Generative Research Design - I, me, myself

What I can't live without:

Love - I treasure my relationship with my husband, Matthew, above all other stuff.  He is my soulmate, my adventure buddy and my best friend.  I love the life we share and eagerly look forward to raising a family with him to increase our inner circle of love and joy.

Nature - Transporting myself to remote parts of the natural world is somewhat addictive for me.  It never fails to rejuvenate, inspire and amaze.  My favorite kind of vacations have lots of trees, big rocks and waterfalls.

Books - My Mother is an English teacher and she is instrumental in instilling in me a deep love for reading when I was very young.  As a girl growing up in a conservative society in India, I felt very constrained as I had to live by societal norms that I didn't agree with.  Books were an escape to whole new worlds that I could experience vicariously and it tasted like freedom.  Books were also teachers and mentors to me as they helped me through somewhat tumultuous adolescence as I questioned the world around me and formed my own identity.

Adventure - I love the rush I get from activities where I'm pushing myself to go further than I've gone before or further than most people I know would go.  That feeling is what drove me sign up for scuba classes even though I couldn't swim (just barely float!) and then I went through hours and days of coaching both in the US and in Thailand just so that I could see what the world looks like 60 ft underwater.  My vacations have always been packed with some adventure.  I've hiked in the Rockies, Andes and Himalayas.  I can't wait to get to the Alps!  I like the fast speeds, the surprises and the skills that make each adventure unique.

Relationships with Family and Friends - I am very close to my brother who is like a rock to me - I can talk to him about anything, at any time.  He is the most non-judgemental, wise person I know.  My close friend Priya is like a sister to me.  Even though she lives in the UK, we stay connected through skype, phone and email and somehow have managed to meet at least once a year on average.  I talk to my Parents once a week and see them once every other year because they live far away in India.  I try to keep in touch with my Mom over emails as she prefers that over the phone.  I think she worries about me spending too much on the phone calls but she doesn't understand (or accept) that this is not a problem. She and I have grown much closer over the years through our long private, email conversations.

What I care about:

Travel - I enjoy meeting people from different cultures and seeing how they live, how they interact with each other and what drives them.  I like comparing what is similar and finding differences between the culture in India where I was raised and what I see in the US which is now my new home.  I have been to 26 different countries, and returned to some more often than others.  More than the food and sightseeing, I seek personal encounters with local residents and to explore the natural world in these new lands.

Noodles - She is our silly cat full of purrs and sometimes little bites.  It is very comforting to see her when I get home and to have her company next to me while I'm studying.  She is often a great source of entertainment too!

Helping others - I realized early on in my life that I get a lot of satisfaction out of doing things for others.  It is not a universal desire to please people, but instead I like to find problems, or people in pain and I like to remove that pain.  A friend once told me when I was 16 that she thought I had a gift for always saying the right thing at the right time to make people feel good when they were having a bad day.

Laughter - When I watch TV or am asked to choose a movie, I almost always will choose a comedy.  I like how comedians look at the world in a unique way.  I think it's very creative.  One of my favorite shows growing up was "Whose line is it anyway?" which had a lot of improvisational comedy.  A few years ago I took improv classes to find out what it was like.  It was very hard and I found that I am not a natural at it.  But I did enjoy it very much.

Learning (eg TED talks) - I enjoy reading or watching anything that opens my mind to new ideas and ways of thinking.  I also like learning new stuff.  In my previous job, I was very good at absorbing details of complex software and explaining it to customers in simple terms to answer questions or solve problems.

I get most of my information through Google web searches.  I use Google news and the search bar to find out what's going on and follow links to popular reads or videos. I like using Google because it is easy to use and very intuitive.  I like that it gathers all the information that I seem to find useful. I typically check national news first, then international news. I like to know what's going on in the world.  For most articles, I usually only read the headlines and one paragraph. I find that I spend the most time on opinion pages as I like to get into peoples minds to know what they are thinking and make guesses as to why that may be. I rarely check local news.  I enjoy listening to National Public Radio whenever I am driving(news reports) and on the weekend("Wait, wait, don't tell me"). I like the reporters' styles on NPR -- their use of language, tone and humor.  I also like that they cover different kinds of news (financial, global, local) in small slices of interesting nuggets as well as opinion interviews in larger chunks.  I check my Facebook page on average once a day to get information about my close friends.  I sometimes click on news articles that they recommend or have commented on and I find it interesting to observe how the same news article is shared by more than one friend with sometimes polar opposite opinions in the comments.

On reflecting about my day I find that I seek the most information when I'm about to start a long period of study or when I'm taking a break from studying(both in the middle of the day and late at night after dinner). I think that I view the process of seeking information as a kind of reward because reading the news satisfies my curiosity to know what's going on and to learn random new pieces of information.  Checking email and facebook satisfies my need to stay connected with friends and family.


The process of going through the above exercise of deep introspection into what really matters to me, what channels of information I do and digging into the underlying purpose of why I make the choices I do has really made appreciate the depth of how complex and unique each individual's experiences are.  I found patterns of behavior and bent emerging that I had not realized about myself before.  I can see how this would be extremely valuable to a business that is trying to build a customer experience around me to delight me.