#165 - High Impact Research on Embedded Teams with Hannah Ghidey of Etsy

Hannah Ghidey [00:00:00]: As research practitioners, like, sometimes it's almost easier to put on your research hat and that hat just sort of stays on indefinitely and you don't feel as comfortable flexing into other things or having a sort of strong opinionated stance on something that an engineer lead might be noodling on and vice versa. And so one of the things that I found to be really beneficial is, yes, you're developing that degree of expertise, but it's also the proximity that you have to other partners who might not think like you. So, so to me, what is often really, really impactful is being able to understand better all of the different partners and layers that come in and having a degree of comfortability as well in terms of how your research can manifest in a decision, again, that impacts like product marketing or an eventual engineering build. Erin May [00:00:45]: Hey, this is Erin May. And this is Carol Guest. And this is Awkward Silences. Awkward Silences is brought to you by user interviews, the fastest way to recruit target high quality participants for any kind of research. Hello, everybody and welcome back to Awkward Silences. Today we're here with Hannah Ghidey, who is a senior research manager at Etsy. And we're very excited to talk about going big on research scope, but doing it in the context of an embedded model, which I imagine many of you work in an embedded model quite popular these days. So, Hannah, thank you so much for joining us. Hannah Ghidey [00:01:28]: Yes, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you. Erin May [00:01:30]: We've got Ben here too. Ben Wiedmaier [00:01:32]: Hey, everybody. Erin May [00:01:32]: All right, Hannah, welcome. Could you, just to get us started, tell us a bit about your current role and how you made your way there? Hannah Ghidey [00:01:40]: Yeah, absolutely. I am at Etsy, I oversee research across two sort of facets of the marketplace. So one is our seller side seller and payments at Etsy. So really dialing into the sort of overarching seller experience, what that looks like, working closely with our quantum market research teams as well for understanding the broader landscape. And then second to that is our operational spaces. So that's trust and safety and customer support and success. That's really about, like, what makes the marketplace feel safe and reliable. I've been in Etsy about a year and a half now and I made my way there. Hannah Ghidey [00:02:12]: It feels very serendipitous. I think so many people love Etsy and have the familiarity and I have long been a fan of Etsy, but I have an engineering leader who I'd worked with maybe a decade ago who was at Etsy and had reached out and I wasn't actively looking at the time. But when it feels Right. It feels right. There's so many reasons why it felt like a right fit. And as I just sort of went through the interview process, I really wanted to dial into that and better understand, like, what the research practice looked like at Etsy, what this sort of fit would be like for myself. And I've been so happy being there. Erin May [00:02:42]: Fantastic. Fantastic. So every researcher I talk to these days is thinking about making an impact with their research. Now, of course, we should all be thinking about that all the time. It's particularly a hot topic these days. And so one way that that can manifest is with big strategic research, which I know is something that you're focused on. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about why that's a focus for you and why that can be so impactful. Hannah Ghidey [00:03:09]: Yeah, absolutely. I think the idea of like impacting research comes in so many different sort of facets can be on the discipline, like building out a practice, being able to get additional resources, investment, or identifying usability issues that impact conversion. And then it can be a bit more perhaps innovative when you think about what strategic research is and what it can impact. I think there's so many skills that lend themselves well to being a researcher, that also lend themselves well to being able to conduct meaningful strategic research and then start ideating on what solutions look like in terms of how those manifest and solve for actual tangible, real world problems. So what I've been focused on and why it's such a big focus for me in particular is we sort of think through a few different lenses of how we might be sort of like resourcing a broader research team and what it might look like to be able to have researchers that are focused on sort of like the big overarching, looming questions that we want to be able to unravel within the business. We're really seller focused right now in terms of what that might look like and are doing like a lot of digging to better understand, like diagnostically what has the seller experience looked like over the last several years and where do we want to go within the