Reimagining You: New Views, New Consumer Understanding

Hi there!?? Welcome to our newsletter, Terra Firma, and thanks for stopping by. We share inspirational stories and advice on market research, consumer insights and organizational learnings. If you're new to our content and would like more articles like this, click the "subscribe" button above.

Life's a journey, right? And whether that is personal and individual for you, or it's about your brand, organization or community, the truth is, that journey can feel a little lonely or confusing, sometimes. In times like that, we need a little inspiration, a little advice, and examples - yes! examples! - of how others are navigating similar paths. That's why we named it "Terra Firma" -- because we hope this newsletter serves as a place of solid ground for you, as you navigate your journey. There are a few themes in the issues ahead:

• Longitude and Latitude: Orienting yourself, by taking stock of where you are, who is with you, and what is happening around you.
• Roots and Routes: Charting your course and choosing a path: where do you want to go?
• Compass Rose: Navigating your journey and checking in along the way --how is the trip going?
• Knowledge Cartography: mapping What You’ve Learned - What have you picked up along the way? How can others follow the path you’ve revealed/created?

In this issue: New view? Nah, new YOU! When you see your consumer in a different light, you can better understand how they see YOU.

A Word From Our Founder (it's me. James. I'm the problem, it's me.)

Do you suffer from Market Research Frustration Syndrome?

I think I just made it up, but I'm quite confident it describes a very real condition that marketers, product managers, brand managers, CX leaders and EX leaders experience from time to time.

It's the feeling you get when you paid for a research project or service, and you're looking at the data and insights you got back or you're sitting in the results presentation, and -- cue professional panic theme music:

You don't think you learned anything.

But dig a little deeper:

You don't think you learned anything NEW.

Nah, what's really got you frustrated is the fact that:

You don't think you've learned anything new that you can USE.

Ahh. Now we're on to something. But there's more to the story. Keep going:

You're frustrated because you don't think you've learned anything new that you can use that was WORTH THE INVESTMENT.

This you? Have you ever felt that way? Because I've been a marketer, strategist, business leader and org leader for 25 years, and I know I felt this way several times when I was on the client side. There were even a couple of past clients of our own research products who were kind enough to tell me they felt this way, too; which was hard to hear because it meant we hadn't delivered the value they needed us to.

Looking back, it was usually caused by a lack of clarity and alignment on what successful outcomes and applications look like. Getting the vision of success right leads to better questions. Which lead to more useful answers. Which lead to better application. Which leads to better value.

And as we unpacked our own and our customers' research frustrations, we learned something new and valuable ourselves:

The best research is iterative.

The best kinds of answers lead to new questions. And the more we ask and answer -- going from episodic, project-based, expensive research, to iterative learning -- the more we learn and the more we scale the impact of what we learn.

Which means we scale the value.

How are we doing this?

By centering our research in human experiences, and recognizing that the consumers and employees we want to build better products and services are the true heroes of their own stories.

By making research less extractive and focused on what companies want to hear, and more participatory and focused on what people want companies to know.

By making learnings accessible, fast and flexible, instead of slow, costly and bulky.

By making research less hierarchical and more collaborative.

And by marrying machine learning with human storytelling to do this iteratively and at scale.

We're on a journey FROM frustrating, company-centric research, TO valuable human-centric learnings. I hope you're ready to join us, because the world is waiting for us to make better experiences for them.

This Week's Installment of Shortest Customer Stories Ever

A mortgage servicing company identified the keys to shedding the cloak of anonymity and commodification pervasive in their industry.

Short-short stories not your thing? Check out our next Livestream event where we will take a deeper dive into this story.

And if short-short stories are your thing, check out 20 Ways We're Helping Companies Learn for more of the Shortest Customer Stories Ever.

Archives Awakened | On the journey of learning:

Facilitated SEEQ Sessions revolutionized the way that companies conducted stakeholder research and now, SEEQ App automates that process — guiding participants through story development and using machine learning to analyze stories and categorize what they express. This innovative app takes research to a new level by combining human self-expression with advanced data analysis.

Read the rest at Your Learning Journey Begins in SEEQ App

Ways to Connect and Collaborate

• Learn more about SEEQ App, an agile approach to research that blends the best of qual and quant to help you learn with your customers, employees and stakeholders.
• Get involved in the Future of Travel, our groundbreaking travel and tourism industry research study, in partnership with The Culturist Group, Esra Calvert Consulting and JMI.
• Try out SEEQ App for yourself. Register and participate in one of our open-to-the-public projects.
• Schedule a conversation with our Founder, James Warren.
• Check out last week's Livestream event.