Op Ed — Opinions and Editorials
Marketing Touchpoints — How Active Listening Can be a Tool for Proactive Change Column Editor: Jill Stover Heinze (Sr. Product Researcher; Founder, Saddle-Stitch Marketing LLC, Charlottesville, VA 22902) <jill@SaddleStitchMarketing.com>
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hange. Sometimes change can slip right by us, hidden in the hustle-and-bustle of the everyday. Change today is not like that. The kinds of changes we’re engaging in and wrestling with in this moment are of a scale and magnitude impossible to miss. Masks are going on, statues are coming down, and important, culture-changing work is compelling us all to take a new look at unexamined and even destructive ways. In such a time, I find it difficult to write about marketing tips for libraries. This isn’t to say that marketing libraries, which I think of as a means of making connections, is irrelevant. Far from it. It may be more important than ever. After all, people need libraries to be the places they aspire to be — places of inclusion, community, and access, and marketing is one tool for achieving and communicating those values. But it seems that the topic is too small when the times call for big ideas and compassion on a tremendous scale. Though it is certainly too presumptuous to suggest an article by a librarian-UX-researcher can or should meet the moment, I chose to use this writing opportunity to reflect. I reflected on what, from what I recognize as my position of privilege, I could possibly share to be useful or relevant today in the context of a marketing piece. I chose to write about a topic that continuously challenges me in my career in libraries, user research, and simply as a person: listening. The irony of writing (talking) about listening isn’t lost on me, but I hope some of these reflections will serve as jumping off points for putting listening into practice to better our institutions and ourselves. Successful marketing is predicated on the ability to seek and address people’s needs in relevant ways. The act of seeking is an act of purposeful listening. Marketers use all kinds of ways to create those listening moments, from focus groups and surveys to social media monitoring and online panels. While those opportunities might help to carve out some space for listening, they don’t guarantee people are being heard. You may have experienced this gap yourself as a researcher or as a participant. Perhaps a fellow participant dominated the conversation, or maybe your feedback was misinterpreted. Maybe you weren’t even invited into the conversation. As we seek input, we must do all we can to help people be heard, appreciated, and understood. Listening is hard work, and it’s a skill that can be improved but rarely fully achieved. The following are some of the techniques, principles, and mindsets I’ve used to help me get better through numerous user research activities where I have the serious responsibility of framing conversations.
36 Against the Grain / September 2020
Know It’s Not About You One of the most formidable barriers to listening is minimizing one’s ego in an encounter. I’m using the term “ego” here in the psychological sense as that notion of self through which we perceive the world. When we converse, it can be dangerously easy to guide conversations in subtle ways that reinforce your world view or bolster your preformed opinions. In research, this subtle steering can result in confirmation bias. To illustrate, consider that you’ve worked for months on a new library service and you want to find out what people think about it. You’ve already invested a lot of time in the project, and any big changes would require a lot of rework or even threaten its launch. How willing are you to hear criticism? If the answer is “not very,” try mentally reframing the conversation. Understand going into it that the purpose of the service is to help people and benefit the community. No service or idea is beyond reproach, and learning about its flaws is a gift to help make it the best it can be. Ask questions like, “What is helpful or unhelpful about this?” to prompt for a well-rounded critique. If you don’t feel you can do this, ask a neutral party to lead the conversation.
Compensate People When you invite users to give you feedback for formal research purposes, you’re asking a lot of them. Think about this for a moment. If you’re asking someone to come onsite to speak, before they even meet with you they’ve already had to carve out time in their day, travel to your location, figure out parking or transit routes, wayfind to your building or space, complete consent forms, and meet new people. If the conversation is online, they may face the added complexity of figuring out unfamiliar technology. They do all of this before they answer a single question. Participants are doing work in order to be heard, and they deserve to be compensated accordingly. I’m very sympathetic to those facing tight budgets and that the amount and type of compensation may necessarily vary, but offer what’s reasonable for the effort you’re asking in return, and make sure participants know what they’ll receive and when they’ll receive it upfront.
Ask Open-Ended Questions One of the most important things you can do is construct questions so that they make space for honest, robust answers. Asking open-ended questions is critical in achieving that. In contrast to close-ended questions continued on page 37
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