In This Episode: In this episode we talk to Olga Sajkowski who is part of Research & Insights / Global Esports at Riot Games. We learn about her career path from vendor side to client side, and the pros and cons that come with both.
Key Takeaways:
• What it’s like working at a major brand company
• The pros/cons of doing research vendor side
• The pros/cons of doing research client side
• The future of qualitative research
Quotes:
“I think one of the nice things that has come out of the pandemic is qualitative research, it's gotten a lot easier because we have this kind of new trust in some of the more online methodologies.”
- Olga Sajkowski
“With eSports we could have had a debate. Is it even fair to call it a sport? And now we're seeing this whole revolution on how products are positioned and designed around the industry.”
- Maggie Bright
Chuck Murphy00:00
Hi, everyone. Good morning. I'm Chuck Murphy and welcome to Key Takeaways. Today, Maggie Bright and I are talking to Olga Sajkowski. And Olga is someone that we have known well for years she used to work with us. And in addition to that a wonderful dot on her resume, she has a really fascinating career, she's jumped between traditional research vendors, to insights at ad agencies, and is now a client side researcher for Riot Games, the maker of League of Legends who many of you may know, but she's just a really well rounded researcher is able to do a number of things. And Maggie, and I thought it would be really interesting to talk to her about her career and how she's navigated these different roles, and we hope you enjoy the discussion. Good morning, everyone. I'm joined by Olga Sajkowski today and Maggie Bright.
Maggie Bright01:00
Hello, good morning. Or good afternoon, but other than that, we're off to a good start.
Chuck Murphy01:07
Olga, how did I do on your last name? I've had a lot of practice with it. And I still get nervous when I say it.
Olga Sajkowski01:13
My last name?
Chuck Murphy01:15
How was my pronunciation? Like seven out of 10?
Olga Sajkowski01:18
8 out of 10.
Chuck Murphy01:19
8 out of 10? I like that. Olga, Maggie and I have known each other for a number of years. Olga, used to work with us at Murphy Research and she's at Riot Games, which some people will be super passionate about it. Some people won't know, how do you explain Riot to people that don't know it?
Olga Sajkowski01:39
Most people know it for better or for worse. Those that know, know and love it. I think our players and fans are some of the most passionate and engaged people that I've ever met. So it makes it makes research really interesting and really fun actually, on the client side, those that don't know it. I describe it as the biggest IP you've never heard of
Chuck Murphy02:02
That's what I would say too, like League of Legends is the biggest thing you've never heard of. It's really crazy how big it is.
Olga Sajkowski02:10
Yeah, it's it's insane. For context, this is this is my favorite fun fact to contextualize, The Super Bowl on average gets 95 million viewers. Our world finals last year had 143 million.
Chuck Murphy02:23
Just so insane.
Maggie Bright02:25
That's a great, that's a great step.
Olga Sajkowski02:27
Yeah, that puts it into context. But yeah,
Chuck Murphy02:31
Right, put an on infographic on that like this is at least five years ago now when I first saw this, and I just remember be blown away. Like they just compared the size of the audiences. And it's it was a really neat looking infographic. And I I remember when I saw it, I was like, Oh my gosh, I had no idea this was so big.
Olga Sajkowski02:47
Yeah, it's insane. I'm not a gamer. So I came to Riot kind of, in a serendipitous way. I was working with you guys at Murphy. And I saw that an old colleague of mine had gone over to run global channel publishing, which is like the in house media agency over there. And I reached out to her under the pretext of business development. And she's like, oh, I need your help. Your ears must be burning and like, how can we help? And she's like, not "we" I want you. She pulled me over and I'm the token non gamer hire over there, which brings in a lot of different perspectives, for better or for worse. But I've really grown to appreciate and love what Riot does. I think just just seeing how engaged and passionate our fans are in the worlds that we're creating. And we're you know, expanding outside of gaming right now to to engage further with with people and share the stories and the characters that we're developing with them through. Other means, like entertainment. So yeah, it's really cool.
Maggie Bright03:49
My teenage son, which is a hard sentence to even say was super excited that we were talking to someone from Riot today.
Olga Sajkowski03:58
Ooh, does he play League?
