Secrets and synchronicities -- Ava Lindberg's blog

Most research is analyzed thematically and in semi-quantitative fashion, even when highly qualitative like ethnography.  Qualitative researchers and anthropologists  are used to noting consistencies of a primary nature and creating a hierarchy of importance for other findings as they unfold through the methodological processes of a study.

For instance:  After the researcher has conducted multiple focus groups in multiple locations with multiple segments–or ethnographic observationals, depth interviews, online groups, and other qualitative methodologies–the research analyst begins to work through the data, writing about it and speculating, kneading, and turn it over like digging a vegetable garden–whether unclear or clear–labeling it, compiling it, seeking consistencies, surprises, new ideas that repeat again and again, and that turn out to form qualitative hypotheses and beginning “truths.”    She will examines inconsistencies and data points that don’t seem to fit into compact buckets because there may be intriguing variations on major ideas or divergence among segments, regions, and in response to the techniques that shift in the research itself. Finally, she creates a report (usually under pressure because it’s due, there’s a presentation about to happen, and the client team needs results immediately) which is based upon her indepth understanding of the issues accompanied by hypotheses and clusters of thematic findings, carefully balanced by segment, region, stimuli, that meets all objectives and moves into a transcendent place of next-steps and recommendations.

The exception to this cluster-repetition-thematic rule typically followed when analyzing qualitative research data is an interesting element called synchronicity.

This does not happen in every research study, but when it does, a coincidence is unmistakable.

Sometimes in the middle of an intense study–particularly one whose goals and objectives haven’t been solved yet or that contain pieces of data that don’t fit together, and everyone on the team is scratching their heads–the observer witnesses an event, finding, impression, situation, icon, or visual sighting that at first appears to be nothing.  It’s idiosyncratic or insignificant yet it has a certain attraction; it’s arresting.  It’s interesting, odd, and the astute researchers glances at it intensely, but may not know what to do with it.  She may forget about it or mull it over without result.   But later, under new circumstances, this same observation, event, or situation–or one very similar to the first oddity–repeats in another part of the country.  It is unexpected and is accompanied by shock or a startled effect.   The observer sees it, is amazed and surprised by the reappearance of it in another unexpected medium, and discovers–upon reflection–that the existence of this synchronistically repeated situation portends a greater depth of resonance and relevance for the overall findings than expected.  Or, it suggests an ending to how the research will go.   Or, the synchronistic event–although not immediately meaningful s in itself–begins to emphasize something newly important to the study.  Or, it unravels a research puzzle that could not originally be figured out.

Suddenly, this synchronistic occurrence–even if it only happens twice–provides a new, dramatic moment of indepth insight to the overall research momentum.  The researcher may be taken on a new journey, or a new line of thinking may be opened up.   Synchronicity becomes a kind of discovery mechanism facilitated by coincidence, by larger forces interfering and exerting power  in what once was an orderly, expected, research unfoldment.

In a future post, I’ll show photos and examples from packaged goods ethnographic research in which synchronicity not only amazed the observational team but drove home powerful truths that could no longer be ignored for the overall findings and next-steps marketing strategies.

Synchronicity may lead to breakthrough.

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Wanted to tell my blog readers who are professionals in the field of qualitative research…that I’m speaking at the QRCA Southeast meeting on September 16, 2011, in Duluth, GA, in case you want to come by and participate.  If you’ve just received the evite as a member of the Southeast Chapter, I look forward to this observational/ethnographic workshop experience a lot.

What I like –and think other researchers will appreciate about the September 16 experience–is its interactivity–the chance for participants to try out a couple of types of observational processes on your own, under my supervision, and in the company of other skilled researchers who may or may not know much about authentic observation.  This will help you immeasurably in ethnography.  Of course, we’ll examine theory and best practices, tips and techniques, the 10 principles of authentic ethnography, and weave it together with case histories from U.S., Canada, and international research.  But the observational skills can be considered a chance to move more deeply into the very essence–the tap root–of the authentic ethnographic process.

