Curio Research Quarterly Vol. 19

Hello from Curio Research HQ! It’s been a busy few months, but I’m back on a reasonable cadence and hitting a comfortable stride.

Business

Work

Since my last letter, I wrapped up the project for PSB Insights on environmental sustainability messaging in B2B tech products. I moderated nine focus groups over three weeks testing new messaging stimuli between each cadence. The groups themselves were challenging to moderate, but I enjoyed discussing the topic and was pleased to hear about the progress some companies are making toward becoming carbon-neutral.

After that, I did a large qualitative/quantitative job for Spatial on behalf of a company testing wearable technology on people with different ethnic backgrounds and physical features. 130 one-hour split between two researchers, we delivered a report detailing the results of testing 16 products on various fit and comfort factors across eight different variables. All of the different charts and graphs went into the report’s appendix, which added another 100 pages to the report on its own. It was a crazy amount of data to process, but we got through it.

Now I’m working on a usability test for Kalamuna for a civic institution. It’s the second time I’ve tested the website. I tested another version last year, and they found the results so helpful that they brought me back for another round.

After that, I’ll start another Spatial project for a British Columbian company owned by the provincial government (we have a few of those here). They’re building and testing a new single sign-on interface to combine their various online properties. It may not sound interesting, but improvements like that can make or break online experiences.

That will take me well into March. Let me know if you have a project on the horizon for late March or early April. I’d like to get you on my radar.

Leadership

It feels like I’ve been QRCA VP for a lifetime, but it’s only been seven months. We’re about to start our strategic planning process, and I hope it results in some real investment that sets the organization up for future success. Cross your fingers that we agree to a new name, URL, member management/learning platform, and website. All on a strict budget, naturally.

Conferences

Speaking of QRCA, the annual in-person conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, is almost here! I lovingly refer to this event as Research Camp, and Research Camp is the BEST. I walk away from every conference with a notebook full of advice to improve my practice, methods I want to try, and new friends and research colleagues. This year is special because it is also the organization’s 40th anniversary, and we will be celebrating our long history of camaraderie and education.

This year, as vice president, I’ll be attending an in-person executive strategy session and leading another strategic session involving the chairpeople of the QRCA’s various chapters and special interest groups to set the tone for the coming year. Enjoying the conference will likely take a back seat to running around and putting out fires as they arise, but I fully expect to see old friends and meet new people throughout the week.

If you’re interested in attending, here is the link. We expect it to be one of our most attended events of the last 40 years, so don’t miss out.

Personal

Travel

Charlotte, North Carolina, for the QRCA Conference is the most immediate trip on my calendar. I’m disappointed I’ll miss the cultural immersion field trip to drive a stock car on a NASCAR track, but I’ll be staying the weekend to explore the city a little. I have a bunch of restaurants, museums, and arts districts picked out, and I don’t doubt I’ll have plenty of opportunities to fill my time.

My husband and I are having casual conversations about short trips to Seattle and Portland over the spring and summer. We’ll see how that shakes out.

The next big trip will be to Italy in the fall. We’re still working out the exact itinerary, but Venice, Florence, Rome, and Naples are definitely on the list. I’m currently researching our potential destinations to create one of my famous travel maps for the trip.

Media

Movies:

The Menu. There is a deliciously subversive ‘eat the rich’ theme running through pop culture at the moment, and I am here for it. As someone who occasionally patrons fine dining establishments and has watched every episode of Chef’s Table, I loved the dark and twisted take on the culture. I’ll probably avoid acclaimed but geographically isolated restaurants for the rest of my life.

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths. I enjoy surrealism in visual media. Atlanta does a great job of using surrealism to work through complex issues (race, gender, exploitation, what it means to feel content…), and Bardo uses it to reveal a man’s inner life. It tells a story of love and regret in a way that makes no sense in the moment but perfect sense in the aggregate. It achieves honesty without being literal.

TV:

Atlanta. For the very reasons mentioned above. They don’t shy away from difficult topics but make you laugh at and digest issues rather than force you to sit with your feelings. Not that solemnity is wrong, but the weirdness offers a different perspective. Seasons 5 was their final, but I hope Donald Glover will be back with a new project soon.

A League of Their Own. This show was well-written and enjoyable to watch while offering a subversion of its own. Instead of centering the story on the straight characters, it focuses on the queer ones. The effect makes you wonder if everyone who plays baseball is a lesbian until you do the math and realize the main characters are in the minority. Still, their stories are in the foreground, while the heteronormative stories are background, if mentioned at all.

Social Media

I did it. I left Twitter and moved to Mastodon. It’s different. Yeah, it’s not as simple to set up, but once I did, I found the experience more fun and manageable than Twitter. It reminds me of the early days of Twitter when you only heard from the people you wanted to hear from, and there was no endless scroll.

If you’re considering joining or find yourself lurking and not sure why, I do recommend joining an instance/server that focuses on something that interests you. Something that you wouldn’t mind hearing about when you’re not working. That way, the community posts you get will be on a subject you find engaging. 

I joined the Urbanist instance. This means that some of the posts I see from the community are typical inane musings on daily life, but the higher level posts and conversations are on good urban planning policies and practices in different cities, a subject I find fascinating from a design, social psychology, environmental, and personal quality of life perspective.

Do I keep this going by moving from Instagram to Glass? Probably not. Glass is just like Instagram in that it’s still a centralized system; it’s just newer and less popular than Instagram. With that move, I wouldn’t be throwing a proverbial wrench into the system. But hey, you never know. It’s an option.

Giving Back

There’s a lot of tragedy going on in the world. The war in Ukraine. 35,000 dead and counting from the earthquake in Syria and Turkey. This month I donated to the Canadian Red Cross, which the Canadian government will match towards earthquake relief efforts in Turkey and Syria. If you’re Canadian, you can do the same using this link until February 22nd.

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