[00:00:19] Sebastian: You're listening to the Insightful Connections podcast. Our guest today is Aryn Korpalski. Aryn is Senior Vice President at Fieldwork Inc. Fieldwork makes qualitative research easy, effective, and human. They handle details from recruiting participants to hosting and managing projects, allowing their clients to focus on the insights. With welcoming, convenient, and purpose-built facilities across the US and a trusted virtual platform, their team is here to support all kinds of research from consumer conversations to complex medical studies. Fieldwork believes that great research starts with great people, and they're here to connect you with them. In her 14-year career at Fieldwork, Aryn has held many different roles from client service specialist to project manager and director. Aryn, thanks for being on the show today.

[00:01:01] Aryn: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

[00:01:03] Sebastian: So I want to get started with this question that I like to ask everybody, which is, how did you initially find yourself in market research? And how does that background account for where you've come in the year since?

[00:01:13] Aryn: So when I think back to sort of the through lines that brought me here, not only brought me into the industry, but have kept me here, I think about in my undergrad, I was listening to an anthropology teacher talking about this story about this ad that was created. And the way that it was created, it was created by an English speaker. So from left to right, there was three panels showing somebody going through something difficult in the three panels. And the last panel was they got the product and everything was good. Great. Sounds like a great ad. Well, they showed it in a country that is not an English speaking country that does not read left to right and instead reads right to left and did not account for that. So instead of the ad showing that somebody got this product and everything was good, it basically showed that the product was the start of all of their problems. And that story's just always stuck with me about culture. Communication is about so much more than words. Then in undergrad as well, I studied abroad in Shanghai for a semester and I got to experience firsthand how culture and communication and connection are about so much more than words. And when you can put all of that together, it creates connection, humanity. It's like incredible joy that comes from that connection. And so while I found fieldwork sort of by happenstance, what has kept me with fieldwork and what makes me love the insights industry year over year is this place to understand people better. It's a place where we get to understand these nuances of people and create products and services and applications to make their lives better. And so while it wasn't necessarily an industry that I was specifically targeting, there's so much about it that really aligns with what matters to me as a person.

[00:03:04] Sebastian: Erin, you mentioned you found fieldwork by happenstance. I'm kind of curious what the story is.

[00:03:09] Aryn: Yeah, there was a connection through a family friend that was familiar with it. And I actually I started my career at fieldwork as a client service specialist. So for those that haven't been in our facility, it's the person there that's helping welcome both our clients and our respondents. And I had graduated undergrad without much direction. I knew I wanted a job. I didn't know what that was going to be. At one point, it was going to be the Peace Corps. At one point, I was going to go teach English abroad. There was a lot of options there. I fell into this

space to bide my time. And I'm still here living to tell the tale many years later.

[00:03:48] Sebastian: Erin, you've come a long way in the years since then. I know. Congratulations. I saw recently you were promoted to the role of senior vice president at fieldwork. Can you tell us a little bit more about what your current role there touches on?

[00:03:58] Aryn: Yeah, absolutely. So throughout my career at fieldwork, I've worn a lot of different hats in a lot of different areas, which I think is, again, when you get a reflect, you get to see these through lines. And it's prepared me for being where I'm at today. In this new role, I have the opportunity to work with our global field management team to support our clients with research all over the world. And it's been so much fun to navigate challenges for a study that's happening both in, let's say, Dallas, Texas, as well as Sao Paulo. What are the similarities, the differences when you're looking for consumers that are currently purchasing your product? Is that product and flavor actually sold in the market that you're looking to go to? Are we navigating our screeners in ways that we're asking questions that are culturally appropriate to these different countries? So we have a team based both in the US as well as globally that's working with our clients to execute global research. And so myself and my colleague, Abby Goodell, get the privilege of helping make that happen every day.

[00:04:59] Sebastian: That's so interesting. And I can see how it kind of ties back to the story you led with about the importance of cultural context in receiving information.

