Do you have notes everywhere? Sticky notes? Napkin scribbles? Thoughts to remember? It’s OK. Really.
If you’re one of those people who writes notes by hand, technology is here to help. You can continue to jot down ideas that are then digitized into typed, searchable form.
Moleskin & Neo Smartpen use their own special pen and paper to digitize your handwritten notes.
Wacom Smartpad and Bamboo Slate digitize your writing and doodles using a highly sensitive tablet on which any kind of paper or pen can be used.
Livescribe uses a special pen to digitize both your vocalized and handwritten notes.
Evernote and One Note are platforms that can convert written words inside to text, which covers everything from written notes to typed documents to wine labels – whatever printed items you want to easily recall at a future time.
As humans, we make hundreds of choices throughout the day. Drive here. Eat this. Answer that. We choose where to be, when to be there, and what we’re going to do when we get there. Many of us live in this cycle of decisions like we’re running in a hamster wheel.
Taking a break from work is proven to benefit your outcome, as well as your outlook. Like this guy. Be more like this guy.
Note taking. It’s like breathing. I can’t imagine life without it. Mind to hand to pen to paper. That is how incoming information sticks.
But alas, people assimilate data differently. A LOT differently. In fact, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of theories and frameworks of how humans learn.
Princeton University, NJ
Bottom line? Success lies in process, not time. In addition to penning (no pun intended) the term “effortful learning”, the folks over at Princeton equate learning to weight lifting, or in other words, it takes more than just a gym membership to get shredded. You need to work at it.
They also believe challenges (“desirable difficulties”) enhance the learning process. So next time you find yourself preparing for an important presentation, try getting through it without your notes. Try writing it down without your slides. Try speaking it without any slides. Tackle it from every angle. It’s practice and you’re going to mess up. Keep at it and you’ll prove Princeton right. Again.
If you have ever had the chance to mull this game over with children or adults, I assume you found yourself chuckling at the very least as you consider the most absurd against the even more absurd.
I learned of this game a few years ago while road tripping with my aunt, who learned it from her students. She teaches first grade. My expectations were low.
The game begins by somebody either reading from the Would You Rather books (which I dare point out come in Large Print) by author Dan Gilden, or simply making up absurd options, like: Would you rather have knives for fingers or clubs for hands. What?! Yep. That’s the game. Think about it. This is serious. Clearly I’m clubbing it.
To play effectively, each person must weigh the options presented and essentially decide which would be the least offensive to themselves and/or others. The key to the game is to get the other players to explain their answer, revealing fears and preferences you would not have learned otherwise.
While playing the game made for a great road trip, with laughter so hard I needed to snort in order to survive the inhale, it also makes a great interview question. The options presented can be real or absurd, but if they’re on-topic, you may find yourself uncovering more than you expected: the true gems of marketing research.
Have you ever asked questions this way? What’s your favorite Would You Rather question?
As a researcher, I conduct a lot of interviews. Some are one-on-one, or “individual” and others are in groups. Some interviews use video, some use audio, and others are group text chats with or without a visual component. Regardless of the means of communication, all human research has the same challenge: recruiting.
Filtering, validating, and setting expectations for the right people is THE most important part of any research study. That’s true whether you’re seeing them in-person or working with them online.
The final chapter to recruiting is go time – the reason you paid a recruiter in the first place. Your participants need to show up!
So what will help make that happen? As a marketing researcher who has been working online since 1996, I’ve relied on these tips that have stood the test of time:
A thoughtful + clear agenda with time commitments everyone sticks to
Manageable objectives, only bite what team members can chew.
Short meeting time commitments. Keep it simple + such.
CNBC reported that researchers at YouCanBook.Me revealed the best time and day to have a meeting, and the results are sort of surprising. It’s obviously not Monday or Friday, I can tell you that from personal experience.
A respected and beloved colleague in marketing research, Jeff Walkowski, recently published a book, Mr. Online’s Playbook, full of suggestions for better interviewing when you’re not in-person. Available on Amazon, a great buy. Happy new year to you, you deserve it.
I opened my cherished copy and randomly flipped to page 99. Not surprisingly, I found myself agreeing wholeheartedly with Tip E-30, where Jeff explains how to encourage participants to respond more in a bulletin board (asynchronous) environment. His tip, and I’m paraphrasing, is to specifically request the amount of response you’re seeking by literally asking for X# of reasons detailed, or Y# ideas explained, rather than “Why did you like or not like it” or “What else can you think of”. As a moderator of bulletin boards, I can assure you, probing is painfully required in order to get participants talking, so this tip is ahead of the game right out of the gate. Love it.
What tips for interviewing, online or in-person, do you find most useful?
I came across this online article from The Atlantic and literally LOL’d myself into a good mood. It’s a great read about the weirdness of human behavior and how we animate ourselves to accommodate new means of communication like Zoom. The author, Faith Hill, is a comical social behaviorist from whom I can’t wait to read more. Please, Faith, do more!
Faith Hill’s article put me in such a good mood, it got me thinking. A dangerous course of action, in some cases, but this time all turns out well.
I googled (can you believe that’s a verb?) what we can do to put ourselves in a good mood and that lead me down a bit of a retail rabbit hole, from which I may never fully recover. A massive amount of email spam is sure to come my way from all the self-help articles I found myself dismissing (yet clicking, damn the click!).
What I discovered beyond all the sponsored content is that mood boosting can come from anywhere and can be anything. It depends on your personal preference, which leads to limitless possibilities. From looking at calming pictures to watching cat videos.