Maggie Bright04:01
Now he's been playing Valorant. See, I'm clearly not a gamer either. But I was asking him about it. Because the other day I made him stop what he was doing to eat dinner. And he's like, I'm going to be banned for 24 hours, mom, and it's your fault. So that is my, I am the killer of games and dreams when it comes to 13 year old boys.
Olga Sajkowski04:23
Love it. Yeah, Valorant is actually the one game that I am playing. I do play League terribly with my team. I actually just hired a new guy on the team and I put it into his professional development plan that he has to make me a proficient League player, because he's quite good himself. But Valorant is fun. It's easier to handle. It's a it's a tack shooter game. The barrier to entry is a lot lower than than something like League which requires 1000s upon 1000s of hours to even be good. And a lot of households. You're not alone.
Maggie Bright04:54
He did play League for a while and I think you know he was not allowed to spend 1000s and 1000s of hours, maybe why the change occurred. But I will say during COVID gaming was one of the ways that he was able to stay social and active with his, with his cohort. And even his school was, you know, they were okay with the gaming because of that piece of it, and not that they're not okay with it, but they kind of encouraged it to some extent, because it was like, Hey, this is how they're getting their social connection. So I will say, gaming was a was really good in our household during COVID.
Chuck Murphy04:59
It just gets so hard. And I think it's harder with boys than with girls, but where to draw the line, like, what's too much screentime. But so much of how they socialize is through the screens now and as they get - my kid, I mean, Maggie, for context for those, you know, Maggie's a little bit ahead of me, and I'm a little bit ahead, Olga, in terms of the age of our kids, but it's it's so crazy as the as the boys start to get to that age where like, they are truly socializing through the game. And to know like, how much is too much. And I find my wife had time with it, like every day, like should we let this continue? It's great that all his friends are on and they are socializing, but they also like, it could become a lot of screen time some of these things are so, these games can be so addicting and so engaging, you know that they get in that world, it's hard to get them out of it. It's a really hard line to draw as the kids get older.
Olga Sajkowski06:28
For sure. I mean, I have a three and a half year old and she's like schooling us at Mario Kart now.
Maggie Bright06:38
I will say I played some Mario Kart during COVID. And that was like, oh, simpler times. I understand this one.
Chuck Murphy06:47
Yeah, it's funny. When the kids are younger this Mario Kart the Switch brought Mario Kart back it's funny to see them all playing. I'm like, oh my god, it looks so similar to how it looked when we were kids. Just the graphics are better. But I'm like this is the same game. I played this game.
Maggie Bright07:00
You're still bad at this game! That was my takeaway.
Chuck Murphy07:05
I can hang with Mario Kart. I am terrible at League and I was just as bad at Wild Reds. I haven't Glory yet. I'm gonna have to try that one. But you know, okay, I wanted to talk to you. So it's funny. So throughout my career, people make fun of me, because I have a pretty crazy list of places I've worked. Like I have a pretty diverse, and I get made fun of for that all the time. And I think that you probably beat me, like I haven't met too many people that have worked. I mean, really, you have a wide range of jobs that you worked, and maybe you want to give us just a brief like how you found research, like how you ended up in research and where you were before?
Olga Sajkowski07:47
Yeah, well, we can go way, way back. I mean, I think one of my first jobs was for, I was Franklin the turtle at a toy store in the dead heat of summer in a massive furry turtle suit, trying to bring kids into a toy store and sell them candy. It was pretty funny. But no, research. So I did my undergrad at the University of Toronto, with a program there in international relations and peace and conflict studies. And I fell in with an academic think tank that is run at the University of Toronto, in conjunction with the London School of Economics. They're called the G8 research group. They basically just do research on the G8. When I was there, our key mandate was just tracking and assessing progress against key commitments that the G8 member states would make to at each summit and ministerial meetings. I thought I'd have a career in like public policy Foreign Affairs coming out of that, and so I applied... No, sorry, I took a couple years off. I was a flight attendant. But I went back and I applied at a company called Ipsos in Canada. Ipsos had a an arm of the organization called Episodes Read at the time. I think there's something else now but they were basically all doing like public opinion polling work. And I thought that was going to be my very glamorous life. Ipsos hired me. But they didn't have room at Read. So they stuck me in at ASI, which is their marketing research arm to kind of learn the ropes. And then six months later, when an opportunity opened at Read, they were like, Hey, we're ready for you. And I'm like, this is kind of fun. This marketing research stuff I kind of I kind dig it and I was working with a lot of really great ad agencies or my client says Leo Burnett, Ogilvy kind of all the all the big names there and I kind of just was very intrigued by like the advertising marketing world and, and stuck with it. So that's how that's how I found research, marketing research.
