You can make sense of challenging situations

You’re unique, one of a kind. Live, work or play, you’ll have your own variations on everything you feel, think and do. Whether you are aware of it or not, your version of understanding things is at least a little different to everyone else’s version. For most of us, the various ways we understand and deal with a problem have to fit in well, or at least well enough, with the ideas and actions of our bosses, customers, colleagues and collaborators. And then of course the situation everyone is in is never quite stable. Sometimes it changes a lot. Fast.

Working together. Really?

So you expect total harmony between all of those unique people and views in a changing environment? When reality hits and you can’t plan a neat fit, perhaps you'll end up having to figure out how to make the most of the situation. The good thing is we're not alone here, after all:

Experiences tell, stories count

If you could bump into another famous novelist, Oscar Wilde, he might agree that the imperfect has value. Wilde once claimed that ‘Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes’.

What are these 'mistakes', let's call them missed opportunities, costing you in business? In your research or projects?

For optimists and pessimists alike, it seems useful to find some shortcuts to succeed much more and fail even less. Experience helps you and your people to make sense of the world as it changes. Let's start using our collective experience of work and community settings to learn fast together.

How can we do that? Everyone talking at once doesn't work. Some people are less likely than others to speak up.

Wendy uses story data, collecting the experiences of people in a setting you are interested in learning more about and having an impact on. Her approach is powered by Cognitive Edge’s Sensemaker and text modelling software Leximancer. Wendy helps organisations collect story data and work with interview and survey data. Her partners are data scientists. Together they model both text and number data, revealing patterns in the challenges you are facing close to real time, long term. By modelling the quantitative and qualitative data side by side, her team supports decision makers and collaborators to see patterns in these stories and text. This builds a community understanding of the barriers and opportunities, supporting project owners in their day to day tasks. By engaging people to share their experiences anonymously real-time, even long term, you'll be confident that you stay ‘in sync’ with what is going on. You will have the pieces of the puzzle you need to design projects and portfolios of work with the information needed to succeed to improve the lived experience of people and to be able to report on the results.