On Research

At one time, I’d planned to become a reference librarian… even did half the coursework for an MLIS degree. This was back in the days when Google was ascendant, not yet ubiquitous, but the times were already changing. What was once an MLS (Master of Library Science) had become an MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science). Training to be a librarian was no longer just about knowing reference sources backward and forward and good customer service but wrangling a Wild West of online information and helping library patrons do the same. The emphasis went from helping answer questions to helping formulate Boolean queries to ask a machine.

Midway through my grad school journey, my path turned to consulting. I soon learned that much of consulting also focuses on learning to ask good questions. Though I was grateful that I’d get to ask actual people, not just databases.

Fast-forward twenty years and along comes full-bore AI. It’s built into everything, whether we want it or not, and professionals in every sector feel pressure to use the new tool or be left behind. People have gone from creators and curators of content and analysis to query generators, learning to ask the algorithm the right things in the right way to get a result. Sometimes the results are useful. Sometimes they’re bullshit, akin to what you’d get from asking a mendacious child or sociopathic liar.

Two of my alter-egos (identities I’ll never take on in real life but enjoy immensely in the stories I consume) are investigative journalist and private eye. Both tap into my research kink. Both are also uncompromising bullshit detectors.

All this makes me uniquely well suited to provide quality research services to my clients—especially now, in today’s chaotic information environment. I want to work with changemakers to shape and execute focused research that helps to advance truth, love, and justice.

Bringing the calm of a reference librarian, the doggedness of an old-school newswriter, the sometimes intuitive leaps of a P.I., and my commitment to collaboration as a consultant, I outperform any search engine. Because research isn’t just about finding information. It’s about contextualizing information in its historical, political, and cultural setting, and it’s about working with people to make meaning of the information to catalyze action.