Chuck Murphy09:50
Yeah. And you've stuck with this policy. You obviously really enjoy it right? Like
Olga Sajkowski09:57
I do. I do. It's funny. I I often describe myself as a right brain in a left brain field. I've always been a very creative kid, a storyteller, National Public Speaking champion, a bit of a comedian. And so I enjoy the the discovery, just kind of the human discovery aspect of research, just learning insane things about people. And then using those insane things to tell cool stories and sell people stuff. It's it's kind of fun.
Chuck Murphy10:28
Yeah, it's funny. There's, it's such a unique field, right? Like I always tell people like I actually really enjoyed the work like, which is a little bit nutty, because it is it's a unique field. And there is a lot of, you know, there's a lot of details and there's a lot of rote work that goes into it. But the at the at the end of the day, like, why does this person do this, I think is fascinating.
Maggie Bright10:52
We get to people watch all day long.
Chuck Murphy10:54
That's what I do at restaurants and everything anyway. I drive my wife crazy, because I'm like, Why do you think those two? What do you think they're talking about? It looks like I'm all over people's business. It's ridiculous.
Maggie Bright11:05
I feel like I create backstories for people all the time so that I can fit them into like the narrative of what they're doing now.
Chuck Murphy11:12
My question, because we are just - Maggie and I were just talking about this. But were you ever scared of public speaking? Or did you always, were you comfortable with it from the beginning?
Olga Sajkowski11:22
I was comfortable with it from the beginning. I've always been a ham.
Chuck Murphy11:27
We were talking about this. I'd be curious to know what you think about this. But I was guessing with Maggie that I would guess that like, the incidence of people that don't have a fear of public speaking is one or 2%. Like, I think the vast majority people even a small group presentation scares them but you are very comfortable with it, you enjoy it. So that's not something you had to develop like a cope with it. You've always kind of had it.
Olga Sajkowski11:51
Yeah, I've always been a ham. I've always loved it. I think for me, too, is like, how to explain this? I have this like, there's a comforting thought that I always come back to that, like no one is thinking about you. Like everyone is so wrapped up in their own heads that like at the end of the day, like no one's gonna remember you and no ones gonna think about you. And that's that's really liberating. Like once you lean into that notion, it's really freeing.
Chuck Murphy12:17
Yeah, no, you're right. This is super insightful comment because that's something that a lot of that happens in everyday life too, people are so you know, you see people that are scared to order from waitresses in restaurants or whatever. It's like the waitress is not thinking about what you're ordering, they don't care. Look just know what you want, you know?
Olga Sajkowski12:36
Yeah, I don't get embarrassed very easily.
Maggie Bright12:39
Excellent quality, I think everyone should have that quality.
Chuck Murphy12:46
Maggie and I we're talking about the fact that like even like small presentations when I was younger, I still don't like it I still don't like having to be the one that's like standing there. Even though I've gotten like I've gotten a lot of experience at it but it's hard for me. But that's awesome that you were so comfortable with it.
Maggie Bright13:03
I went the kind of the opposite way of you I started in with an advertising background and then fell into market research and I know you started more traditionally at a more traditional marketing market research firm and then spent time working with ad agencies and we'd love to hear your perspective on kind of how that transition went because it's a different it's a different thought process a different strategy different kinds of business I mean it's very different. So we'd love to hear because I think that's the next iteration of your resume unless I missed another one as a mascot
Chuck Murphy13:42
In addition to what you just said and tell me if you if you would agree with this set but when I look at your career this is one of the things I was thinking about what we're talking about you doing this podcast. You've had like three different jobs in advertising is that is is it fair? So you've been a research supplier, you're now brand side but I would put like Saatchi and Palisades is kind of more advertising like how did differently though you were in an insights role right? Is that is that kind of how you think about it like three different?
