At Lexicon Strategies, a major component of most of our engagements involves developing and conducting structured listening sessions. Authentic qualitative research is so important to successful community and social impact work and, we believe, it’s what makes the solutions we deliver so much more effective.

When we think about solutions or messaging, many people look to surveys or quantitative data. And, it’s always a mistake not to pair data with words. We live in a world driven by language and emotion, not numbers and percentages. The only way to capture actionable, successful insight is to listen to the people involved speaking directly to you.

Surveys and evaluations have become part of our everyday work life. But do we think critically enough about them?

Academic researchers rely on surveys and are constantly refining the science of surveying. It's worth taking a moment to read some of the academic literature as a check for best practices.