rosie campbell main stage - 2011

Main Stage, November 3, 2011

The Case of the Dead Cat: Curiosity not to Blame Rosie Campbell, Campbell Keegan

A Presenta*on from the Fes*val of NewMR Main Stage – November 3, 2011

2 Rosie Campbell, Campbell Keegan, UK Festival of NewMR 2011 – Session 4 Schedule: 10:30am – 12:30am (GMT)

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The Case of the Dead Cat: Curiosity not to

Blame

Rosie Campbell Campbell Keegan 2011

Rosie Campbell, Campbell Keegan, UK Festival of NewMR 2011 – Session 4 Schedule: 10:30am – 12:30am (GMT)

What Seems to be the Problem?...

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As researchers we are becoming

overwhelmed…accessing is

replacing understanding…


As Malcolm Gladwell said…

“Market research, when it is observational or when it is interpretative, is profoundly useful. But those are two critical things. They require the intervention of the person conducting the research. They require the findings that are gathered, are considered, and thought about, and processed and interpreted..”


Just as we start to get comfortable with the world of

emotions…

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We get obsessed with the means of

transport rather than the journey or

the destination…


Why have we fallen in love with accessing…. …instead of understanding?


Threats to ‘Understanding’…(1)

‘Big Data’, and it’s seductive accomplice, 'High Speed’

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We have so much data here….!!!

“..of course you can have it by Wednesday”

The Perfect Storm?


Threats to ‘Understanding’…(2)

A culture where findings are too often literal, the equivalent of what, once, we would have called ‘raw data’, or put forward simply as illustrative verbatims… (because we are overwhelmed by the data possibilities, because we have reduced time…)

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Is the Emperor clothed?


Threats to Understanding…(3) We’ve fallen hopelessly in love with all things virtual, technological, web-based; we are ‘socially-pressured’ to believe in the god of e things…

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Only connect…


And sometimes we lose our sense of judgement because data has been ‘democratically’ collected…


And how seductive is the idea of qualitative data with quantitative dimensions…

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Finding: ‘Parents would like their children screened from pornographic websites’ (UK Government)

Finding: ‘personal recommendation has a big impact on what consumers buy’ (Famous global accountancy firm)

Finding: ‘The most important aspect of the proposed online offering will be – content!’ (Well-known music channel)


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Are we in danger of ‘thinking skill’ atrophy – to

be replaced with skimming, scanning, fast-

reaction… ‘clicking’ skills?

But is the ground cracking beneath us…? Are we going to be replaced by analytics gizmos….?


Let’s think about the ‘old-fashioned’ researcher skill of ‘applied curiosity’…

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- the hunger to know what lies beneath - the judgements born of connection-making - the smart money combining ‘findings with creative leaps


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..it is associated with cats..


..But the curiosity of cats has much to recommend it..

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It’s all about exploring limits… and taking risks


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…they understand innately how to

manage themselves - and how to use

ethnography to get the difficult stuff…


…We might consider curiosity something slight, almost a character flaw, along with being a ‘gossip’

Yet… John Humphreys put his success down to it… “Oh no – it’s not listening – for me it’s curiosity. If you’re genuinely curious, you always listen well”

Checcin and the Milan Family Therapists built a highly-successful approach to working with families around curiosity ; it was curiosity that highlighted, for them, the inevitable relativity of all patterns of behaviour and decision-making


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They understand about restraint, the significance of observation…. ……and they have also got ‘mirroring’ down to a fine art…


Curiosity as described and used by Checcin and the Milan Family Therapists…

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•  Allowing yourself to remain in a state of ‘perpetual curiosity’ • Allowing ‘hearing’ - beyond ‘listening’ • Employing circular questioning, which avoids the self-reported ‘editing’ and misdirected ‘why’ responses

Curiosity …requires thought and effort – and self-awareness… it isn’t just Googling


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How can we achieve a ‘perpetually curious stance’…?


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..Both meditative and playful

Being…


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Being…

Highly aware of context – behaviour is

always relative, contextual, situated – as is

‘reported’ thought, attitude and action”

It’s strange the way we always argue when we come somewhere beautiful

I can’t believe how bleak places depress us..


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Being…

Irreverent – and holding

our hypotheses lightly..


Curiosity as the antidote to qual research ‘ordered as a take out’ from social media...

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- Because sometimes only the human mind can do it - Because sometimes incubating works best

And cats know this…


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Hmmm…I’m not fooled by these virtual fish …and anyway these ones are poisonous


Q & A


Ray Poynter Vision Critical

Rosie Campell Campell Keegan

Main Stage, November 3, 2011

The Case of the Dead Cat: Curiosity not to Blame Rosie Campbell, Campbell Keegan

A Presenta*on from the Fes*val of NewMR Main Stage – November 3, 2011

rosie campbell main stage - 2011

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