next, like year two, three, four, five as well. And so strategic research has been a big input into what that looks like in shaping some of the vision and the sort of like preliminary vision for it, but also thinking through a little bit more like, what are the building blocks that we need to better understand before we start making big investments into some of our strategies and our sort of like annual roadmaps and plans. Ben Wiedmaier [00:04:44]: And Hannah, are those questions coming up just as a regular part of planning or Are you and your team being more proactive and asking to be at the kickoffs, be at the roadmap reviews, be at the strategic sessions? How does that strategy work with the design and product teams at Etsy with you on research? Hannah Ghidey [00:05:00]: That's a wonderful question. I think it manifests in like a few different ways and maybe what I would say about Etsy's model and what I've found so valuable and also partially unique in terms of how research shows up. But we have. And again, this gets back to the sort of embedded model question. But we have basically core teams of leadership that might be like at the squad level or the product group lead level. And there is always a research component within that. So that we're sort of like one to one and baked in with like our product partners and our engineering partners so that we're coming to the table with a really well rounded perspective. I think in terms of how sort of to the other part of your question, in terms of like almost galvanizing the team to get those questions out. Hannah Ghidey [00:05:45]: So many different approaches, but I'd say probably the biggest one that I've found to be useful in my career, especially with the embedded model, is almost thinking about two different cycles for how we're thinking about research questions and generation. One is thinking about H1 research, that's Q1, Q2, and then the other one is H2. So Q3, Q4. And I have my team who are embedded in their spaces, essentially do questions forums. So what are the most pressing questions that are coming up in your space? What are the themes that you're hearing time and time again? What are those big questions? And the goal here is really quantity. It's not quality. It's like, let's amass all of the questions and all of the themes that are coming in and get a better sense of what those might look like. And then put pen to paper and start plotting them almost into a spreadsheet. Hannah Ghidey [00:06:36]: And I'm always, it doesn't need to be perfect. Let's at least like swag what some of these questions are. What are the emerging trends in the field? Like what are some of the big goals for the company? And then they sort of start plotting like level of effort. We have just a framework that I use for prioritization, like what might the level of effort be? Does it map back to a company objective? And then we all start to sort of like workshop and make sense of some of the key questions that are coming up and that lays out a plan for our research roadmap. Over the next couple of quarters in which I then start to sort of socialize and think about with partners just to make sure everybody's on board. Ben Wiedmaier [00:07:07]: Yeah, that was my follow up question. Is the level of. Sorry Aaron. Just the level of engagement of or involvement of stakeholders? Are you sharing the analyses, the early gut checks? Here's what we're hearing, I guess what's the level of feedback? Because sometimes as we'll get to in the embedded model, you know, that feedback takes on different qualities when you're working side by side, shoulder to shoulder with designers, PMs and Eng. What does that feedback look like though, as you're figuring out H1 and H2? Hannah Ghidey [00:07:30]: Yeah, I'm like, it's gotta be incessant, right? Like we have to have the relationships and be having the conversations. It's one thing to sort of on your own develop a plan for what research might look like for six months out, but if your partners aren't bought into what that research is and really like the timeline, right, like doing research for two months and what the output of it is, then it just tends to fall flat. So there's a couple of different ways in which we approach it. But usually I will work with partners and have kind of a finger on the pulse. Like I meet with some of my key partners regularly and my favorite question, you know, like, what's keeping you up at night? And I really quickly will pop it into our backlog. It's just a question, a thing to think about, like, hey, we want to make sure that we sort of knew around this eventually. And then during that cycle of planning with the research team, it usually coincides to a degree with the planning that's happening maybe within the company. And so I, for the H2 planning or sort of that H1 planning, I usually around like Q3, that's, I think almost every company usually starts doing annual planning like around Q4, beginning of Q4, end of Q3. Hannah Ghidey [00:08:35]: