:Fw: " headers.  What's more interesting about this one is that it's not spread by fear of retribution ("...if you don't send to 10 friends a piano will land on your dog...") or sense of charity ("...for every email sent the government will donate 10 cents to a starving child...") or even a pressure of social outcasting ("...only a heartless person wouldn't send this to everyone they know...").  This phenomenon seems to be entirely self-motivated... driven purely by the user's desire to participate.

So, the big question for me is... why?

I couldn't help but wonder what in the world people get out of posting 25 random facts about themselves...everything from "I love butter" to "my first cat ate a marble and had to spend a week in the hospital"...for their entire social e-network to see.  Then, I tried it myself, and I realized something... there is something built into us that wants our story to be told.

As I worked through the excercise of picking 25 random points from my life... everything from the spiritual to the downright banal... it occured to me how much joy, and how much catharsis came with the process.  I don't know why I want the world to know that I'm not a "real" germaphobe, or that I'm incapable of using slang effectively... but it felt so good to tell those stories.  They feel close to me, they feel familiar, and they feel oddly personal, for being so minute.  And the fact that I could type them out, and that someone else might actually read it...all of a sudden I started to understand that we want to talk about ourselves... we want to get our story told, no matter how small... we just need the right venue, and ears that will listen without judgement or repercussion.

Like the GroupHug.us project or the Secular Confession Booth installation, this gives average joes the chance to unload a little personal baggage... to real live people... with a sense of safety.  What strikes me as different is that the "25 Random Things" phenomenon lacks anonymity, which I considered critical to the other projects.  And yet, "25 Random Things" has produced some of the most stirring, soul-bearing confessions I've seen... ("I was angry at God when my son died...and now I'm just not sure if he exists", "I've never kissed a girl", "I can't remember most of the 80's") all shared with a group of people who know you at some level or another.  It's no longer anonymous, but it still works.

Why?  Why do you think this is spreading so fast, and why is the content appearing to get deeper, and beyond random trivial minutia?  And, if I can be so professional about things... what does it mean about the way we meet "respondents" versus the way we meet "real people"?  What does it mean for market research, ethnography, qualitative research in general?

What do you think?

 So, in the last few weeks I've seen my share of airport security lines.

Not until now have I been accused of being a frequent traveler by one of the security dudes.  My life is complete.

I've learned effective habits and practices for successfully navigating the security line and I didn't even realize it until I got two comments from airport workers this morning.  For example:  

- I hold down my shirt when going through the drug-test machine that shoots air at you.
- I grab exactly two plastic bins to put my stuff in - one for my laptop and one for my bag and shoes.
- I know when to put away my license.  
- I get out my flight number and know which screen is next on the Delta check-in kiosk.

Without an outsider's perspective, I wouldn't have realized the adjustments I've made to make it through the system.  That's part of ethnography - I've learned to look at consumers' lives with a new lens, seeing things that they don't realize that they do, behaviors they've adapted, habits they're doing.  

Where have you adapted to a system?  Could that system be improved?  I sure know the airport security system could be (enough said...but then again, who's even asking?).  How can you innovate to make the system better?

These are questions we're constantly asking at Seek, externally AND internally.  Hey, there's always room for growth!

When's the last time you read something that altered your perspective a bit?  I did this morning...I've heard/read a proliferation of thoughts on global warming...scientific debates, what's causing it...stop doing this.   Regardless of the cause (which needs to be addressed), have you ever stopped to consider the implications of this climate change on people?  2007 UN Climate Panel findings to chew on:

• Between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa could suffer stress on water supplies by 2020.
• In some African countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 50 per cent by 2020.

Regardless of the cause.  Regardless of the solution to climate change.  Who will address the implications on people?  The people most affected and vulnerable.

So there we were, doing some ethnography in the form of an in-home interview in an affluent area of town.  My role was to be camera guy (filming on a mini-DV video camera), as it was my role at Seek at the time.  Another QRC (qualitative research consultant) is leading the interview with two client team members taking notes.  We were in this respondent’s home talking about her habits and practices as it pertains to how she cleans her home.

The lead QRC tells the kind woman who has allowed us in her home, “So, as you’ve been told, we would like to observe you clean your home in the exact way that you normally clean it.  We might have some questions for you along the way, but for the most part – please function as if we were not here.”

This lovely woman looks right at me through the camera lens, glances at the two client team members (who also happen to be men), smiles at the female QRC and says, “Well, I usually clean my house in the nude.”

I checked the bag to make sure we had enough film.  The two client team members sharpened their pencils.  The lone female QRC never missed a beat, “Well, maybe not exactly the way you normally clean your home.”

Needless to say, we shot a lot of film at the respondents home that day – all of it “G” rated.  Whether you are doing global market research in Singapore or ethnography in Columbus, you never know what you are going to hear or see!