[00:05:08] Aryn: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think that I've throughout my life had the privilege of being able to travel abroad. And I remember some of my earlier experiences of these aha moments of we're not just speaking a different language. There's cultural norms that we need to account for. And when I think about the products that these giant companies are building every day, is I love hearing the success stories of they've made a product that their consumer feels seen and heard through. And that's such a gift to be able to be just a part of that bigger initiative.

[00:05:43] Sebastian: You know, at the start of the episode where I was sort of reading out some info about field work, you know, one of the things that really stuck out for me is that belief that you guys mentioned, that great research starts with great people. And I'm kind of wondering if you can unpack that belief a bit for me and what it means and how fieldwork kind of lives those values.

[00:06:01] Aryn: Yeah, it's great words on paper, right? But if they're not actually lived out, what do they even mean on paper? And so when we think about the origin story of fieldwork, we were a company founded by moderators. And what do moderators do is they listen really, really well to people's stories and translate that into business impact. So the founding of our company has always been around people and how do we make it easy for people to connect. So you look at our facilities, how they are accessible, where they're located. It's all around how do people connect. And I mean, hospitality is at the root of all of that. But you have people in our space, not only in our spaces, but that our clients are looking to connect to. So it may be online, it may be over the phone, it may be at our client's facility, it may be in our respondent's home, is how do we make sure they feel well

cared for throughout the entirety of the process? We have different stakeholders in our research. We have our clients, we have our clients' clients, and we have our respondents. We sometimes have caregivers for the respondent when we're doing medical research. And so I think first and foremost is the space. How does the space reinforce that belief in human connection, making it easy? And then on the other side is that experience. So when we're, you know, navigating, reaching out to respondents, how do they feel like they're supported throughout the process before they even get in the room with our clients to talk to them? Because those, that time in the room, that's what it's all about. I mean, our clients have 60 to 90 minutes to learn from people. How do we make sure that those people they're learning from are ready to share, they're ready to be vulnerable? I mean, some of these topics that we get a support, you know, we're, we're talking about toilet paper and soda and chips, but we're also talking to people that are navigating cancer, that have lived their lives with diabetes, that are navigating these rare conditions. We need them to feel comfortable to be in this space to share their experience so that our clients can continue to make products that are there for them. So some of the ways we do that throughout the recruiting experience is humanizing who we are as a brand, is making sure our voice is showing through on anything that's going out there to market, to help with our recruitment. I think one of the big things right now and something that I think is unique in our industry is that we screen all of our participants over the phone. And something I like to equate it to is when you get a terms and conditions, some people, I'm not saying us, but some people scroll to the bottom and just agree without reading any of it. And you don't know what you agreed to, but when you're talking to someone on the phone and you're able to have a conversation with them, you feel more empowered to what you're agreeing to. And so being able to screen our participants over the phone, not only gives them a two-way channel to talk about what we're asking them to do, but it also, I think there is an accountability in that screening process of it's a lot easier to exaggerate the truth when you're just clicking a button than it is to speak to someone on the phone. And I mean, I don't think you can get through any conversation about our industry right now without using the F word fraud, is being able to talk to somebody. It is also a safeguard for our clients to make sure we're actually talking to somebody. So those are just a couple of examples of ways in which we really put the human at the center of what we're doing externally, the way, the service that we're offering, but even internally as our culture is we are geographically dispersed as an organization, but we come together regularly to share operational best practices. We have a lot of different ways in which we make sure that our organization is staying connected. We're big into having your camera on, on Zoom, but when we can't be in the same shared space, we want to feel connected to one another and doing research that is geographically diverse, leaning on our colleagues to better understand the market that they're in, or maybe it's based on a lived experience of someone has a relative or, you know, friend that's, that is suffering from a condition that we're recruiting for, or is in a certain industry that we're recruiting for. We're able to have these conversations. I, my husband works in cybersecurity and I lean on him to also help educate me. And I've had colleagues call to say, Hey, what would, what does Brian think about, does he even know about this? Are we going to be able to find these people? And so keeping that human connection internally, as well as externally is really important to us.

