As President of KNow Research and Co-Founder of Scoot Insights, Katrina Noelle thinks people are fascinating and knows we all want to be seen, heard, and appreciated for who we are. In the first episode of For Humans’ Sake, learn:

• Why it’s valuable to sometimes stray from research-savvy panel participants to fresh recruits.

• How to expand inclusivity to all corners of your work.

• The importance of booking a solo retreat.

Samantha Meazell: Thank you so much for your time, Katrina. Katrina Noelle is the President of KNow Research and Co-Founder of Scoot Insights. We met last fall and I'm thrilled to have a chance to ask you a few questions today. Thank you so much for being game. So you've described KNow Research as a “female-forward qualitative insights consultancy,” tell me a little bit about what that “female-forward” part means to you.

Katrina Noelle: We did debate a lot about what word to use. We tried “driven,” “guided,” “first”—lots of words after the word “female” and this all happened sort of pre-hashtag. It was interesting because I had a new marketing manager come on board and part of her task was to talk to everyone on the team to get a sense of what the team was like as a whole because I was so close to it. I couldn't see the forest through the trees. Everybody on the team really enjoyed the fact that we were this female-driven/powered organization and thought we should put that out there in the quest for differentiation in this sort of tricky-to-differentiate industry.

We've received great responses from it, but it's really about empowering and supporting talented women like the ones on our team. We also have a network of expert partners, which are predominantly other women-owned businesses. It's by no means an exclusive 100% policy, it just seems to have been what happened over the years. I think there is this duality of empathy and strength that comes from female researchers and women. And it's all come together under one roof, so we decided to put our neck out there and talk about it a little bit more.

SM: I love it. Female-forward, in particular, the “forward” piece to it, as well.
KN: Yeah, it was important to say that this isn't exclusive and it's not “female-only” and it's not an all-girls club. It's that energy that is moving us forward, that was a really important part of it--that we didn't want it to sound like anything other than the engine behind it.

Include all the voices in the dialogue and then push yourself to do it a little bit more.

SM: It's fantastic to see how you are encouraging researchers to think about inclusive recruiting, and when I hear those words I think “all y'all come on in.” When you think about and act on inclusive recruiting, what does that look like?
KN: It's actually gone from being sort of a soapbox speech to being a pretty immersive process. So when you and I met, we were at the Insights Association and I was presenting with Kristin Spraggins of The Band Consultancy. And we started a conversation around what inclusive means when it comes to recruiting and fieldwork.

We're actually in the middle of producing a podcast miniseries about inclusive insights because we realized that it meant so many different things every time we turned around. It definitely means inclusive from a diversity and representation standpoint, literally including more people rather than not. But it's branched into eliminating bias and how you are inclusive and how you have an inclusive mindset as a researcher. And how clients can have an inclusive view of the problem or the objectives or the universe they're working within.

We’ve been interviewing a list of amazing speakers for the podcast and I think in every episode we have written down a new definition, so it's harder and harder to now put guardrails around it. Really it's about thinking broadly in a non-biased way to make sure you're including all the voices in the dialogue and then pushing yourself once you think you've done that, to do it a little bit more.

The fresh recruit: people who are naturally in the environment and may know nothing about research but happened to be there.

SM: One of the ways in which y'all conduct research is in-person intercepts, a researcher is out in a store, restaurant, or on the street and engages a person right there about their experience. I wonder if there are any memorable snapshots of something that someone on your team might have encountered.
KN: It's almost painful to have this conversation in this [COVID-19] moment where we're not allowed to intercept.

SM: How are y'all handling that?
KN: I will say, we have put a lot of time, money, and energy into our pop-up insights booth, like moving into trademarking. And then now no one can be within six feet of each other.

We've changed our focus from the intercept to the fresh recruit because part of the reason that you intercept right on the spot is to get those fresh minds, those non-database panelist people who are naturally in the environment and may know nothing about research but happened to be there. So we're trying to put a little bit more of a focus these days to find those people. That's how we've transitioned that focus on the intercept, as much as we can in the current moment. And doing that through social media, recruiting links on clients pages, email blasts, things like that to catch people

We've stopped saying “please be in a quiet room without distractions” because you would love to be in a quiet room without distraction right now.