Every culture has a creation legend...and I'm listening to Seek's creation legend now.

Over my shoulder, our founder, Tim Urmston, is telling a potential new Seeker the story of how he went from being an upwardly-mobile P&G product developer to, in one day, walking away from a sure-thing career with killer retirement benefits to launching a bizarre boutique qualitative research firm hell-bent on changing research paradigms through empathic ethnography, real-life-truth-based ideation, and learning the real stories behind the real people who drive every business decision.

I won't tell you the story...that's Tim's story to tell, and he tells it better than I do.  But I will tell you this...I think of that story often, and usually when I need to decide something groundbreaking for this company.

As I listen, I am reminded of the importance of a creation myth.  In his (for me groundbreaking) book Primal Branding, Patrick Hanlon talks about the creation myth as a critical part of every brand.  I'm going to push it a little further, and tell you that I believe that the creation myth is essential to every group, every community and every person alive.  I think much of our lives is a quest to understand the purpose of our existence, and this question inevitably leads us to question the intention of our origin...a question which requires a creation myth in its answer.

In his watershed interview with journalist Ken Moyer, philosopher and folklore scholar Joseph Campbell seems to continue to return to this point...without a collective sense of our creation, we aren't able to understand our purpose for being.  As companies (including our own little experiment in contrarian market research) continue to write mission statements, as married couples in a tough time continue to remember why they tied the knot in the first place, as churches and synagogues struggle to focus their benevolence or theologies, and as individuals search for some kind of sense of direction for their lives...we have to remember our creation myth.  Not just the biological creation story of the human; not just the vows shared at the altar, not just the 10 commandments carved in stone out in front of the temple...but the story of why...that narrative that you have shared, internally or externally, thousands of times but perhaps have never spoken as sacred or revered as critical to your understanding of your own existence.

So, I encourage you to consider...what is your creation myth?  What launched your company...what is the story that needs to be shared to your staff of why you exist?  What is your relationship's creation myth?  What brought you together?  How did you find love, and how can you retell that story to your partner in a way that will remind you of why you found something powerful in each other?  What is your personal creation story?  Where was the you that you know today invented, and why?  How have you chosen to create you?

Tell the story.  Write the story.  Learn the story.  Teach others the story.  Celebrate your creation myth.   At Seek Research, we are learning more and more to celebrate ours.

Cheers,
Justin

Some great media consumption trends from a recent BusinessWeek article that are definitely worth taking a look at and understanding...

The average American (age 12 and up) with Internet access spends more than 6 hours a day watching movies, shows, news, and sports—or playing games—on screens of one sort or another. That’s up from 4.6 hours in 1996, says Solutions Research Group, which predicts a rise to 8 hours a day in 2013. The group, which studied the viewing diaries of 1,014 people, found that on average TV accounts for 4 of the current 6 viewing hours. The other 2 hours involve the Web, DVDs, gaming consoles, and mobile devices. (The ratio is roughly reversed for the 12-to-24-year-old set.) By 2013, the group forecasts, Americans will spend an average three hours daily viewing or playing with PCs and mobile devices. “Wherever you go,” says Solutions Research President Kaan Yigit, “you’ll be bathing in video content.”

At Seek Research we do way more than any typical Qualitative Research firm would do in the arena of Ethnography or Ethnographic Study, Global Market Research, Qualitative Research and Ideation...we offer and do so much more including...having on staff Hornetball's first ever MVP, Jason "The Assassin" Hauer.  We are so proud of him!

Have you considered what it might look like for your company or brand to practice creative capitalism?  We're wrestling with this right now...trying to figure out how our passion for this stuff might be useful.  Found this in the August 11th issue of Time...maybe some ideas to inspire you:

CADBURY
The British confectioner is investing millions of dollars in small farming communities in Ghana that provide tin-cocoa beans for one of its lines of chocolate.

GRAMEEN BANK
The Bangladeshi bank makes small loans to impoverished people keen to start their own business. Since its founding, Grameen has disbursed more than $7 billion to the poor.

SUMITOMO CHEMICAL
The Japanese company bought a stake in Tanzania's A to Z Textile Mills to produce up to 10 million insecticide-treated mosquito nets a year.

SAFARICOM
The Kenyan phone company does well by serving the poor. Customers buy prepaid phones, paying for the amount of time they can afford and avoiding hefty monthly fees.

TOMS
The program from the company, based in Santa Monica, Calif, is simple: Buy a pair of our shoes, and we'll give a pair to a needy child. That helps the poor and attracts altruistic shoppers.

TECHNOSERVE
The U.S. nonprofit gives business and agricultural advice to coffee farmers in Africa and Latin America and links them to buyers such as Starbucks and Peet's.

BRITANNIA INDUSTRIES
The Indian food company teams up with an NGO to provide children with vitamin fortified biscuits that are served after a donated midday meal.