What I’ve learned about observation and true ethnography–now and since my graduate work at Columbia University in cultural anthropology…there’s no end to learning about how to observe. Any chance inside or outside of anthropological research projects should be used as an opportunity to practice observing, watching, listening, and paying attention to real-world activities of other people happening in front of you without changing their behavior in any way, yet astutely seeing and being present with it.   Like performing on piano, doing quantum physics, creating a painting, or learning Mandarin Chinese, observational abilities can be just as complex.  Observation evikves through multiple levels from beginning into intermediate into expert.

Again, there’s no end of learning about observation, and it’s real easy to get rusty if one hasn’t done it in a while (like a few days or weeks).   What I find is that ethnographic observation requires a slow, relaxed, deliberate process that continues to intensify as the hours of observation pass….being present within a heightened state of awareness as one experiences through participant observation the world of other people within the framework of one’s own interpretive self

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A reader–RA–writes on the topic of whether synchronicities are useful…or just enlightening, filled with wonderment, or only meaningful in terms of life experiences.  Of course, enlightenment, wonder, and meaning can be satisfying enough in my book, but adding in usefulness to synchronicity seems an extra-special dimension.

Here is RA’s story of an extremely useful occurrence from several weeks ago:

“We are working on our restoration of a historic house (in a large city in SA).  G needs thirty-five 7-meter -long beams for the exposed beam structure of a studio within the housing structures.  G has been thinking about this for some days because 7-meter beams are very hard to find. He goes to a hardware store, is waiting in line, and overhears an architect talking about thirty-five 7 meter beams that he is buying for his own work site.  After the architect hangs up, G tells him that– unbelievably–he is looking for this exact same item in the exact same quantity.

“As a result, the architect gives him the cell number where he can buy these beams, and G has been talking with the supplier to see if the purchase is feasible.

“Usually I note that synchronistic events are oddities that can stop you in wonder, but not necessarily useful in themselves in helping one along or making life easier. Except in this case.”

Another reader–P–lets me know this morning of a new association related to the color orange.  P writes:

“By the way, I read your blog about orange — recently a friend of mine, who is an interior designer in Sarasota, mentioned that he loves orange because it is known as the ‘Qualifier.’

“That meant, he told me, that orange goes perfectly with any other color.
“I didn’t believe him at first, but try it — it really does!”

Dear readers, please write in to post your own stories of useful synchronistic events and information.

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This afternoon, P–a marketing colleague whom I haven’t worked with in a while, who lives in Sarasota, FL where he writes a humor column among other ventures–emailed me out of the blue…a strange photo of a no-smoking sign from a Chinese–or Japanese–hotel.  P was taken with it, called it a “classic,” as my readers might feel about it as well.

The odd thing is that I had this very sign in my Chinese hotel room where I was staying on a global research trip in Shanghai or Shenzhen, China.   The sign was white and red, prominently in my hotel room, and afixed to my headrest. I noticed it because it was unusual, restrictive, and intrusive in its command not to smoke in bed.  I wondered if anyone in the hotel, furniture, or guests had perished from fire while smoking in bed, so management had to make the prohibition really obvious.

These characters are supposed to be Japanese, but the exact same sign with Chinese characters with the same English translation of “please refrain from smoking in bed sign” was in my very own Chinese hotel just two weeks ago.  I have just returned from this trip–10 days ago–P did not know I had gone, and I never told anyone else about the sign while staying in my hotel room.

P wondered why I didn’t take it with me.  First, it was affixed to the bed.  Second, as I wrote back, “had I slipped everything that was strange about Shanghai or Shenzhen into my luggage, I would still be trying to get through customs or dragging an extra-heavy roller bag up one of the nonfunctioning escalators while leaving mainland China to get into Hong Kong.”

This week and next, I am thinking a lot about China while writing up qualitative research findings from the global research….strange.

I am curious:  Why did P suddenly send me the photo of the sign?  Why am I being reminded of this memory?

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This morning I started to think about changing the name of my blog to Secrets, Semiotics, and Synchronicities, although I probably won’t.   I need to think about this step before making such a decision.   But, I do like the combination of these three topics, as well as the alliteration of the three S’s.   Since the idea has occurred to me more than once, maybe I should write about it.

