Show notes

Episode 205 is a link show. James and Jonas discuss three articles that have grabbed their attention – this time they’re about how lying can make you creative and when (and how) to do user research.

Article one is Are you an evil genius? How dishonesty can make you more creative by Dr Julia Shaw. “Without understanding, we risk dehumanising others, writing off human beings simply because we don’t comprehend them. We must try to understand that which we have labelled evil. We tend to think evil is something that other people are. We think of ourselves as ‘good people’, and even when we do morally reprehensible things, we understand the context of our decisions”

Our second article is It’s never a good time to do research by Erika Hall. “I know people who won’t go invest 2 hours and $15 to see a movie without doing research… But there are organizations that will invest 20,000 person hours and several million dollars based on intuition,or whatever data is closest to hand.

Our Third article is also by Erika and is Research questions are not interview questions. “Your research question and how you phrase it determines the success and utility of everything that follows. If you start with a bad question, or the wrong question, you won’t end up with a useful answer. We understand this in daily life, but talking about research in a business context seems to short-circuit common sense. Everyone is too worried about looking smart in front of each other.

(Listening time: 31 minutes, transcript)

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