GAP
A sexy PRODUCT (RED) T shirt is appealing on its own, but advertise that half its sale profits go to African women and children affected by HIV/AIDS, and you've got a real hit.

The Beautiful Losers film opens this weekend in NY. 

Last night, I drove to Indianapolis to see Wilco.  Wending their way through a swarm of gnats, the band straight up owned it for 2 hours of inspired performance emitted from  evocative shadows of a misty Hank Williams Sr. to raging blasts of unfettered Sonic Youth delirium.

After the show, my dear brother-in-law worked some magic to get us back stage, where we met the band and boarded their bus.  They were as laid-back and easy-to-be-with a rock band as you can imagine.  We talked music, baseball, places of interest in cities of interest, and got some in-depth perspective on some mutually loved artists.

Their trombone player, Nick Broste also blows for a band called, Herculaneum.  Their guitar player is the inimitable legend, Nels Cline.  John, Pat, Jeff, Glenn and Mike were patient and delightful.  Ultimately, we had to leave in order to get home at a reasonable hour.

I asked Jeff (singer/guitarist, for the uninitiated) what he thought of the evening's performance.  He said he felt like it was a "great show, but the audience seemed a bit listless."  I didn't get into it with him, but I think an audience's emotional response sometimes isn't carried into their physical response.  I, for one, hadn't moved a whole lot but largely that's because I was transfixed by the performance.

In a previous post, I discussed how I'd been unable to verbalize a strong feeling about CCR.  Now, here I had been unable to physically express a strong response to an amazing performance.  My dysfunctions aside, these are very human responses--and it's easy for an observer to get the wrong idea.  I was in that audience.  I can tell you (as I told him), our response was genuinely euphoric.

So, we study people. Their habits, practices, why they buy this, why they buy that...

This is the first of a new series about my dog Cocoa...a lovely, lively 15 month old chocolate lab (hence, the name...which my 4 year-old chose!)...







Lessons on life from Cocoa #1:  Don't be afraid to show your feelings.
This morning, I was getting ready for work and Cocoa came in to hang out with me in my closet during my frustrating decision making process about what to wear (doesn't it seem like summer is dragging on a bit now...I'm a bit sick of it and ready for the new set of fall clothes...but, that's another post)...anyway, I looked down at her and blew her a silent little kiss.  Have you done this to a dog?  Her tail went CRAZY wagging so fiercely that it could hurt a small child.  Then it struck me...dogs have never learned to "hide their emotions":

• When you're happy, wag your tail. 
• Lavish kisses on people when you see them after a long (or even a short) absence. 
• Whine or cry when you're upset. 
• Bark when you're scared. 
• Hang your head when you realize you did something not-so-smart.

Somehow I've learned over the years that sometimes when I want to laugh hysterically, I should keep it to myself.  Sometimes when I'm sad, I need to hold it in.  Sometimes, when I'm scared, I have to "be brave"...  I'm learning and growing here...and, I have to say, since I've been at Seek, I'm becoming more and more comfortable with transparency and really experiencing my own emotions. 

If we're going to be in touch with people and really "do" ethnography, we've got to look beyond the words and find the emotion that people might be covering -- even if they don't mean to...

What have you learned from your dog today?

So, a question came to mind the other night while chatting with a friend.  One of those dangerous questions about myself -- the kind that you know you have to ask every once in a while -- that you know will reveal something deeply moving or deeply disturbing about yourself -- and that you have to take the time to answer if you really want to grow. 

The question was this:  How can I call myself an "in touch" person, who loves people -- as my profession in qualitative research and ethnography would imply, and I'm not REALLY in touch with how people communicate these days.  Tell the truth, I was a little scared of all the hype and kinda talked myself into believing that I was too old for facebook or flickr or myspace, etc.  (Okay, maybe I am a little old for myspace!)

But then, I decided to take the leap!  A few weeks ago I created a flickr account and now keep my family photos there.  Wow...So cool!  Have you been to flickr?  It's so easy, and fun and safe!  I'm loving it!

The really big leap was setting up a facebook account.  Several of my friends have been bugging me about this for awhile now.  So, I did it!  How cool is facebook!?  I reconnected with high school friends, posted pictures, wrote on walls, gave hugs.  And now, I'm starting to "get it" -- as I always do when I "live it" versus just reading about something.  So, from time to time, I hope you don't mind reading my observations...obvious as they might be...

Observation #1:  the paradox of today's communication systems -- I've not before felt so "open" and "vulnerable" with every current and long lost friend and cousin able to see pictures and read my discussion with other long lost friends or cousins.  It makes me feel more "known"...but then again, un-known...whatever I post or write is all people can see...they don't see the look on my face when I write it; they can't see my home or how I interact with my kids...hmmm...known and unknown all at the same time.  I'll have to think about that some more...but in the meantime, "friend me" if you'd like!  I'll see you on facebook!  ;-)