So, what is semiotics?  It is…

The study of the nature of signs and symbols within a culture that are experienced on an everyday basis.  Some people who consider themselves to be semioticians or semiotics experts are followers of Roland Barthes, Levi-Strauss, Sassure….the great French linguists and theoreticians who developed the philosophy and methodology of semiotics which can be both linguistic and visual.    I am more an anthropological generalist who uses many methodologies of anthropology, archetypal realities, and the everyday signs and symbols connected to semiotics within an overall analytical perspective.  The subtexts of reality, culture, signs, symbols, and the great unconscious legendary, mythological elements are my favorite part of a qualitative project and analysis.

In my work as a cultural anthropologist and qualitative researcher, I consider semiotics to be an intentional step upward from what we already do as QRCs.   The intensified interpretation of signs observed through semiotics helps us to not take reality for granted.  As we watch consumer life and listen to what people say, we see things differently.  Semiotics shows us that the world is not purely objective, literal, exactly as we hear it at the initial levels, or independent of human interpretation.

Indeed, the consumer or segment’s world is far deeper, wider, and more intriguing…we learn through semiotics that reality is a personalized and cultural system of signs and symbols connected to everyday life and rituals that are constructed by others–as well as ourselves–as our subjects play out their roles and as we observe and hear them.  Meaning is neither contained nor transmitted–meaning is actively created according to certain codes and internal series of meanings and resonances that usually we’re entirely unaware of but that the semiotics practitioner can glean from watching and analyzing this outside data internalized scientifically and intuitively.

When the qualitative researcher sees things from a semiotic perspective, she finds that even the most literal, the most realistic, the most obvious, or the most mainstream signs, symbols, activities, and experiences are not what they appear to be on the surface, but are discovered to interconnect to the underlying structure of a segment, culture, or household’s bigger foundations of meaning.

As Shakyamuni Buddha taught in a sutra relevant to semiotics and synchronicities:

“Things are not what they appear, nor are they otherwise.”

And now for the less serious side of semiotics.  Some critics (rightfully, perhaps) believe that semioticians are difficult to understand, even though they’re supposed to elucidate the obvious and make it more simple.   Semiotics texts and analyses can be almost unreadable.   Try to read a contemporary anthropological text and you’ll see what I mean.  Actually, this is true for me, too.  I have to  to reedit my own work constantly to simplify it.  We live in a world of intensified sound bites and no one likes to read long, complex, or too-subtle explanations for very long without losing patience and giving up.

Here are three favorite quotes about semiotic analyses:

“The advocates of semiotics write in a style that ranges from the

obscure to the incomprehensible” (Lewis 1991)

“Semiotics tells us things we already know in a

language we will never understand” (Whannel, cited in Seiter 1992)

“The semiotic establishment is a very exclusive club;

however, semiotics is far too important an enterprise

to be left to semioticians”  (Sless 1986)

In a future semiotic project, which I’m working on right now, I shall try to be a little more comprehensible, simple, and nonjargony when elucidating the obvious.

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Lately I have been finding that I say or think something and my words and thoughts are immediately proven or illustrated by a visual or event in the outside environment.  I never quite know when it will happen.  It happens so frequently that these synchronous associations feel natural, almost commonplace, and often I forget to record them.

Two illustrations:

.  While driving back from Tanglewood this weekend, my friend is discussing Judy Garland and her talents as an artist.  We pass a street sign called Garland.

.  I return from China and the subject of orange again crosses my mind (I have done several posts in this blog on the evolving spiritual meaning of orange.)   I see a small boy, while I’m running near the Hudson.  He is dressed in an orange t-shirt and he is Chinese.  I photograph him, and we talk briefly.  He is visiting the U.S. from China,  just as I was recently visiting China from the U.S.    I see him three more times in the same week and each time am reminded of China.

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Last Monday, August 1, I returned from Mumbai, India, on a Continental flight coming into Newark Airport.   I had been on a qualitative research trip for a month in Europe, China, and India.  Of all the places in which I conducted research, India was my favorite.   That Monday….it was morning, I had been up most of the night on a 16 hour flight, and I was filled with images of India heading into Manhattan.  Riding in a cab from Newark Airport, I was talking the ear off the driver of my cab about how incredible India is.  As I was talking about India on 10th Avenue going toward midtown, a cab went by with a sign on its roof:  Incredible India.

This response from the universe delighted me even more than I was already delighted.  It was as if the world was agreeing with me.  I do love India and want to go back.

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