Principles of Engagement

I had the opportunity this past spring and summer to have a modest role in MLA Fred Horne’s public consultation about a new Alberta Health Act. Towards the end of the report some principles for ongoing public engagement were recommended.

These principles should be the cornerstone of any engagement initiative and qualitative research project, and they are principles that underlie Stormy Lake’s approach to engagement, research and even client relationships.

Principles are that engagement should always be

Timely – Involving people at a point in the process where their input management can be most effective.

Meaningful – Important issues are identified and discussed. Outcomes of engagement are used in meaningful ways.

Appropriate – Engagement is designed to suit the issue and the audience. Engagement is managed responsibly.

Transparent – The intent and objectives will be clearly communicated, objectives will be realistic, and how the people’s input will be incorporated  will be clearly stated and reported.

These principles require a two-way dialogue, not a one-way search for opinion. They also require a longer-term commitment to engagement.

I have used engagement and research together a lot in this post, and that is deliberate. Qualitative research usually is managed as a below the radar, almost guerilla approach to gathering insights. In most situations, research can be better managed an implemented as an open system, where every qualitative research opportunity also is an opportunity for engagement – with customers, with stakeholders and within your own organization.

A final note – I first started working on this post before all of the Alberta Health controversy hit the media. And, to be honest, it did cross my mind to not publish this post. But controversies have a way of overshadowing good work, and Fred’s work was excellent. It deserves to be talked about.

Visualization and educational reform

You’ve probably heard of Sir Ken Robinson and his spectacular TED talks. There is a new video on YouTube that has animated his most recent talk.

This video is amazing for a couple of reasons. First, it speaks to the heart of educational reform. I was involved in Inspiring Education (at whose website I first spotted this video), and these ideas of reform are being explored in Alberta in very important ways.

Second, this talk speaks to the heart of being a parent of children who view the world in fundamentally different ways. What might be the best educational approach for our children is something we wrestle with every day.

From a completely different tangent, the third way this video is amazing is the way that it visualizes and strengthens an already powerful talk. As we deal with increasingly larger amounts of data (trivial, essential and everything in-between), visualization will be how we make sense of it.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do:

Dialogic Research

For quite a while I have been concerned that traditional research tools are insufficient for the types of interesting problems we are being asked to solve. The challenge has been captured by William Isaacs:

Neither the enormous challenges human beings face today, nor the wonderful promise of the future on whose threshold we seem to be poised, can be reached unless human beings learn to think together in a new way.

This has lead to us developing a new form of research that is a synthesis of three disciplines: qualitative research, public consultation and facilitation. It is a process of genuine interaction through which we listen to each other deeply enough to be changed by what we learn.

Traditional research has been a closed system. The research “expert” usually is contracted to gather information and develop insights.  Random participants are carefully selected and lead through a very structured process of discussing rational and emotional thoughts, triggers and stories. And, to be honest, some very excellent research has been conducted this way.

But the world is changing and research needs to become an open system:

• The ownership of a brand is moving from the marketer to the customer. It’s not what you say about your brand anymore – it’s what consumers are saying about your brand.
• Peer-to-peer marketing is essential. And much of this is open and user-generated. Structured word-of-mouth strategies where we recruit, motivate and satisfy networks of advocates for organization.
• Brand engagement is critical to build brand uniqueness. This requires creating communities of customers who are deeply engaged with brand.
• Brands needs to engage the internal and the external community for longer-term success.
• As audiences evolve to include more and more Aboriginal and immigrant populations, traditional closed research processes are not the best methods to gather insights. Open, dialogic processes are more effective, and more respectful.

We are calling this type of research Dialogic Research. Our approach has been heavily influenced by some of the leading-edge work in Deliberative Democracy being done by America Speaks and Janette Hartz-Karp.

Not every project is suited to Dialogic Research, but it is ideally suited for projects that

• Are complex or multi-faceted
• Have a number of key stakeholders with very distinct points-of-view
• Are deeply exploring new areas of knowledge
• Focused on new products or services
• Are launching a new brand

While Dialogic Research has more logistics to resolve in the early stages, it is proving to be tremendously powerful.

The most important parts of any conversation are those that neither party could have imagined before starting. (Rick Smyre)

Facing Risk or Uncertainty

Just found this fabulous post in the Atlantic Monthly blog

…risk “describes a situation where you have a sense of the range and likelihood of possible outcomes. Uncertainty describes a situation where it’s not even clear what might happen, let alone how likely the possible outcomes are.” Risk is an everyday part of business. But a deep recession ups the ante of unknowns so high that instead of calculated risks, managers are faced with actual uncertainty. And like sailors facing a dark, unpredictable storm, the typical response is to batten down the hatches, reef the sails, and just try to ride it out.

You can read the full post by Lane Wallace here.

Is the recession over?