Olga Sajkowski14:09
Yeah. The way I can kind of describe kind of the three phases and the key difference across the three is the stakeholders and the end clients and the the work that you impact. So vendor side I loved my time on vendor side you know, where I honed my craft skills and you know was exposed to a wide variety of methodologies and categories and clients and personalities. Vendor side kind of your, your impact is a little bit truncated, like you do the research. You write the proposal, you do the work you ship at and then very, it's very rare that you get to see kind of a product through to the end and really get to experience and see the impact that your work had on the lifecycle of a product. On the ad agency side, it's different because you're in the business of ideas. You're in the business of like creating moments or effectively art with the end goal of selling people stuff. But you get to see the impact of it. So I'll never forget this one project we did for an automotive company. And they were trying to humanize the in dealership experience for women and for millennials at the time, because it was all about millennials in the early aughts or mid aughts. And we realized that, you know, to do this, we needed to give women and millennials an ally and so we came up with like, it was kind of like a ripoff of flow. You know, she's kind of like the zany kind of instore person that you get to interact with. And so we came up with this idea for her name was Laurel. And we had this whole brief about her and who she was as a person. And then it came down to actually casting the woman to play Laurel. And we had like a laundry list of comedic actresses. I think we saw like 30 or 40 in one day, and we whittled the list down to four. And for better for worse, the creative directors could not make a call. They're like we they were stuck on these four women. And so we ended up doing a ton of research on these actresses to see if they were kind of moving the needle in the way that we wanted. We wanted it to move and we ended up doing like quantitative qualitative. We did neuro research, like, like, legitimately the agency sunk a million dollars into the research around casting this perfect character. And it came down to two. One was like, great, she hit all the marks she was exactly who we want it to be. But we saw something strange in the neuro research that like at certain key moments during her spot, women tended to like tune out and the psychiatrist or psychologist we were working with at the time she put it as that like oh, it's because she's too attractive and so she's you know, women are a little bit put off by the fact that you know, she's they want to go to the dealership they want to meet Laurel but then at the same time they're like, oh, like I don't want Laurel talking to my husband like are they feel threatened whereas this other one she had all the marks but there's there's something off about her as well. I can't remember what what was wrong with her. But with with the one that we ended up casting the neuro researchers effectively told us, we just need to put like a frumpy sweater on her and like, put her hair up in a bun and then women will find her like way more accessible and friendly. So yeah, I don't remember what the question was or where the story is going. But I love that like, we got to do all this crazy, crazy research and like, oh, yeah, impact was talking to impact. So I got to see the impact of it. So we ended up casting Laurel, Laurel's now I think made like well over seven figures as the mascot for this automotive brand. She's still on the air 12 years later. Still wearing the frumpy sweater. Still wearing the frumpy sweater.
Chuck Murphy18:07
Had to frumpify her a little bit.
Maggie Bright18:11
Yeah, it's crazy how like sometimes our work does come down to these very small decisions that you wouldn't think about if you didn't, if you hadn't been there, right?
Chuck Murphy18:23
But it's funny though, a lot of people don't understand with so much advertising how much those those decisions aren't necessarily small. Right? And that's in Hollywood, they talk about this all the time how like a minor casting change can make or break a movie and it's true in a lot of ways like your reaction so many people's reactions to things are kind of subconscious, like they don't they don't know as much about why they're reacting to something as they do but but I always thought that would be like to go back to your career, okay, like that. I always thought that such Satchi in particular would be just a really fascinating place to work like just getting involved in some of these storytelling things. And it's interesting to you've had like these three, you've done it at a really high level too, right? It's not like you've been involved in like really cool places on all three sides and they're very different jobs and so you obviously have an ability to to continue to learn right it just step into new roles and try new things. Do you like that part of it? Do you like the switching it up to the challenge?