And so what I will do, knowing that that's coming down the pike, we'll really Try to spend Q3 on generative research and what that might look like to feed into annual planning and then also make sure that our overarching annual like research planning is coalescing with some of the broader themes that are coming out of our sort of strategic financial planning or annual planning for the rest of the year. Erin May [00:08:58]: Generative research in Q3 as an input to the annual planning, which includes planning maybe more generative research for next year, right? Hannah Ghidey [00:09:06]: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And I think that's kind of the sticking point. Right. Is like when you're doing gendered research, like, you're needing to advocate to a degree for like doing the research to then go on and do more research. Ben Wiedmaier [00:09:16]: Right. Hannah Ghidey [00:09:16]: Which can be really, I think, challenging for folks to sort of crock or wrap their head around. Like, you need two months to learn the problem space, to then start thinking about the opportunity space. And so it feeds in really well when you're doing it in Q3, because then all of a sudden these looming themes come up in annual planning where it's like, hey, we have a sense of what this might look like and we have some of the customer problems concretely netted out. Erin May [00:09:39]: Yeah. Awesome. I love the question storming. Obviously. Hear more about brainstorming. When you do that exercise, is there a lot of. Oh, I hear that a lot too. Does that kind of come up in terms of how frequently these things are coming up and what the impact might be? Is that something that comes up? Hannah Ghidey [00:09:54]: Yeah, absolutely. I think that. Right. That gets to the embedded model question is being an embedded model, like, you're so sort of narrowly focused within your space and can really become like a subject matter expert and can be thinking about this sort of one feature set over the next six months as opposed to zooming out and really understanding overarching, like, what is the experience holistically? And so a lot of the times when we do these exercises, it's an opportunity where we're sort of looking at different squads and different researchers that are in different spaces and it's like, oh, we're asking the same questions. Where might there be opportunity for us to sort of double our efforts or do something that's more generative in nature and tackle some of this in like one fall suite? Ben Wiedmaier [00:10:38]: And Hannah, are those cross team or cross product area questions, are those tackled by a principal researcher? Do you have like a tiger team of folks who come together? Because undoubtedly each particular product researcher needs to continue with the day in and day out business of the usability and the user flows and satisfaction. But when you do identify, like, wow, we're all, you know, seller side, buyer side, trust and safety side. We're seeing this. How do you action against those research opportunities? Hannah Ghidey [00:11:03]: Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. And I keep it mostly to my team for one to start and the ways in which I frame it. I'm like, ideas can come from anywhere. Right. Like, we're all doing the research in different, in different aspects. We all have different partners, we all have different sense of what trends in the field might be and some of the questions that are coming up. So for the initial storm, again, like quantity over quality, generally have the sort of full team do an exercise like independently of just collecting all the questions, doesn't need to be perfect. And then we'll have a staff researcher go through and start combing and sort of cleaning up some of the themes as well as how it maps back to the company objective, which might be more challenging. Hannah Ghidey [00:11:45]: Right. For somebody who starting out and has an understanding of the questions, but maybe not the business end. Erin May [00:11:50]: What are some of the other challenges you have overcome or maybe you're still working through when it comes to prioritizing strategic research in the embedded model? Hannah Ghidey [00:11:58]: Yeah, that's a great question. And Ben, I think what you had just asked as well about being able to partner right across like buyer and seller and all different spaces, I think it's much easier when we're able to work sort of contained within the team. But then I think once it's comes to sort of like ballooning out to our other like partner teams in terms of how we're working across like the full marketplace, we do a good job of that at the leadership layer and sharing our insights more broadly as well in terms of once they come out. But being able to be really proactive in our sort of planning across the board can be challenging when there's a larger number of folks involved. Ben Wiedmaier [00:12:34]: Before you got to Etsy, you were at Curology, Shout out, great