“Has the recession ended?” is a question I have been wondering about as news reports focus on climbing energy prices, and the upwards movement of the TSX index. As a news junkie, I have found a few blogs and individuals who have some great insights.

Most recently, I’ve added Atlantic Monthly to my Google Reader. There has been a tremendous discussion from a number of interesting perspectives. Here is what I have been distilling:

• Lane Wallace directs us to an Op-ed in the May 21 eidtion of the New York Times by Daniel Gilbert (who is, by the way, my favourite social psychologist):

Our national gloom is real enough, but it isn’t a matter of insufficient funds. It’s a matter of insufficient certainty. Americans have been perfectly happy with far less wealth than most of us have now, and we could quickly become those Americans again — if only we knew we had to.

• Richard Posner makes two interesting observations:

People got tired of reading about economic gloom and doom, so the media were happy to play up indications that the worst was over.

I make no predictions. The burden of my argument is that the instability of the economy makes predictions about the recovery from a depression perilous.

• Mark Thoma argues that there will be a long, drawn out recovery to the recession because consumer spending cannot go back to pre-recession levels. Debt leverage was unsustainable.
• The Seattle Times Jon Talton asks “What if Starbucks is an artifact of an economy that’s not coming back?”
• Richard Florida (who also deserves credit blogging about the above two issues) says

One of the most powerful, though least understood, effects of economic crises is their ability to alter global talent flows. Economic history shows that major economic crises like the current, can and frequently do produce considerable alterations in global flows of talent - particularly high-skill, highly inventive, and highly entrepreneurial immigrants.

So what does this all add up to?

We don’t know if the recession is over, or if it is not. This uncertainty is making things worse. And we will never go back to where we were before.

All of this reinforces our belief that we need better tools to be able to plan for a world that is changing in unexpected ways.

Pizza Paparazzi out at the Stormy Lake Salon

Pulled pork pizza with taleggio and lemon dressed Arugula. Thanks Rob & Mark!

A dozen of us gathered last Friday for the twelfth Stormy Lake  Salon. We started the evening with wood-fired pizza and great wine, and then continued indoors for the Salon. Both Wade and Julie had cameras, and every pizza coming out of the oven had to run the gauntlet of paparazzi. Thanks to Julie for posting great photos on her blog.

When we finally got around to the discussions, I drew first spot and talked about the role of play in strategic thinking. Play is often associated with creativity, but there is greater need to be playful in the development of strategy. Being in a playful state better allows you to engage in counter-factual reasoning. The essence of strategy is moving from “what is” to “what could be.” A challenge with play is that it must be chosen and self-directed – you cannot mandate play. This is at odds with most work environments.

Brant and Susan followed up with lessons learned from living in Cochrane and Silicon Valley. One of the key elements of Silicon Valley was living in an environment that was surrounded by creativity and entrepreneurship. Sir Ken Robinson was cited as a very inspirational speaker oncreativity. Brant then pointed out that being creative or innovative alone is not enough. An idea that isn’t acted upon has no value. Execution is critical. This then lead into a very interesting observation that it is your network that is your source of influence.

Pulled pork pizza, after cooking.

Claudia had the most flavourful discussion. Fascinated by food, words and the imagination, Claudia talked about traditional Aztec guacamole and how it was seen to be an aphrodesiac, based on the properties of each of the ingredients. Avacados that are grown on “testicle-trees”, chile that is opened up to get at the ripe seeds, and lemons that were rubbed on body parts (those body parts – ouch). Claudia brough some guacamole in her molcajete (mortar and pestle).

Rob spoke passionately about the neorealism movement in Italian cinema, including work by notable directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antonioni. He remarked upon both the birth of the movement in the days following World War II, and on the less obvious fading of the movement in the early 1960′s when neorealism had run its course. ((I was in Blockbuster on the weekend, and picked up Fellini’s La Dolce Vita – and it turns out that Fellini is responsible for the term paparazzi – quite funny given our jokes about the pizza paparazzi earlier in the evening.))

Wade brought the sun, some wheat and some biscuits to his discussion. The argument was that issues du jour like “organic” or “local” or the “100-mile diet” still miss the fundamental point that we are completely disconnected from the sources of our food. And even if you are eating local, organic chicken, the chicks might still have been shipped out from Ontario. While we have joked that “meat comes from styrofoam”, the disconnect extends to virtually everything we eat. And that part of the connection is not just the source of our food, but the source of the recipe. The fact that the biscuit recipe comes from Wade’s aunt gives him – and all of us – greater connection to the food and where it comes from.

Janet, recently returned from Egypt, made observations about the kinds of decisions that governments make in these tough economic times. Cutbacks can be seen to be arbitrary and capricious. But if a politician is seen to be doing bad things for the right reasons, then they are given much more permission to make unpopular decisions. Janet called this the politics of intention. She observed that Ralph Klein was given a lot of permission to cut back in the 1990′s, largely because it was felt that his intentions were appropriate.Few politicians today have clear intentions, and this is causing them problems.