Olga Sajkowski19:20
I do. I really do. I mean, I think it's a function of my generation. But I've always been a little bit of like a job jumper. Like I rarely stay more than three years in a role. For better or for worse. I don't know if it's fear of stagnation. But I do I consistently, you know, want to learn new things I think with with Riot. My role right now is the biggest stretch for me to date, I think A) coming client side. It's just a different way of working. stakeholder management is a lot higher stakes. The questions we ask are really big and expensive. So yeah, I'm feeling stretched right now. And I mean that in a good way. Like I'm challenged every day, I'm learning a ton. I'm learning a business, I've never, you know, I've never really been a part of like, it's gaming but then eSports. Like, it's we very much operate like a sporting organization. So like the questions we're asking, you know, we're working with the Olympic Committee with, you know, teams, you know, team like, major like NFL, NBA team owners come to us for stuff. So it's really cool. It's really, really exciting.
Chuck Murphy20:30
You guys, you're such at the forefront here. It's such a hot area that so many, you know, brands and organizations immediately, they all want to they want to, they see the engagement and they want to be involved but a lot of people don't know, right? Like, it's a pretty rare person that understands... And when I say rare, it's a little bit of a unicorn of someone that's like high enough up at some of these organizations to make a policy decision or strategy decision, but also understands, like eSports the way someone who's really played it has right? Like it's evolving so fast, it's so different than it was just like five or 10 years ago.
Olga Sajkowski21:10
For sure. It's becoming mainstream. And I think that's, um, it's really important to our fans, that, you know, they're getting that validation that you know, eSports is not just for nerds anymore, it's not for like basement dwellers who, you know, sit in front of a screen all day like, like, to your point, Chuck, like, we're, the partnerships that we're working on are huge, they're massive, they're like the biggest brands, and the brands want to work with us. They're excited to work with us. And our internal or fans feel validated or like we've made it like, people want people want to show up and play.
Chuck Murphy21:45
Yeah and the category, like, if you really zoom out, gaming as a category just continues to grow, right. And a lot of that, obviously is casual and less engaged than the stuff you guys do. But it's gaming is a category to grow. And it's brands at the same time, that gaming is continuing to take attention. They're losing some of their traditional attentional areas, opportunities to advertise and media. So they're happy to rethink this. But it's a complicated world for a lot of them. And we see that another side of the business, like they're not quite sure how to navigate what to do.
Maggie Bright22:19
I can say when the pivotal moment for me in the eSports conversation was when one of our clients who was heavily involved in fitness and those types of things came to us and asked us to do research on the training regime involved with eSports. And it was like a really interesting moment for me to be like, oh, like they're thinking about designing products around this. And they're thinking about how to be more innovative in this space. That is very, you know, that I think we could have had a debate, maybe not with your team a little bit with other people a few years ago about like, was it - Is it even fair to call it a sport? And now we're seeing this whole revolution on how products are positioned and designed and that type of thing around the industry. And so I think, that's been a big learning curve for me as well, who's I mean, we've we do a ton of research and fitness and nutrition and those types of areas. You know, and have recently added attributes to our syndicated study around eSports. Just to understand, like, how big is this? And when someone asked us to do a recruit of Collegiate Esports teams, I was like, There's no way we're gonna find these people. And we, they exist, like, we had no problem. We had no problem finding people to talk to you about that. And so I think it's fascinating that gaming is changing, in a lot of ways that a lot of traditional players, like you mentioned, are sort of, you know, changing the way that they do business. Yeah, because of gaming. Or eSports. I shouldn't call it gaming. Sorry. I got way off track.
Chuck Murphy23:59
You touched a little bit on this, but I'm going to, I want to go back to just briefly but I do think that there's not very many people that make, like one major jump in their career and you've stayed, it's interesting, you made major jumps within a bound, right. Like you're not totally pivoted, but do you think like most people could go like, say, vendor to client side? Do you think most people could have the skill set to do both if they're willing to make that jump? Or do you think it's kind of a different skill set?