SM: Are you finding people more catchable right now because of it?
KN: Yes, so today is April 6th and in the past three weeks, we have seen an amazing shift. We've run about 35 to 40 sessions in the that time. And we are seeing people who don't need to be tech checked--who are completely willing and able to participate in research, who are able to speak on webcam without getting nervous and interrupting each other. And it is amazing, I get people now who are like, “Hey, you're my fifth Zoom meeting today.”

SM: And that's because the people already knew how to interact with the technology now or are at home and available?
KN: People who have not had to do this before, have now done it through their employers or their family. So it's been, “oh, now we're on webcams...oh, now we're connecting digitally.” We just ran this online bulletin board and we asked the participants afterward for some feedback because we've been cautious about whether we should be doing research right now. This a sensitive thing to do, we know incentives will help right now but is this the most socially okay thing to do? And we got this amazing feedback about the connectivity and the connections that they've made just by being on this board with people that they didn't know, talking about the same thing and it was connecting.

SM: I love that. Snap to a year from now, “so how’d the two of y'all meet? Well, we were on this focus group together and I was at home and she was at home and we had some opinions about stuff.”
KN: Yeah, and even in that moment, you have to give people a few minutes to talk it out and say what's going on in life right now. We've stopped saying “please be in a quiet room without distractions” because you would love to be in a quiet room without distraction right now. It's almost like a release to talk about something else right now.

A personal offsite: do a bunch of projective techniques on yourself, all that fun analysis that you do for everybody else.

SM: You've written articles, you've given talks, you've coached your colleagues. Now let's imagine you're publishing a book, what's it called?
KN: I am. I imagine this period of time will get slow, so I'm going to write the thing that I've been meaning to write. It's a work in progress. I wrote an article a number of years ago on LinkedIn about a “personal off-site.” Growing up as a consultant and a freelancer and a one-man band, I really envied some corporate stuff, things like lunch breaks. But also this idea that they had these off-sites where they would go out and think about themselves and the business in the way I was doing for my clients. And I thought, “Am I allowed to do that if it's just me?”

And so for the past few years, I've taken a weekend a year for myself. And now I do an off-site with my team as well. But then I wonder, “Do I still need the personal one? Yes!” So it's really kind of this amazing opportunity to reflect and ideate, do a bunch of projective techniques on yourself, and all that fun analysis that you do for everybody else.

SM: So what does it look like? Do you fill up an agenda? Of course, you do.
KN: Yes, I put myself through my participant exercises. I do collages. I do Post-it notes all over. And that is super fun. It's amazingly empowering. And what's interesting is, inadvertently this year, I did it the weekend before [quarantine began and] I couldn't have done it anymore.

SM: Did you return home tasked with some action items that came out of that alone time?
KN: Yeah, you realize what you've done. You get this picture of the past year that you don't usually get. That is incredibly fueling because normally, you're just worried about getting through this week, or this project, or this client or whatever “this” is right now. You really get a sense of accomplishment and it also helps you set priorities. It really allows you to have that vision. I need to step outside to get that because my regular lists are so long that I just don't get to the big picture thinking lists as much as I'd like.

SM: Thanks a zillion and I speak on behalf of Slide when I say we'd love to have a chance to work together!

About For Humans’ Sake

Think of all the times you’ve said, “Wow!” How’d you get there? Was it hearing a new angle on an old topic? Fulfilling a desire with a simple click? Stepping into an unfamiliar landscape? It might be Mother Nature herself, but sometimes it was another human who architected the “Wow” you experienced.

It’s those people, the magicians who enhance users’ experiences digitally and in the flesh, that captivate Slide UX’s Research Director Samantha Meazell. For Humans’ Sake is Samantha’s excuse to ask interesting people a lot of questions and have their conversations chronicled. Join us as we celebrate the creators of experiences, For Humans’ Sake.