product and DoSomething, which was a nonprofit or a community focused organization. Now you started the practice at DoSomething. Did you go in knowing you wanted to do something like an embedded model? Again, I know that understanding that resources and headcount are different. How did you arrive at this idea that an embedded model worked or did it just you happen to be in an embedded model that worked for you as an insights practitioner and you carried it with you to the next places? Hannah Ghidey [00:13:00]: Yeah, that's a wonderful question. Well, a few different bits. It's so dependent on team size too. Right. Like when you're a research team of one, there's almost like no choice but sort of floating across different spaces. I'd say when I'd started my career early on in research, user research in particular was really emerging. And so I was rolling into product at the time, our CPO and doing cx, which naturally has some degrees of overlap, but that often like CX often spans the entirety of a space. And I started sort of dabbling the research in a few different bits which she had worked with really amazing researchers and was a wonderful mentor. Hannah Ghidey [00:13:38]: But as our need for what research would look like grew, it became really critical to have like some degrees of expertise sort of embedded within our teams and models at that point, didn't have an embedded research team, but then instituted that when I was at curology, both because I was able to grow the team and was able to embed researchers within each space. But I also am. I'm actually like pretty. I'm really pro embedding. I think it comes with so many benefits. Although there might be the bits around sort of like functional silos. You become such an embedded partner as opposed to. I think there's a narrative around ticket taking, but you understand so fully what the needs of the overarching team are and you're a part of sort of the collective. Hannah Ghidey [00:14:23]: And that can be missing when you are sort of waiting for the research request to come in as opposed to sort of proactively understanding what the needs are based on the individuals that you work with and what the needs are based on the company goals and what some of the blockers are and being able to be thinking a little bit more forward in terms of where you're embedded and what you're working on. Erin May [00:14:44]: Yeah. One of the benefits there too, I imagine, is when you're embedded, you're embedded, it's in the name. Right. You're part of the thing, but you come up with your insights through various projects and maybe are they more likely to get used given the proximity to your stakeholders? Hannah Ghidey [00:15:01]: Totally, yes. I think so much of the art of research. Right. It's not just the technical skill set of being able to conduct the research. Right. And all of the bits that come with it. It's really around the ability to bring people in to the research, to understand it, to socialize it and then to ensure that they sort of stay alive so that four months down the line when you're reinvestigating a feature, you can really noodle on what problems you're solving or any existing research. You also have the trust built where you're able to then say, hey, I don't think we need to do research here, or I really do think that we need to pause and do a bit of research in order to appropriately de risk and pivot and you have that trust that's built. Hannah Ghidey [00:15:46]: Yeah. Erin May [00:15:46]: And so when you take the embedded model and then you zoom out to do more expansive, strategic, long term research over a broader surface area, how then do you make sure it gets used so you don't have that benefit? Necessarily, are there new challenges? Are there things that you have found have worked well to make sure that research is used over the long term? Hannah Ghidey [00:16:07]: Yeah, absolutely. I would probably say one of the biggest ones is to get back, I'm obviously I'm a planner, but to get back to that planning is being able to be in locks step with your product partners. And so what is often so critical for me when we're talking about generative research, strategic research, innovative research, whatever sort of flavor we want to use. Again, what ends up often coming is some degrees of exploration. Right. It can be concepts like you don't want to just do generative research in a silo and that's it. But there should be some degree of follow up. It doesn't need to be actionability, but that requires almost your partners on the product end to be able to hold. Hannah Ghidey [00:16:48]: Right. Like maybe a quarter out. We know that we want to build something, we just don't have the degree of fidelity and understanding what that something is. But we know that research is working ahead and we're going to start working sort of in lockstep with design, research and product to start scoping out what the opportunity might look like. Ben Wiedmaier [00:17:05]: Yeah, Hannah, to me it's