Editor’s note: Nancy Cox is the founder of Research Story Consulting and former CPG corporate researcher. Her work and play include words, sketchpads, cooking (not baking) and the occasional sock puppet.

Passions, hobbies, healthy distractions and even guilty pleasures – discover how the research community plays and how that plays out in their work life. In the Venn diagram of work and play, what happens when work and play overlap? Research colleagues share their work and play stories in this interview series by Nancy Cox. 

I purposively put play into my work. In my job, I’ve worked to create awareness of SKIM. On my LinkedIn posts, I noticed that posts that looked like they came from the company had relatively few views. But if I posted something more playful and fun, it would get a lot of views.

One Saturday, I decided to try my hand at writing a haiku. When I was in college, like a lot of people, I was really into poetry. I was a fan of Ezra Pound, the poet, and he liked haikus. I was never a poet myself, being a math and statistics major, but I always had that interest. I still don’t think of myself as a poet, but haikus would be an easy and succinct way to communicate a truth about the research and marketing industry. And, do it in a way that is both fun and thought-provoking.

After I posted a few haikus about the industry, I found I was getting lots of comments and lots of views. I even created my own hashtag #insightshaiku. Again, a little bit tongue-in-cheek.People were saying this is cool, keep doing it. With that encouragement, I made a commitment to post one research industry haiku each week for a year – then let it go. I didn’t want to do it forever. I’ve stopped writing the haikus for now but occasionally I get inspired and post one.A lot of my inspiration came from observing my clients and colleagues. If I saw or heard something interesting, I would jot it down. One of my favorit...