Olga Sajkowski24:29
I think there's, I don't know if this is a personal perception or a broad one, but I think there's a lot of like, perceived glam to be the client side. Like you know, people always talk about moving from going clients side. I loved being vendor side. Like I said it was it's where I honed my skills and polish my craft and it helps me on the on the client side because I know how the sausage gets made, I know what the challenges and the timelines and I can be realistic. And it helps me manage my stakeholders. And I think, not to toot my own horn, but I think, you know, my work is pretty good so far, at Riot. And I think people like and appreciate working with me because I'm, I'm realistic about what we can and cannot do, because I've had the benefit of making the sausage. I know what we can and can't do. Like, you know, Chuck, you talk to me about like, the potentially low incidence rates on the one product, I'm like just put some language in the SRW so that, you know, all our bases are covered, like, I'll never push back on stuff. And so I think, my, my event, my agencies that I work with, like working with me, because I'm realistic, and then also my stakeholders get a lot of transparency and visibility into kind of how the how it works in the process. And from there, you know, everyone, that's good. Great, yeah.
Chuck Murphy25:54
Yeah. Do you find that like? Like, are there skills that when your vendor side that you don't need as much of now? Or like how, how's your day different? Or how do you what do you think are some of the biggest differences?
Olga Sajkowski26:05
I don't need to work with SPSS anymore. The details, highlights. Not being in the weeds. Like I said, I've always been kind of more of a right brain, storyteller, creative thinker, and being you know, out of the weeds allows me to kind of stretch that muscle a little bit more. And, you know, make sure that the stories we're telling her compelling and insightful and so that's where the bulk of my focus day to day is, is making sure that we're, we're delivering insights, not data.
Maggie Bright26:39
Since since you know how the sausage is made, what's your biggest pet peeve when it comes to dealing with suppliers now?
Olga Sajkowski26:45
Timelines. Just tell me! Just tell me how much time you need. Don't Don't over promise.
Chuck Murphy26:54
It's so hard right now, like this is this is one of the one of the more challenging times I think. I'm sure it's the case on both sides of the business. But it's, it's it's definitely there's a lot of hurdles right now. both technical and just like with people, I think, you know, people are tired.
Olga Sajkowski27:17
Supply chain.
Chuck Murphy27:19
There's a lot there really is a lot right now, I can't remember a time where there were so many kind of hurdles happening at once.
Olga Sajkowski27:27
Yeah. But to one of your topics in the list that you sent over, I think one of the the nice things that has come out of the pandemic and research is qualitative, qualitative, it's gotten a lot easier because we have this kind of new trust in some of the more online methodologies. Like, I don't think I'll ever go back to a world where I'm traveling across the country or around the world to do focus groups. I mean, the in person focus group is dead.
Chuck Murphy27:56
No, it's really funny, you bring that up, because I actually think we're gonna do a whole episode on that, because we, Maggie and I talk about this all the time is, it's really fascinating. I mean, this is exactly what you said it perfectly. But people trust these things, the tools were there, you know, over the last five years, at least, the tools were there. And we had like, in our, on our side of the business, we saw the really techie clients adopt them a number of years ago, actually. But it's fascinating how, like, a lot of people were forced, because of COVID, to try some of these, these digital call methods. And they've got very comfortable with them. But it's also interesting to Maggie and I talked about, like, just this last, like two months, I would say, all of a sudden, we're getting a lot of RFPs for traditional qual again. And so on our side of the business, our immediate question was like, wow, like, how are how is the staff going to react to this? Like, how are they do they want to do this, like, you know, like, I was bidding on this thing last week, it's going like, all through South America, and like, that kind of thing used to be very common. And it's interesting that we have your break from it. And I think that some client side, researchers are super excited to hit the road again, like we've had a few. I've had a few discussions with people that like, I just, I, you know, I'm so excited to go back to like Mexico City or Brazil or whatever. And, and it's funny how, like, I don't know where this will be in two years. Like, I don't know if the pendulum will swing back. And you'll have people wanting to do more in person. Or if people are going to be more like you or it's like, hey, my stakeholders are comfortable with this. Like, let's let's get it done faster and cheaper. Digital.
Olga Sajkowski29:37
Let me ask you this though. The RFPs that you're getting, are they for like ethnos like what type of quality is it?