Julie wrapped up the discussions with a talk about the erosion of traditional media, and the decline of the editorial function. This was not a defense of traditional media, nor a condemnation of new media, but a question of how will the media be replaced, as current models seem doomed. The youtube video of Susan Boyle was cited as an example of the explosion of celebrity, and the cross-over of new media to Oprah.  Of all the topics, this one sparked some of the most intense discussions at the Salon.

Looking back over the evening, two themes emerged. One was focused on creativity and new ways of thinking. The other was on rapid cultural change. And even these two themes are linked as creativity and new ways of thinking are necessary responses to rapid cultural change.

Thank you to everyone who came: Claudia Aguirre, Jorge Aguirre, Janet Brown, Brant Parker, Susan Parker, Wade Sirois, Janice Sirois, Julie Van Rosendaal, Rob Mabee, Mark Tewksbury and Karen Coppard.

And a great thank you to Rajesh and Letty who did such a fabulous job helping to run the evening.

As wealth vanishes, consumers retrench

This headline above is lifted from today’s Report on Business section in the Globe & Mail. It is one of two interesting articles about how consumers are responding in these uncertain times.

This first article discusses how consumer attitudes to spending (less) and saving (more) are changing in response to a 4.4% decline in household net worth. But we all know that how consumers spend less and save more differs from product to product and category to category.

The second article, just two pages later, leads with the headline “More parents opt to skimp on baby’s ride: Luxury buggy makers feel the pinch as cost-conscious buyers turn to less expensive brands.” It appears that “once booming sales of status-symbol strollers are taking a hit.”

While it is rather easy to assume that an expensive stroller is part status-symbol. And that consumers can quite easily rationialize that baby won’t notice a different stroller, this may not be the whole story.

In our society we see our children as innocent. The fact that the economy is weak is not their fault. So if parents are trading-down a stroller, are they compensating in other ways to trade up? Are there other baby brands, perhaps less conspicuous ones, that will see a boost in sales, while expensive buggies decline?

Alternatively, our whole approach to wealth could be changing. Perhaps wealth is not taken for granted as easily, and we want our children to be satisfied with good enough, and not seek identity and validation through having “the best.”

Either approach is intersting, and has different implications understanding how consumers react to the rapidly changing market conditions. We do know one thing: consumer reaction is rarely predictable – and something we should be doing a lot of thinking about.

Painless Insight Planning – by Susan Abbott

A friend and colleague in Toronto, Susan Abbott, has just published an outstanding free e-book: Painless Insight Planning. This is a workbook to develop a very focused qualitative research brief.

All too often, quite a bit of time is spent trying to figure out what the real research question is – this workbook gets you there quickly and easily. I strongly recommend that you download it, save it and keep it close. Try it out the next time you need to solve a problem – even if you don’t proceed to research, it will give you clarity on what you need to do.

This is another great example of the gift economy at work. Thanks, Susan.

Game Theory

I was at Chapter’s a few weeks ago, and saw on the back wall a sign promoting the “Indigo MBA”. What a hokey marketing promo I thought, but ended up buying two great books.

One is called The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist’s Guide to Success in Business and in Life by Dixit and Nalebuff. It is an update of a 1991 book, called Thinking Strategically.

One of the exercises in this very readable book is based on the principle of backwards reasoning. Figure out the winning end position, and work backwards to what you should do now. Obvious in principle, but not always in practice. The example they use is from season 4 of Survivor. Two teams face each other, with 21 flags between them. At each turn, you must take one, two or three flags. No more and no less. The winner is the teAm that takes the last flag.

If you get to go first, how many flags should you take on your first turn to guarantee a win, and what is your strategy for every subsequent turn?

It is a fun problem, and really illustrates the usefulness of this book. (Of course, a proper game theorist would not promote this book, but I also like to believe in what Joseph Thornley has called the “gift economy.”)

Improving the obsolete

At a presentation earlier today, Dr. Sharon Friesen (co-founder of the Gallileo Education Network) challenged us under the topic of “Learnings for Today’s World.” It was invigorating. Just the simple reminder that eyeglasses were once viewed with the same technological mysticism as we view Web 2.0 today. Or that people once traveled hundreds of miles to watch people engage in “silent reading.”

There was a great quote in the pre-reading:

Efforts to improve the obsolete are actually likely to make things worse (Gilbert, 2005; Fullan, Hill & Crevola, 2006).

While this statement was made in the context of transformation of the education system, it has far deeper relevance to many initiatives. And it requires confronting truths we may want to avoid to honestly assess if we are simply trying to improve the obsolete.