such a great example of those teaching moments that we talk or hear so much about when like we're talking about democratization. It feels like like we just had on a great research operations leader on awkward sciences talking about these really nuanced programs around education. And that's really useful if you work in a very layered, very big organization where you might only have once a quarter or once a year a moment to touch in with all of your stakeholders. But you're doing that every single day when you're embedded, you're kicking off projects with them, you're doing retros with them. They are learning, I expect, how research happens, just like you, the researcher are learning how product development happens. Are there other benefits that you have found for ICs in the embedded model? I'm thinking, for example, if you become very skilled at like a particular kind of a SaaS product, then you can go on to other companies who might have that sort of model or work on that sort of feature problem. I know sometimes ICs can worry that like, oh, maybe I'm only 2 indexed on this one thing. So first, are there other benefits both just for being at a company and then professional development more generally as a uxr? Hannah Ghidey [00:18:06]: Oh my gosh, yes. I believe this so deeply. I think sometimes as research practitioners, like sometimes it's almost Easier to put on your research hat. And that hat just sort of stays on indefinitely and you don't feel as comfortable flexing into other things or having a sort of strong opinionated stance on something that an engineer lead might be noodling on and vice versa. And so one of the things that I found to be really beneficial is yes, you're developing that degree of expertise, but it's also the proximity that you have to other partners who might not think like you. Right. Or have completely different systems and ways of working where you're also collaborating with your like product marketing partner and your engineer. And you all are sort of crushing videos together and are generating shared insights and shared solution on the path forward. Hannah Ghidey [00:18:52]: So to me, what is often really, really impactful is being able to understand better all of the different partners and layers that come in and having a degree of comfortability as well in terms of how your research can manifest in a decision again that impacts like product marketing or an eventual engineering build. So I've been able to sit with my engineer partners and designers and jam a bit more right when we're thinking about wireframes and being able to do that. I think that sometimes when you're not embedding and you're floating sort of across different spaces, it's more challenging to have that degree of both impact and influence. Erin May [00:19:25]: Awkward interruption this episode of awkward silences, like every episode of awkward silences, is brought to you by user interviews. We know that finding participants for research is hard. User interviews is the fastest way to recruit targeted, high quality participants for any kind of research. We're not a testing platform. Instead we're fully focused on making sure you can get just in time insights for your product development, business strategy, marketing and more. Go to userinterviews.com awkward to get your first three participants free. When you think about another difference, right. Often with the embedded versus the strategic is the shelf life of the insights that you're generating. Erin May [00:20:04]: And I imagine there are additional challenges and opportunities that come with keeping those insights fresh and usable over the long term. In the embedded model, how do you approach that piece of things? Hannah Ghidey [00:20:15]: Yeah, that I would say is it's like a forever challenge. I think even outside of being embedded or not, it's like, how does research continue to stay alive then? Also I think as you have people shift in and out, there's just degrees of knowledge that go with it. So how do you ensure that you're not reproducing research that already exists in which you might want to sort of revisit we do a lot at C which I value so much is and I know everybody does different degrees of literature reviews but have such a bank of existing research and we're able to lean on and do roll ups quite a bit. So looking across and again this is I think a component of embedded models but looking across at other experts in the space to better understand and other research partners within different spaces to better understand like what existing information do we have on this and then what's our comfortability in using it? The market change considerably? Has the experience of the user changed? Are we still encountering the same problems and questions? But I think the shelf life question is it can be a challenging one and I think it's one we've leveraged our Research Ops partners quite a bit to have some degree of an expiration date, but I don't know that it's something that