Maggie Bright29:44
I just did traditional focus groups in person a few weeks ago and it was the first time I've done that in two plus years and the content it would have worked virtually but I think it made sense to do it in person too. I mean, it wasn't...it was interesting, but I think there's a couple of things, right? I think in addition to clients being more accepting of the methods, I do, I think consumers have gotten better at virtual qual, too, right? Like, we spend so much more of our time in these environments that it's, you're not having all the technical problems and, you know, people on mute and talking over each other, you know, they've, because of our work environment, the qual environment is easier online, too. So I think that's part of it. But one of the things that I enjoyed about the in person groups was that being in a back room, you forget how much happens in a back room when you're in there. And it forced us to have more conversations and debriefs and insights and to collaborate with the moderator more. And, you know, it's stuff that I don't know that it fundamentally changed the output. But it made for a much deeper conversation around the insights that came out of it. And I do think that there might be a bit of a hunger for that piece of it. I don't know if there's enough of a hunger for people to be traveling, particularly within the continental US around to groups, but I could see them happening here and there. And then more of like a hybrid situation where you have some of it done in person and some of it done online, from a digital, like, from an ethnography perspective, I think we could have made the argument years ago that some of that's better, virtually anyway, because it gives you a longer window into, you know, you can watch someone for a week, you know, you can have them, you know, uploading things and recording things and that type of stuff that makes the digital ethnography more interesting, anyway.
Chuck Murphy31:44
We always talked about how good especially the under 25 group is, they can make their own UX videos like you can give them instructions now, that would have been insane before and they're so good with video, and they could do it. But you know, what else is interesting? Maggie and I have spent a lot of time talking about this, like, I think we might have you back in a week to do a whole episode. But it's so interesting that like, a lot of the RFPs for this are also coming from kind of techie clients that were first to adopt visual qual, and now they're kind of like, Hey, listen, I want to, and some of it, some of it, actually, I would say very little what I'm seeing has to do with that we need to do this in person. I think it's more the second part that Maggie was hitting about it, like, you know, when we travel together, especially if we bring the agencies as well. There's just a lot of good collaboration that happens in person. And it's similar to the people that want to spend some time in the office with each other. It's like this, there's just there's something to like us setting aside a week or whatever it is to, to all debate something in person together. Yeah. But I do think that they've forgotten how expensive this stuff is to that's one of the things we've run it up as like, Hey, you gotta like there's travel here, there's, this is expensive. It's a way to do research and to deal cheaper. And so we that's one of the discussions we're having too, is like, like, the way you spend this out is really expensive. Like, is this really what you want to do?
Maggie Bright32:59
It is not efficient, I mean,
Olga Sajkowski33:00
And let's be honest, like it sounds glamorous, but you're not going to like the Bahamas, you're going to Skokie, Illinois.
Maggie Bright33:13
Well, I think though I will say early in my career, it was an amazing way to learn by going and just watching how other people interacted with. I mean, I think there's a sort of a learning experience that if you don't do in person, well, you miss out on to some extent. So I do sort of, no, that makes me sound like I'm 400 years old.
Chuck Murphy33:38
I think it's really important it is it's really important. It's like it's you, you know, especially with like traditional qual, like if you're jumping in, you're collaborating with the moderators a little bit easier to have these discussions, moderator between groups, you're seeing that like you can tinker with the guide, you could do these things, you can make changes. And that's kind of empowering to know that you could be creative and you can like hey, follow your gut like what are you looking for? What's interesting to you here? What do you want to like, there's something about the way it happens live that, I think is a little bit more empowering. I know all of that happens digitally, too. And it works great digitally, but I don't know there's something a little bit different about kind of just sitting with someone and getting to know them.
Maggie Bright34:17
For sure. I would do it twice a year, like twice a year right? Like go to in person. Well in like like Miami.
Chuck Murphy34:24
I mean, Olga's still a young kid but Maggie and I are older and we have kids so is the twice a year thing is just age because I've done it but I mean, if I was like 25 I'd be all over that. I think going like you know but nobody wants to do this every week, right? But I think about all of those trips, I took as a younger researcher and I feel like I that was that's where I learned to be a consultant in a lot of ways. Right? And it's funny because like, live qual is a great example, right? Ethnographies are a perfect example of this. There's just a lot of stuff that goes wrong, right? Like your car breaks down or you can't you know, there's just stuff that you have to like learn to like unstick yourself from and like travel mistakes.
