A world into Swedish universities. We conducted a lot of audience research for them a number of years ago to help them think about how they could approach international students in a different way. One of the things that we found when we started to dig deeper with these students and get more curious about them as complex human beings was we found that the Chinese students that would be most likely to go to Sweden actually also had a much, much higher likelihood that they identified as being LGBTQ+.
So we realized through that that there was a real opportunity just by understanding that and knowing that to be able to reach Chinese students in a different way. So, of course, Study in Sweden would go off to these recruitment fairs out in China. Universities from around the world, you probably do it as well. We go there, we set up our stand, and we're in amongst all of these other universities or national agencies that are there to help recruit students to our countries.
Study in Sweden actually instead decided to-- well, as well as, decided to take their recruitment activities to gay pride festivals in the major cities in China, and started to use that as an opportunity to go and recruit students. So this kind of insight that had us be willing and brave enough to start to be in conversations about things like sexual identity and sexuality actually enabled us to gather the insights that would allow them to make those decisions and approach it in a different way.
I'm also reminded of some work that I did with business school a number of years ago, where the business school wanted their faculty to be using social media a lot more, but they just weren't doing it. And there was an assumption amongst the administration within that business school that the faculty didn't use social media because they didn't know the benefits of using it or they didn't know how to use it.
So the assumption here was that we had to provide for the messages that were about the benefits of using it, and that we had to provide training on the technical-- technicalities of actually how to use these tools. When we actually dived into it and did the research with the faculty, we found out that wasn't the case at all.
We used this framework quite a lot in some of the work that we're doing, particularly when understanding people's approaches to using different tools and technologies, where we look at not just people's capability of using a tool, their technical know-how, but also their capacity, their confidence in using the tool, and their ability to apply it in their area of work.
When we applied and looked at this framework within this particular business school, what we actually found was that the reason why the faculty were not using social media was not because they didn't know how to use it, in fact, many of them did know how to use it very confidently, but because they didn't feel that they were trusted, supported, or empowered to use it by senior leadership within the business school. And so there was a confidence issue, but it wasn't the confidence issue that the school thought we needed to solve for them.
Only by digging into the depth of those kind of conversations were we then able to take a different approach. Had we stopped at assumption, we would have put in place some social media training and told them how to use the tools and technologies, which would have patronized them because, actually, they already knew how to use them. Instead, we needed to look at culture shift within leadership, within the organization.
So the point of all of these situations and scenarios is that we need to look behind the mask. We need to look beyond what might feel like it's obvious to us, and we need to look to other places to be able to gather these different insights about our audiences. So that means that when we're researching them, when we're talking to our audiences, when we're seeking to understand them, we need to look at the specific words that they're saying, the tone in which they're saying it.
We need to explore their body language and what that might be telling us. And we also need to look at the silences and take seriously the things that they're not saying and to get really curious about the things that they might not be saying. When we look at all of theses things, what we're actually starting to look at is their being, not just what they're doing or saying, but how they're being about it.
And that brings us into the world of the ontological coaching stuff that I kind of said I would touch on a little bit in this session. So what does this actually look like when we play this out into a real research scenario? Well, we hear things like this. In fact, every single one of these quotes on this screen is something that-- and they're paraphrased, but I have heard every single one of these multiple times in my 20 plus years of doing this kind of work.
I've heard people say to me in an interview situation, will I-- what I say in this interview help or hinder my application to study here? I've heard people say in focus groups, honestly, I'm just here because you're offering free pizza. I've heard people ask me the question, do you work for the university or no, you don't, you're a consultant. That's great, I'll be honest with you. Every single one of these statements potentially tells us something, but we need to get curious about what it might be telling us.
Let's look at the first and the last ones of these for just a second. Will what I say here help or hinder my application to study here? And do you work for the university? No. OK, great, I'll be honest then. Both of these comes with a being of being guarded, or being in some kind of trust breakdown with the person that they're in the conversation with.
And we can get curious about that and what that's actually about, because it will start to tell us something quite important about the relationship that they actually have with education institutions and the way in which they relate to them and perceive them. But to me, the more interesting one of the three quotes that I showed you is actually the middle one that we looked at. Honestly, I'm just here because you offer free pizza.
We used to laugh at this statement. We used to think it was actually quite funny. And sometimes it is. Sometimes we relate to them as being-- I appreciate this is a very British word to use right now, but as being a little bit cheeky, you know? They're just kind of here for the freebie, and that's OK. And it's kind of cute and it's kind of funny when that happens, and you still get something useful out of them.
But when we really started to get curious about this question, what we also realized is that our assumption might be that they're just being a little bit cheeky, just trying to get the free food, or was there something else going on? Might they actually be hungry? When we removed ourselves from thinking just from our assumptions and our own perspective, because we are not hungry, we were able to see that, actually, there might be something else going on.