we fully cracked the nut on. Erin May [00:21:31]: Yeah, shout out Research Ops Ben we'll have to do a super cut of all the Research Ops love across all of our episodes. Ben Wiedmaier [00:21:37]: That's a really nice segue. Hannah, I wanted to ask you about your shift from or your evolution to from IC to manager. Now you're spending more of your time. It sounds like planning, interfacing with other partners and leaders across the org. For someone who's out there listening and is managing a team and they're not yet in the embedded model or they're managing an embedded team and they're maybe struggling what practices or tools or tactics. Maybe it's hiring a great ops professional. What are things that have helped you as a manager working with again, you're not just on one side or the other at Etsy. You're on both sides, the consumer as well as the seller. Ben Wiedmaier [00:22:10]: You're on trust and safety. You're on customer success. You're across a lot of different parts of Etsy. So how do you keep it all together? Advice for others who are managing a team maybe not quite with so many different inputs, but in an embedded model. Hannah Ghidey [00:22:21]: Yeah, a few bits, but I think it's in research or honestly like any sort of data practitioner, sometimes it feels as if the strength of your ability to influence is based on what you know and the knowledge in which you accumulate over time. And I feel like that's so accurate for research. Right. Like our ability to be in the room and share a perspective that we have such a deep understanding about is like critical for the ways in which we show up. And I think it becomes more challenging when you might be further removed from the Day to day. Right. Or the sessions that are happening live or the analysis in which you're triangulating. And so I am such a big proponent of team development, but also bilateral feedback and learning. Hannah Ghidey [00:23:04]: And I learn so much from my team and try to make sure that I'm out of their way. Right. My goal isn't to slow them down by any means, but it's really to be able to learn from them. And a really big part of that is learning what they're hearing and what some of the big looming questions are and where they think that there's a lot of opportunity. Right. Where are we maybe missing the mark in terms of some of our broader product solutions? So I would say the biggest one is having one the degree of humility, which I think researchers are naturally curious. But to really, really learn from your team in terms of their degrees of expertise and then build the structures so that everybody is able to really get out and do the degrees of planning, which I've called out. I so deeply believe in being able to plan and have sort of multiple phases in how we're thinking about research and our impact on the overarching business questions and understanding as well. Hannah Ghidey [00:23:58]: So really getting a little bit more focused in terms of planning in a longer cycle and cadence that might feel unnatural and being comfortable with the like the fidelity doesn't need to be there. Things change and maybe three months down the line we reshift. But I would say sort of between learning from your team and being really focused on strategic planning are two of the ways I would say it's really important to be able to grow. Erin May [00:24:24]: Yeah. Sort of flexible, proactive component as well as that reactive constant learning component. Right? Hannah Ghidey [00:24:32]: Yeah. Erin May [00:24:33]: And a lot of what you're saying I'm hearing is there's parallel tracks happening across a lot of dimensions. Right. There's the short term immediate value embedded research, there's the long term strategic research, there's the proactive planning, there's the reactive listening and learning and all of those tracks kind of happening at the same time. Hannah Ghidey [00:24:49]: Yeah. And I am realizing, I think one thing that's also just so critical and is also being a conduit. Right. You have information a lot of the times to varying degrees of context and business context. And it's so important to be able to share that often that context leads to sort of better research, planning and decisions as well and then understanding of like, right. What are the biggest looming problems that we need to better understand. So really I often take a moment after like key one on ones or Meetings to just sort of distill like hey, here are some of the things that I'm hearing. Just want you to have a heads up. Hannah Ghidey [00:25:25]: You don't need to action on it but just something to know. Ben Wiedmaier [00:25:27]: Hannah, I know we've talked a lot about both embedded research and strategic research opportunities and questions. Maybe I should have asked this earlier. So forgive me. How do you and your team or how have you as a research practitioner, non research leader define a strategic question? Is that one that for you touches a certain amount of business units? Is it a