83 Builds: The Origin

Photo: Ohio Hill Country

I grew up in rural Ohio on State Route 83. It’s a route, not a road, so if you travel more than a few miles on it, you’ll find yourself changing roads often, snaking through small towns, admiring picturesque fields, and following both horse-drawn buggies and electric bicycles. It’s hilly, it’s curvy, it connects Lake Erie to southern Ohio. I’ve moved around for school and jobs, and it’s only by coincidence that I still live near State Route 83. When I met my husband, he lived in a suburb of Cleveland, also located on this route. I soon moved back to State Route 83, although a several hour drive from where I grew up.  

I cut my teeth in consumer research by being extremely hands-on. I loved being in the room. I loved traveling from home to home and meeting people where they were. As my career grew, so did the number of projects I handled, and often, I could no longer be the one in the room. In the corporate world, we often trade depth for breadth. Handling 20 projects at one time is not uncommon. I learned to simplify data to communicate to both leadership levels and technical levels. I learned to reduce weeks of research into that one ‘money slide’. And while I learned very essential skills, I now want to go back to my roots.

I want to return to the reasons I fell in love with research in the first place. The human connection. Taking a blank piece of paper and mapping out a plan from scratch. Trying new tools and methods. Finding contradictions between a stated behavior and actual behavior. Learning from the real experts, the end users. Using this learning to build new products, platforms, features, brands, and messages.

Join me here at 83 Builds.

-Heidi