It seems we intuitively know what will boost our mood. The key, as with most beneficial things, is to do it. Take the time and watch the cat videos. Laugh at humans failing at almost everything you can imagine. Put the laughing Chewbacca woman on auto repeat. Boost your mood and you’ll always be happy you did.
So whatever legal behavior makes up your secret sauce to getting through the day, you just keep doing it. Life is short. And life can be hard. So take that break and do what makes you happy for a moment. You just might find yourself smiling. And who doesn’t need more of that.
Please share what you do to boost your mood! The Chewbacca Mask Lady Works. Every. Time.
My love of words is beyond explanation. Well, actually, the love is explanation. Grammar is my jam, and my jam may be different than yours. But words… words we can nail down. Even for the things we didn’t even know had names.
That thing that mechanics lie on and use to roll under a car when doing repairs? It’s called a creeper. Makes sense, still sounds weird. And probably going out of style, as almost every repair shop these days seems to have a lift, negating the need for said creeper. Words all come from somewhere, and this one came from a patent submitted in 1916 by a man named Axel, Axel Peterson. Can’t make this up.
That paragraph mark that shows when you reveal the formatting in your Word document? OK, maybe only I do that, but I think you’ve seen it. Did you know it has a name other than paragraph mark? And that name is rather cute: pilcrow.
While words may always be swimming around my world, I began to wonder who makes the grammar rules we were taught and accept? For example, did you know two spaces between sentences is no longer considered acceptable? And that “the” has disappeared from words like hospital and university? I hear newscasters doing it. I read respected news outlets doing it. Did someone one day just start doing it differently and everyone followed? Not possible, says my mind, so I dove in.
Space Space
Apparently the two spaces between sentences makes me an old fart, says The Wall Street Journal, said the practice “made sense in the mechanical age.” Mechanical age? And Google returned “common questions” to my search like “Why do boomers put two spaces after a period?” Now I’m a boomer from the mechanical age? What is going on??
Apparently this one wasn’t a committee, but rather the gradual transition to word processing from typewriters to computers, as computers “automatically format spacing”. Well computer, you’re just a really really smart typewriter and those of us from the mechanical age are hitting space-space whether Word notes it in error or not. I want to revolt and rally around the space-space, but I admit, I just don’t have the stamina. No fighting The Man on this one.
WF?
However… let’s talk about the loss of “the” in “American” English to certain longtime, comfortable terms.
Did you know there is no global oversight body that dictates English grammar? It’s some weird cultural collective change. I know the total number of words expand and contract over time, as different ones come into popularity or devolve into archival status, but grammar, the structure of our words, changes?
I’ve heard the Brits speak this way my whole life, but I had no idea they were fighting a tacit grammar battle, and won! Have you noticed? Apparently Google hasn’t, as I couldn’t find any article about how Americans are now using the British rules, but if you listen carefully, US media has accepted the grammar change without a fight or even an argument. Just the pink slip. Or pink slip.
For some of us, it’s been awhile since we ventured out for something better. When it comes to travel in general, some silent shifts have been in play. Here are some tips for a peaceful, rejuvenating travel experience today. Because lately, the “T” in travel almost always stands for trouble.
Flying the Not So Friendly Skies
As for air travel, all I can suggest is to pack light and put on your happy face, as you’re going to need all the patience you can muster to get through it. Author Katie Way from Self.com, however, shares some excellent air travel tips, from stretching to staying hydrated.
Pedal to the Metal
For those looking for freedom that air travel seems to stifle, there’s the open road to consider. Travel & Leisure offers some helpful tips, but sadly there are still some thorns with which to contend.
With GPS practically surgically installed into our souls, getting to where you want to go has “never been easier.” That is, until the GPS navigator’s voice begins to grate on you, or contradict itself, or your phone’s GPS starts competing with your car’s, or when GPS tells you to make illegal turns you only discover when the policeman explains it to you. If you’re looking for some GPS Therapy, may I recommend this informative article from PC Magazine.
Self-driving cars simply scare the hell out of me. Maybe someday the trust will come, but until I can smooth out my relationship with my GPS, I don’t see myself giving up the wheel to technology. What do you think?
Boat? Drone? Jet Pack? How do you hope to be getting around in the future?
There’s a reason kids like art class: They’re human.
While it may be common knowledge today regarding the positiviely human results of non-verbal communication, but did you know that the act of expressing yourself via art releases endorphins in that human body of yours? Beyond just feeling good, drawing can change the chemistry of your brain.
And the best news, for all of us doodlers, is that there are no rules. Go outside the lines. Use crayons and paint. Throw in some sand. Stick a cork on it. Your creative expressions need not be limited to two dimensions. Hell, go for 5.
No time to make creativity a separate class in your day? Sprinkle it into your life. For some, simply adding a new pen color to your printed calendar can make life feel like a party. Others of us need a little more to keep the work spark going, but however much sugar you want in your coffee, go for it. If work isn’t fun, life isn’t fun, and that’s just unacceptable. Thankfully, there are easy ways to make us better.
Point is, be free. If you’re like me and need to plan your spontaneity, keep a craft drawer full of scissors, glue, paint, and whatever else seems to scream “glue me” so you can be at the ready next time you need to clear the cobwebs. Because when the work wall hits, and hit it will, turn up the music and lift the lid to your personal pandora’s box of fresh ideas.