question that has a like a five year horizon? You know you've been at several different orgs, you've stood up research teams at different orgs. How do you know when you've come upon a strategic question? Because we've had some folks say that a usability test can be strategic insofar as it points to a new way of onboarding users. So what does a strategic question look like for you? Hannah Ghidey [00:26:07]: Yeah, I actually fully agree. I'm also in the camp that right usability, usability research can be strategic. I think don't need to focus too much on the specific methodology. But I have one is I mentioned earlier in terms of that sort of like strategic planning and sort of spreadsheet but usually I have almost like a prioritization calculator that I plot into the broader question storms and again I'm always a swag. It's just like an estimate of what this might look like and it crosses a few different sort of verticals. But one I would say is like what's the research level of efforts? We go to T shirt size it right. It's a small, might be two to four weeks or it could be an extra large. It's 12 weeks. Hannah Ghidey [00:26:45]: What's the complexity? And what I think is actually to your question is sort of the most important is what's the impact? So how will the specific results impact Etsy? And that can be right. Influencing product strategy. It can ladder up to an overarching company objective. We have three things that we're focused on in the next year. It can support a design decision as well. And then what's the user base as well? You know, is it some or all? And then what's our confidence at this point? And so using that to at least sort of develop a loose score of like hey, we think that this is really important and we can say that it's a P1 or a P0 based on all of these different bits. It's low effort but it has and we have Low confidence, but it could be potentially really high impact. That's usually the starting point. Hannah Ghidey [00:27:34]: And then some of the conversations that I have with partners in terms of thinking through, like, what are some of the big winning questions that we need. Erin May [00:27:40]: Degrees of clarity around loom looming like it. Thinking about names for conferences. Yes. Those low effort, high impact projects, those elusive. If only there were more of those. Right. So, you know, I think of now, right now as being a time of high transition in the world in research, in tech, AI, et cetera, et cetera. Curious how any of those democratization, pick your evolution. Erin May [00:28:10]: Curious how any of that might be impacting how you're thinking about your research practice, your processes, how you approach making impactful research at Etsy. Hannah Ghidey [00:28:20]: Yeah, well, it is interesting, right? I feel like there's been different modes of like there's democratization, which is like super duper hot for a couple of years and still degrees and then AI, like, how will AI impact research more broadly? How do we leverage it in our practices? But it feels as if there's also sort of as a pendulum swings in different areas. But it's a little bit more of coming back to the degrees of rigor, which is one that I've been thinking about more, but I've also been seeing sort of throughout the industry, like, if we sort of bring it back home a bit more, like, how does the rigor of research drive our overarching sort of product decisions? And it's something that I've been noodling on as I've been. I feel like there's so much education that was happening, you know, 10 years ago, five years ago, like, what is research and ones. And this is how research can be impactful within your product development process. And it feels as if research has grown so much as an industry that it's not as much focused on, like what is the value of research. I mean, in larger orgs, right, there's research functions or as we have research ops. And so it's going back to almost the basics of how do we ensure degrees of rigor around our research processes and socialize those as well so that there's an understanding more broadly of when we take maybe a leaner, scrappier approach and when we really need to be more rigorous in our approaches. Erin May [00:29:50]: Yeah, love that. It's another good word, rigor. Ben Wiedmaier [00:29:53]: Yeah. I think, Hannah, it's a great reminder that for some researchers there's that constant fight, might be too strong of a word, that chip on the shoulder that you've talked about it, planning, socializing all of these are markers of expertise that we have a point of view. We are valued by the business. We can improve our stakeholders work, we can certainly help the business. And so it sounds like you and Etsy have arrived at a place where it's assumed that research is a part of the conversation, just like design and product strategy and development and customer and all the other functions. And it is, it's about honing in your craft, making sure that we're being rigorous, choosing the right