Blue soup / What researchers can learn from movies?

I’ve always wanted to write about movies. It was the only possible constructive explanation, to be able to spend my days watching films and TV shows. What a brilliant productive idea to run a blockbuster blog, focus only on cultural studies and maybe one day write a book called, something like “Lifetime on a couch.”

Well, those dreams are on hold for the time being, but I’m keeping them as Plan B.

There are for sure people more fit to the job of film critique that I am, but at Selkie News we’ve decided to meet them halfway, with (perhaps, a regular cycle of) posts on research toolbox elements and practical empathy that can be inspired by films. We will also organize open-discussion movie nights with great team BADACZE WUD Silesia and Super Teacher - Izabella Wyppich, to talk about research lessons learned straight from the cinema screen.

I’m super excited, that it finally happens! But before any more details and an official invitation, let me share with you a first dosage of research wisdom from movies, starting from those that we’ve actually used as examples during some lectures and workshops on UX / design research in recent years.

My first example comes from a small lecture that probably should have been done differently, but at a time, with my own mostly theory-based level of experience, seemed as an appropriate insight for young women interested in starting a career path in IT.

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If there was a quiz question on what Bridget Jones and UX research have in common, I assume there will be many of you, answering - A Diary!

Well, it is a possible answer, and I myself had proposed a lecture on research methods and techniques hidden in the movie, at my first and only Geek Girls Carrots Silesia meeting. Diary studies, observation, focus groups can be really well and funnily depicted by Bridget Jones Diary motives. I would hesitate with shadowing though, cause it gets closer to stalking in her interpretation, but the rest stand their case quite strongly.

It is truly great source for interesting analysis and meet-up talk, but in my opinion, the true color of her story and a lesson for us, is to be found in her soup...

Beloved (by some…) female character, living in a collective memory of the beginning of early 00s, seams like a perfect case for psychoanalysis an victim of many critical feminists studies. Traumatized by narcissistic mother, self-obsessed, other-directed, confused and working her way in the world run by Victoria Secret models, accelerating technology, productivity, corporate work culture, and ironically... romantic values straight from Jane Austen books. She’s perfectly unreal as whole, but yet elements of her are very reassuring. It’s not easy to identify with her, she’s not a role model per se either, but I feel that sometimes we do experience at least something similar to “Bridget Jones day”... when everything goes wrong, we do not fit to our own expectations, we feel abandoned, sad, angry or just stupid, because we did something wrongly. We’ve tried to follow some ready recipe or coaching tips to get things done quickly and well, and we failed.

It is even better described in Helen Fielding first volume of her stories than in a movie. When Bridget designs her B-day party, she focuses her attention on one goal -  to be found by her friends as a perfect host with Michelin chef skills. Motivated by this absurd image, completely inexperienced in the kitchen but strongly convinced it is possible (thanks to newly bought cooking book’s cheering attitude), she gets to work on:

1. Veloute of Celery
2. Char-grilled Tuna on Veloute of Cherry Tomatoes Coulis with Confit of Garlic and Fondant Potatoes.
3. Confit of Oranges. Grand Marnier Creme Anglaise.

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Bridget: Will become known as brilliant but apparently effortless cook. People will flock to my dinner parties, enthusing "Oh it's marvellous to be going to Bridget's for dinner, one gets Michelin star-style food in a bohemian setting."

What the hell is veloute?

Anyway, as probably some of you remember, she ends up serving a blue soup. It became kind of a cult thing now, and I found a number of cooking blogs and Pinterest pins, trying to follow this achievement.

Adorable as it is… it is not the point of the story to copy her mistake. The point is strong, and pretty obvious. When our plans for delivering project are mainly focused to “wow” others with our own brilliance, we are doing a shitty job from the beginning. As I’ve experienced on many occasions working on UX design projects or preparing research scenarios, people tend to fixated on this “wow effect”, supposedly expected by others, not listening to their actual needs - trying to provide too much, too soon. If you think it is a common mistake only for junior designers, or other less experienced project team members, who simply are too unsure of their own decisions or UCD good practices, you’re … well not entirely right. It happens to many of us. Hell, it happens to me on daily basis, and I need to remind myself of “good enough” policy - delivering actual value to stakeholders’ gradually, communication and feedback loops. Little faith in humanity also could be helpful.

It’s a well known phenomenon to social psychology called “a spotlight effect”. Simply put, it’s a strong belief of our visibility to others. In many social cases it translates to not starting any action when facing an accident or a sudden event. It is driven by fear of judgment from others. In reality though, many social psychology researches have shown, that in social situations people are generally focused on themselves and their own feelings, than on others. We tend to overrate attention that supposedly will be on us in certain context, and on our possible mistakes.

There is no doubt most of us rather become objects of stories and poems of admiration, transferred through generations, than get even one negative feedback or anonymous hate comment… thus, being supposedly “in the spotlight”, makes most of us in social situations either blocked (sudden events) or, at (known to me) work environments, - getting ahead of ourselves in unrealistic expectations that we try to sell to others, and then delivering things weakly, or torment ourselves and our team to be more than perfect. Everything to please people with things that we believe they want. But do they? Do they really want always a “wow”?

One would think that those days are over, and people in business are so aware... but seriously try to beat natural instincts of fight or fly with post-its. It’s not so easy, it’s a process and actual effort of self-realisation.

I personally believe, that for many “wow” means well defined and clearly communicated “good enough”, that everybody takes a responsibility for. Look up “Adult to Adult relation”, in transactional analysis of interpersonal relations, or (outreaching to complex systems and engineering) great communication tools from Tom Gilb. His fantasic, funny and super wise booklet on clear communication you can find here.

At the end, what’s important is, if we get caught in “ the spotlight effect”, we need a strategy to get real again. An “aha!” moment of illumination, a sentence of constructive feedback, another person showing us that it all was only in our head, that it really doesn’t matter, and we’ve yet again placed our priorities wrongly and fixated on them. Banal as it sounds, it will actually have an impact on our approach, and consequently on collaborations’ results. It’s a simple wisdom for researchers who tend to overcomplicate their scenarios with unnecessary “creative” tools and... for their sales / marketing partners, promoting unsuful research practices or directions.

I believe “wow” approach in many cases is an exhausting time waste and does not support long term life, nor business, relationships.

For Bridget, on her occasional b-day party “focus group”, it was her friends, that didn’t mind the mistakes or wrong actions - as it turned out, they came for different reasons than five stars Michelin chef excellence.

If we lucky, we will get “a blue soup experience” for bringing up the wrong or short-term “wow”, but it’s always better to be present and sensitive to others, who we build our future with…. and expect the same from them.

Tom: Well done Bridge, four hours of careful cooking and a feast of blue soup, omelette and marmalade. I think that deserves a toast, don't you? To Bridget, who cannot cook, but who we love... just as she is.