The key and secret to recognizing some of these things is to recognize that you are still staying in assumption land, and to hand the power back to them to then clarify what might actually be going on for you. Sometimes in a scenario like this, they might not be willing to say that they are hungry, but they might be.
So you need to get into the practice of reflecting their being back to them. So what we're not going to say is, you must be hungry because you came here to get the pizza, but instead, we're going to reflect something back that we see or we think we see, without an attachment to being right about it, and to see what they say in response to that.
So it might look something like this, using terminology and phrases like this. Hey, I noticed that although you're really playing along here in this focus group, you don't really seem that excited about what we're talking about. What's that about for you? So what you're reflecting back to them is their being of not being excited, maybe being a little bit taken out or distracted or something like that, and you're just willing to kind of go there and say, yeah, this doesn't really seem to be resonating with you, even though your words might suggest that it actually is.
Or you might reflect to them something like, you're being really nice in the responses that you're giving me in this interview. What's the thing that you're not saying that you might be afraid to tell me? Notice when they just seem to be playing nice the whole time. Notice and reflect back to them that they haven't said anything that might be critical or could improve things for them, and get curious about why that might be.
Ask them questions that expand the potential for what they think they can actually ask of you. We find in audience research that often the audiences that we're researching will only give us insights, ideas, and suggestions that they think are possible for the institution to actually implement.
And some of their perceptions and their frame of reference around that is actually informed by the things that you're already providing for them, so it doesn't create that opportunity for possibility. So bringing in questions like, if anything were absolutely anything were possible, not just the things that you think we can do, what would you ask for? It changes the dynamic of the conversation, and it invites and welcomes them to move into a different place in that conversation.
A key phrase for you actually to bring into this when you're practicing this with having conversations with your audiences is the phrase, I don't have to be right about this, but you seem. Notice I don't have to be right about you being not excited about this thing, you just seem that you're not excited about it. It might be that you are, and this just isn't your way of showing excitement. But what that does is it, again, puts the power over there with them for them to be able to own it.
And it also recognizes that they don't feel that you're trying to figure them out or make assumptions about them or project anything onto them. It allows them to open that up into a conversation. And you need to be prepared at that moment that they're going to say, no, that's not how it is right now. But, generally, what they will say is when you say, no, that's not how I'm being right now, but they will then say, I'm being this, and so you're still getting those insights into their being.
So we want to think about gathering some of these things in different ways and different places that we can actually go to in order to bring all of this together and inform and influence the content that we then create for our audiences. So there's a number of places that we can actually look for this. And some of them are the obvious ones, like our digital platform, data, and analytics that we might have, like the ways in which they might be engaging with us, but also inquiry information, customer service data that you get.
The questions that are being asked by our students are a really rich source of data. The conversations that they might be having with faculty members are also really rich as an insight of understanding what might be going on in their lives. The trick here is to work with your faculty members to have them not make assumptions and interpretations, but instead to reflect back the actual questions that are being asked of them.
And the final place that's not-- not really final, but another place that's not on this screen is also social listening. It's a really rich way to look at some of the things that our students are willing to say elsewhere, but might not be willing to say to us because their relationship with education and the perceptions of education hold them back from doing so.
When we take that data, we can then move into this state of curiosity and we can start to essentially form our research questions that we want to ask. Then we can conduct some deeper research into this and conduct some analysis on that that's based on this unbiased curiosity that we're going to bring into it. And once we've got that information and that insight, then we can apply this into the content design process and the content that we create.
Except, if we're doing this really well as an organization, it actually shouldn't look like this at all, because almost always the things that you will hear and the things that are really going on for our students and our audiences will often point to something that needs to change in the service that we are providing for them, not just the content that we're creating for them. So, often, there will actually be another step in this process, and that's looking at the actual experience that they having across multiple different touchpoints, not just the interactions that you're having with your content. That, of course, takes courage.
And that's what we're going to move on to now. We're going to close off by thinking about courage. Because to do all of this, to get really curious about our audiences in the way in which we can truly open ourselves up to that experience of being empathetic actually requires us to know ourselves in just as much depth, if not more. And that means that curiosity requires a ton of courage.
It requires us to have the courage to know ourselves and all of our edges. It requires us to know what we might be afraid to ask. What are the conversations that we might be uncomfortable with? Take a look at this list for a second and think about the ones that you are comfortable with, having very open and frank conversations about, or the ones in which you actually might not be comfortable with.
Are you comfortable in having conversations about trauma and abuse? Are you comfortable in having conversations about money and poverty or food poverty or hunger? How do you feel about having conversations about death and bereavement? How do you feel about having conversations about political views, pretty contentious, or religion and their belief systems?
How do we feel about being in conversations where shame is at play or judgments are in the space? Because if we're going to get really curious with our audience and really lean into empathy, these are some of the conversations that we might need to have. And if we don't know our own stops in having these conversations and our own comfort zone with them, we can't confidently have these conversations with our audiences.