[00:10:34] Speaker 1: Yeah.

[00:10:34] Sebastian: It sounds like there's sort of a underlying theme of human connection in, in everything that Fieldwork's doing, whether that's internally or externally.

[00:10:42] Aryn: Absolutely. I mean, I feel like Will Guadera talks about it in his book of when you're looking at your restaurant is making sure that your wait staff, they've experienced that same experience you're looking to deliver to your customers there. We really feel that that's important for our teams. It's the authenticity as we want to reflect what we're feeling internally. And we talk about this a lot when we talk about engaging, you know, even on platforms like LinkedIn is be yourself, use your voice. My voice isn't your voice. We can help each other, but it's the connection through authenticity.

[00:11:18] Sebastian: So I wanted to ask you a little bit about the hashtag face-to-face MRX. I remember the first time I started noticing face-to-face MRX was shortly after COVID, right? When of course, you know, facilities were having a really tough time, but it continues to be sort of a central campaign for Fieldwork. And I'm wondering if you can tell me a little bit about, you know, where did that idea of face-to-face MRX come from and how does it continue to be relevant?

[00:11:44] Aryn: Yeah, it's a great question. So it did start right shortly after COVID. It was something that while Fieldwork championed, it was for the entire industry. And we had a lot of support from our competitors, from industry associations. It was meant to be used and loved by all, not necessarily a Fieldwork hashtag. But what we found at that period of time, as you mentioned, facilities were closing, closed. It was definitely challenging to navigate how to make sure everyone who was participating in research was safe and could get there. And, you know, all those complexities of yesterday, hopefully yesteryear, it really started as an opportunity to be a new source. We were hearing people tell us what was going on with in-person research, and it wasn't necessarily aligning with our experience. So we really wanted to create something that people could search and they would be getting the latest and greatest of what was going on with in-person research. So they could make informed decisions on how to move forward with their research. When was the right time for them, knowing that it was happening and we're looking out for their blind spots because we've been there before and they can choose their point of entry back into face-to-face research. I think one of the reasons it's continued for so long, I can say for me personally, that point of time helped me better articulate what mattered to me. Knowing that, I mean, celebrating Christmas through a screen, it stunk. I was coming off of a season professionally and in my life that I was moving around a lot. I was traveling a lot and like all I wanted was a pause, a silence, to sit in a room and not talk to anybody. And I think that time, it was isolating. And so I think that that time allowed people, when they were thinking about their research, to refine what mattered and why. Could we do this online? Are there things that we can get just as much as we could get in person? Or do we need that like human connection? Having a, moderating a group of six people on Zoom, it's tough. You have this like start and stop. It's a different cadence. And so why I think that the face-to-face MRx hashtag has continued is not just about what's happening in front of the glass in the focus group room, but what's happening behind the glass with your stakeholders. As you get undivided attention from your stakeholders in that back room, real-time insights, real-time engagement, real-time frustration because you spent six months figuring

out this ad campaign and they are just like railing on it in that room. They, nobody likes it. Like you're getting those real-time moments. So I think that the continuation, and I think we'll continue to see it, is the value of coming together in all these different ways, bringing your participants together, as well as bringing your stakeholders together. And I think even more so, these other layers have come in with, I mean, I'll say the F word again, I'll say fraud of how do we actually know that people are who they say they are? Well, it's really hard to lie about it if you're sitting in a room across from somebody and seeing them. As we get more refined with AI, again, another word I feel like we can't get through a conversation in our space without talking about, but what does that mean for the human in all of it? While there's a time and a place for any technology online, you know, utilizing AI, whatever that might be, it gives us an opportunity to refine why these other methodologies matter. I've listened to a couple of podcasts from artists, as well as talk show hosts talking about the difference between doing a prerecorded segment and doing that live studio segment, talking about AI in the arts of like, I learned this fun fact about Jaws that like, the reason we don't see the shark very much is because it was like it malfunctioned. And like, that's so fun. It makes the story so much better. So there's like a beauty in the human complexities.

