A story is a description of a connected series of events, sometimes true and sometimes fictitious. Personal stories are these descriptions filtered through a magical mixture of our memories, perceptions and imagination. When we write a story, we invite people into not only our lives, but our inner thoughts.
This is the reason we’ve created Real Life Stories; a way to capture a whole host of unedited, unfiltered and unabridged thoughts and feelings about any topic, theme or brand that people have a viewpoint on.
We also feel that Real Life Stories addresses a couple of issues in research.
Firstly, as researchers who interpret (a good thing!), we can get in the way of people’s real voices getting through (not so great). We select the verbatims and choose the images that accompany them.
Or we try to enrich research with films (another good thing). But written and spoken stories offer a different interpretation than films and pictures. When we make films, we become filmmakers and viewers watch through our eyes: we create an external rather than inner gaze. Unconscious bias also means our brains are inclined to make assumptions based on appearance which distracts from the story being told.
With Real Life Stories, we empower people to tell their story in whatever way they want. We keep the ask light and encourage people to interpret it in whatever way they choose. We ask for a minimum word or recorded limit but beyond that they can add as much or as little as they want. We also ask them to choose the images or photography that illustrates their story. We want to understand the world through their eyes.
We then create The Storybook.
This is our output: a document full of authentic unedited stories that is prefaced AI analytics and human interpretation to help the reader understand the bigger picture.
Real Life Stories is about research that leans out and trusts people. This trust leads us to richer, more creative, more meaningful places.