But the courage goes further than just knowing ourselves. We also need to have the courage to be OK with not knowing, to be wrong, to be surprised, or to be uncomfortable with the things that we might actually hear from them. We need to have the courage to actually accept that every single human being on this planet, no matter how good our intentions might be and how hard and how much integrity we might bring to the process, that we are all, every single one of us, bundles of biases.
And so we need to have courage to recognize and accept that we are both biased and judgmental as human beings, and that we probably are also a little righteous. And that when we recognize that and we have the courage in being able to accept that, we're then able to move beyond those things. We can only move beyond our biases when we actually see them, which means that we can only move beyond our assumptions when we also see them as well. But it takes courage to recognize our own human biases and judgments.
It also requires us to have the courage to actually move beyond shame and change our mind about things and see things in a different way, and do things in a different way, and admit that the things that we did previously, because we did the right thing based on the knowledge that we had at that moment in time, might not actually be the right thing to do at this moment in time. And lastly, it requires us to have the courage to challenge ourselves and our colleagues as well in their thinking, to do the facts, mysteries, assumptions, exercise with them, and to hold up to them that they might be living in assumption land.
We all know that faculty member that's got a 17-year-old nephew that's about to go to university, and that they think they know everything about the student decision-making process because of their very reliable sample of one person. We've all met that person. We've probably even been that person at particular moments in time. I know that I certainly have.
My nephew is actually here with me right now. He's on Easter break from university, and he's just come up to my house to visit me for a couple of days. And when he was applying for universities, I made all of the assumptions based on his experience about what it looked like for students to make decisions. So even someone with 20 years of practice in this realm, like me, can easily fall into assumption land. So to be really curious actually requires us to be really courageous.
Let's come back to that courageous team as we close off today's conversation and our thoughts around this, and ask ourselves, what would Scooby and the gang actually do if they were approaching this? Well, firstly, they wouldn't assume anything. Secondly, they'd do what we-- the moment that we always love, they'd look behind the mask and see what's really there, not just what they think is there in front of them.
They would use their instinct as well as their intelligence. They'd take their lenses off. They'd be curious about the why, and not just the what that they're seeing in front of them. And, most importantly of all, they'd be with the fear of being in these difficult conversations and trust in their curiosity and their ability to be with it, to be empathetic and compassionate.
And lastly, and most importantly, they would absolutely maintain their insatiable appetite for a juicy mystery. I'm Tracy Playle. Thank you for having me with me today and for having me start this conference off for you. If any of you have any questions or would like to connect with me, I'm always very, very happy to hear from you. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Tracy. If anyone has any questions, we have a couple of minutes before the next presentation. You're welcome to put it in the Q&A. You can ask it in the chat. Or if you just want to raise your hand, I can unmute you.
Michael, you have a question? Let's see, are you muted?
Oh, hi. I'm-- I used Michael's link. This is Sarah Eisenklam at UMass Lowell.
Hi, Sarah.
How are you? I just wanted to ask-- sitting and having deep conversations unfortunately costs money. And I'm wondering how can you be so empathetic and thoughtful? And I love your approach, and find these diverse reactions to your content and get real content on a shoestring budget.
Yeah, it's a great question. It's a really great question. One of the good news-- one of the good pieces of news about this is that when we move into like looking at qualitative research methods, you actually don't need to do a lot of it until you start to recognize the same patterns and themes over and over again.
So typically when we're looking at things like one-to-one interviews with an audience segment, you generally need to do somewhere between about 7 and 12 conversations before you're going to probably have covered almost all of the perspectives and the themes that are likely to emerge. So that doesn't have to be deeply expensive.
Social listening is often a very, obviously, a very cheap and easy way of just being able to sit and scroll through some videos. You've got to be a little bit careful with that, because the algorithms are going to build in some biases and you might get some perspectives coming out based on your own behaviors that are going to influence what you see.
One of the other techniques that we've actually been experimenting with at Pickle Jar in the last year or so with some of our audience research projects is the use of AI and AI chatbots to actually conduct qualitative interviews for us. So-- and it's a much, much lower cost. So basically you train an AI chatbot on asking the questions.
You tell it what it wants to know, and it actually can build on the answers. So-- and it's done through text, based on-- the people being interviewed know that they're being interviewed by a chatbot. But it will-- the answer that they give, it will then dive deeper into it with them and go further. And we've got a theory and we haven't actually had the opportunity to like test it reliably just yet.
But we do have a theory that people actually might be more honest when talking to a chatbot than they are to a human being, in that same way that notice there was the kind of hint in my presentation that people can sometimes be more honest when talking to a consultant than they actually are when speaking to someone that works for the university. So it's just a theory that we've got. We're kind of just playing with it at the moment to see if we can test it. But that's also relatively low-cost way of being able to do some of the qualitative conversations.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome. Thanks for your question.
All right. I think that should be it for time. Tracy, thank you so much. We really appreciate--
A pleasure.
--you speaking with us.
Thank you so much. Have a great day, everybody.
Take care.