[00:15:41] Sebastian: I'm kind of curious, what are some of the differences that fieldwork has found in the conversations they're doing with respondents to sort of slow things down and bring that focus back onto human connection and quality? What are some of the practices that you guys have implemented that ladder up to those sorts of things for your clients?

[00:16:00] Aryn: It's a layered engagement with our participants. I think that is one of the keys to the experience our clients are able to gain from engaging with those participants. It's that I love this visual, someone gave it to me once about if you don't have like a routine to go to bed, it's like, you can't stop a car going 60 miles per hour immediately. So when you like, go right from work, and then you try to go to bed, it's such a jolt to even be able to go to sleep. So you work backwards, right? What do you get to go into that place? And it's the same with our participants, it's, you know, talking with them over the phone to make sure they feel well supported with what we're asking them to do, because we're doing beyond asking them to come to focus group facilities, which I'm in Chicago, and coming to downtown Chicago, if you live in the suburbs, it can feel really overwhelming. Are you driving? Like, are you getting lost on upper and lower WACR? For those of you that have been here, you know, the getting lost on lower WACR experience is terrifying. And just driving in the middle of a city, it can be a lot. So how do we make sure that they get here successfully is we make sure they have the directions. Here's where the parking garage is, we make sure they know what time they need to be here, they have the information to them both verbally and written, we talk to them the day before the study, double checking, they have everything they need, they know how to get here, you know, here's what you need to bring, we make sure they have refreshments on site that they can get settled in before they're going into the space. And then we let them know what's expected. And our clients do it as well as let them know what's expected. In that space of here's the people you're going to be with, here's kind of the general topic of the conversation. And so it's in a lot of those little touch points and make they're not calling an automated line that says press one if you want me to tell you directions to the facility. It's a conversation with a human.

[00:17:54] Sebastian: Aryn, random question. I remember ages ago, I don't know if it was the Chicago facility, it might have been a different fieldwork facility. You guys have bees on the roof, right?

[00:18:04] Aryn: Seattle and Dallas have bees on the roof.

[00:18:07] Sebastian: Tell me a bit about that.

[00:18:08] Aryn: I think bees are the coolest things. I feel like they are so underrated and they offer so much to all of us. So it's our buildings have them. And I know some of them produce honey. I don't know as much about our Dallas facility, but yeah, it's like the coolest urban innovation to use these, you know, well, who's doing something on the top of a building? Bees are.

[00:18:29] Speaker 1: Right.

[00:18:30] Sebastian: It's the bees' knees. It's the bees' knees. Cool. Aryn, last question for me. What keeps you motivated?

[00:18:35] Aryn: I am someone that I've recently sort of gone through an exercise of like, what are my core values? Because sometimes motivation, as I'm sure you feel it's and the listeners as well, it can be really hard in the thick of things. And two of my core values are joy and connection. And that keeps me moving forward here at Fieldwork in supporting the work that our clients do is being in a space where we get to provide connection, being in an industry that really values connection. And at the end of the day, what we're able to be part of producing is ultimately intended to spark joy. And what I think is I love about the word joy in its comparison to happiness is to me, joy is more everlasting. It's more stability. It's you can be unhappy and you can be joyful because that you feel well supported. So I think for the experience we offer to our participants, what ultimately comes out of our focus groups allows people to feel supported, to feel supported through their day, whether it's like you don't have to use seven paper towels to clean up a mess. You can only use one or we're working with clients to deliver a better device. So patients that are navigating various conditions can better deliver the medication that they're needing to manage their conditions.

[00:19:58] Sebastian: Thanks so much for being on the show today. So if anybody wants to know more about Fieldwork, where should they go?

[00:20:02] Aryn: LinkedIn is the best place to find me. So check me out on LinkedIn, Aryn Korpalski, or shoot me an email, Arynk at fieldwork.com. I'd love to connect.

[00:20:13] Sebastian: Awesome. Thanks so much, Aryn.

[00:20:14] Aryn: Thanks so much.