The Why of It All
I attended my first QRCA (Qualitative Researchers Consultants Association) conference earlier this month, connecting with other insights professionals and discussing the many ups and down our field has seen over the past few years. I left the conference reinvigorated, and I’m excited to tell you why.
It’s not because of all the amazing new friends I made, though I am very excited about the relationships, both professional and personal, that will grow from this.
It’s not because of all the new knowledge I collected, though I can’t wait to take some of these tools and toys out for a test spin.
I’m leaving the conference feeling reinvigorated because it reminded me why we do what we do. Qualitative Research isn’t just a piece of the marketing toolkit, or simply a way to gather insights for growth. Qualitative Research is about the people behind the data. My job is to gather the stories that people tell, and to share those stories with my clients.
I’ve always been obsessed with stories. Growing up, you would rarely see me without a book in hand. In college, I was the theater nerd with an overflowing library of play scripts. My first professional work was with 2nd Story Chicago, the Windy City’s premiere storytelling collective. Everything I’ve ever done, every version of me there’s ever been, has had “storytelling” at the center of its universe.
This is why I love Qualitative Research: I spend my days gathering stories. I get to talk to people and understand what drives them, what scares them, what they dream about, what matters to them. I get to discover the human stories that color our big, beautiful world, and share them with my clients. I get to connect with real people on a human level, and I get to meet their raw humanity with openness and curiosity and grace.
At the QRCA conference, I found an opportunity to collect stories not for a client, but for myself. I got to talk to people in my field about their successes and their failures, their dreams and their fears. I got to connect with them on a human level, getting out from behind our Zoom screens and seeing each other as peers who are just as real as the people I talk with for a living. I never realized how profoundly exciting it is to conduct Qualitative Research about Qualitative Research. We’re a thrilling group of wackos (complimentary).
I’m came home with a new sense of identity and purpose, and a realization that I’ve once again placed stories at the center of my world. Ozzie Has Questions isn’t just the name of my business (though it is a great business name), it’s a mission statement. It’s a promise of curiosity, of empathy, and of human-inspired insight into the world we inhabit. I do more than ask the questions you want answers to. I gather the stories that animate your customers. I understand the people that drive your numbers or metrics. I connect with people on a human level and allow them the space to tell me their story. And they, in turn, grant me with the trust that I’ll translate their stories with integrity with my own clients.
I’m so lucky I get to do what I do. I honestly can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. The stories are too good, and there’s always another one to find.
If you would like future posts like this to arrive in your inbox, please sign up to our mailing list at the bottom of this page. Disclaimers that you’re signing up for a mailing list apply, but I promise you that I will never abuse your contact information for anything other than sharing sporadic updates about OHQ with you.