method for the right question. I love your focus on prioritization. I think user researchers can feel so overwhelmed they don't want to say no. Ben Wiedmaier [00:30:34]: I know, I've been there. I don't want to say no to a project because I don't want to not be relied upon. I don't want to be a reliable partner. But it sounds like you've alighted on and landed at that great place where saying no to something maybe not so good lets you say something. Yes to something better. Where you can say like, actually we're going to help the front door of the business be better because of these things we're working on. And so just want to underline that that's a really nice call out of the work you and your team are working on and doing. Hannah Ghidey [00:30:57]: Thank you. Thank you. Erin May [00:30:59]: Yeah. Awesome. Well, before we move on to Rapid Fire section, any closing thoughts you want to leave folks with on research at Etsy, on the embedded model, strategic research, enthusiasm and wishes and hopes for the future. Anything? Hannah Ghidey [00:31:13]: Yes, love it. Yes. I mean, research is so impactful and so valuable and seeing it in fruition in a space where we are again one to one with partners and all, I think that elusive seat at the table, I know not everybody loves that framing, but being able to be in spaces where you see the actualization of your research is impactful. And so for folks that are either looking or not seeing anything at Etsy, reach out, please. Erin May [00:31:39]: Yeah, I was gonna say, is Etsy hiring? Hannah Ghidey [00:31:41]: We have a couple of open roles. Erin May [00:31:42]: There you go. Okay. Excellent. Awesome. All right, Rapid Fire, what is your favorite research interview question? Hannah Ghidey [00:31:49]: Oh, my gosh. Yes, it's. It is the magic wand question. I don't know how often you hear it, but I've adapted it in my own. I do love the question. I know to a degree, but it would be maybe a variation of that and it's one that I use with partners as well. But I do it in the. What's keeping you up at night? Erin May [00:32:05]: Okay. Yep. Hannah Ghidey [00:32:07]: Yeah. Some flavor of that. Erin May [00:32:09]: Yeah, yeah, love it. And Would you like a magic wand to make that go away? Right. Hannah Ghidey [00:32:14]: Would I like a magic wand? Erin May [00:32:16]: No. The thing that's keeping you up at night, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hannah Ghidey [00:32:22]: Let me dig a little bit deeper. Erin May [00:32:24]: Yeah, yeah. What are a few resources that you have liked in your career that you recommend to others? Books, websites, LinkedIn, thought leaders, whatever. Hannah Ghidey [00:32:33]: Yeah, absolutely. I swear this wasn't planned, but I love the Awkward Silences podcast. I think that there's something really useful, right, in being able to listen to people talk about their craft and sort of casually, like, listen to ideas and thoughts. So the Awkward Silence's podcast is probably one that I often lean on quite a bit and love to listen to. I also Erika Hall. I've been long been a fan of Erika hall and just enough research is probably the one in which I picked up early on in my career. And I know that it really leans into some of the more like, scrappier practices of what that might look like. But I think that there's degrees of adaptability too, in just like, understanding all of the different methods and sort of the creative approaches. Hannah Ghidey [00:33:16]: So Erica hall and some of her takes on both surveys, focus groups, and being adaptable in research. Erin May [00:33:23]: And you know what I love about that one too is that I think, like, Rigori, which you talked about, can be put on the, like, sort of other side of the spectrum of like, you have like, scrappy and lean on the one hand and then rigor on the other. But what I love about her book is they're not opposites. Right. It's about what really matters here and how do we focus on those things. Hannah Ghidey [00:33:42]: Completely. Completely. What's the risk? Right. Like, and I think that that's one that's often that can be overlooked. Like, what's the risk in taking a scrap? Erin May [00:33:50]: Yeah. Ben Wiedmaier [00:33:50]: Awesome. Erin May [00:33:51]: Where can folks find you? Hannah Ghidey [00:33:52]: Yes, LinkedIn. Hannah Gooday. Last name G H I C E Y. Erin May [00:33:57]: All right, well, we will link everything up in our show notes. Thank you so much for being a great guest. Loved having you here. Ben Wiedmaier [00:34:03]: Thank you, Hannah. Hannah Ghidey [00:34:04]: Wonderful talking to both of you. Thanks. Erin and Ben. Erin May [00:34:12]: Thanks for listening to Awkward Silences brought to you by User Interviews Theme music by Fragile G. Hannah Ghidey [00:34:28]: Hi. Erin May [00:34:29]: There, Awkward Silences listener. Thanks for listening. If you like what you heard, we always appreciate a rating or review on your podcast app of choice. 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