Olga Sajkowski35:06
Or in my case, you end up in a Orlando hospital for three days?
Chuck Murphy35:11
That's a really big one. Yeah.
Maggie Bright35:13
I actually, I just was the in person trip that I took was with the moderator that you were with then and we were, we were discussing what an eventful trip that was.
Chuck Murphy35:26
She called me at home, I remember that she called me here. And I'm like, what?
Maggie Bright35:32
Yeah. So never a dull moment.
Olga Sajkowski35:39
Yeah, nothing like passing out in the back room in front of all of your clients.
Maggie Bright35:43
Think about how much empathy you built with them, though?
Chuck Murphy35:46
They'll remember you forever. Do you miss it at all? Do you want to? Do you want to take trips at all? Or you're like, nah.
Olga Sajkowski36:00
I'm tired. Chuck.
Chuck Murphy36:03
When you have kids, the math on all this changes a lot, right? It's like, so different when you're 25. And we were Pamela and I were talking about it last week that we have this one or two clients in particular, but I was so this is my theory Olga hasn't heard this, Maggie has heard this, at this point, I'm gonna throw this at you. A lot of times, the person who becomes pretty high up behind, you know, the, as everyone knows, like, most of the companies we're dealing with here, they have really big budgets their big companies, they're big operations, or they wouldn't be doing these sophisticated research projects. And the person that gets at a high level those companies has a lot of energy, right? Like you don't, you it's just, it's, you know, some don't, but there's a lot of people who end up being stakeholders or clients and this type of stuff we do. And those people have a lot of energy. But we were laughing last week that we went to dinner, about how like, there's so many times when especially if you had to do that traditional focus group thing where you fly to New York on Sunday or Monday, you work your way back across the country to the west coast by Friday. And if you have one of those clients that wants to go out in New York till two in the morning or three in the morning, the first night, you've got the rest of the week that you've got to like keep up on right? It's just you're so tired. But it's over and over again, it seems like it's the client that Maggie and I have had this situation advertised where it's the client that doesn't want to go to bed and we're like, why are you still up?
Olga Sajkowski37:30
I'm that client that goes bed.
Maggie Bright37:35
Well, I think it builds, though, it teaches you sort of like it's like almost a good lesson and like time management and be being I don't know that it teaches boundaries, but it teaches a lot of other great lessons.
Chuck Murphy37:51
That is the thing is that when you have kids and later in life that the math on that gets a lot different and like oh no I'm gone for a week. And it's a lot harder to do. Where's like, the biggest cost when you're younger is you're just tired at the end. But now you're like, Oh, I gotta arrange childcare. What if somebody gets sick, right? It just, it just gets a lot harder to manage later.
Maggie Bright38:09
I will say my most recent trip, I used to be so good at being able to just like quickly pack my bags, like I had a routine. And I'm so out of my routine that it took me longer to do. Like, even when I get to the airport, I'm like, wait, what's my what do I do next? You know, where do I go? Where do I get my, you know, my snack from and all that stuff. And I was totally thrown off by the entire experience.
Olga Sajkowski38:33
Yeah, I flew to Toronto recently. And like, it was amateur hour, like I had a water bottle in my hand was holding up the line. I was like totally like that person that you never want to be stuck behind in the line of security. But Yep, yeah.
Maggie Bright38:47
I forgot to take something out of my bag. I got in trouble. You know?
Olga Sajkowski38:51
Like shoe's on or off? I'm still confused.
Maggie Bright38:56
So I'm out of a practice.
Chuck Murphy38:59
Yeah, it's funny. We all used to travel. I used to travel so much and I just it's so much less now. But anyhow, I know we've taken up a lot of your time. Olga, it was super nice of you to join us and do this and let us rant on and on about all this.
Olga Sajkowski39:14
I love it. That's fine. Thanks for having me.
Maggie Bright39:16
We've missed you. So we're always happy to get in person time.
Olga Sajkowski39:20
I know I missed you guys too.
Chuck Murphy39:22
Well, thank you.
Maggie Bright39:24
Enjoy the rest of your day.