Research and Framing
Transforming your instinct into the question worth answering
You have a hunch. Or a story you can't stop thinking about. Or a half-remembered article you can’t quite place. You know there’s something underneath them all that matters to the work you and your organisation do. These are the clues that point at a question no one has asked yet.
Finding that question is the first half of my work. Answering it against the psychological literature and twenty-seven years on tech and society beat is the second.
I tell stories for a living. I follow leads, and turn them into long-form, critically-acclaimed, and award-winning arguments on radio, in print, on screen, and interactively. I have a PhD in Social Psychology. I generate and test hypotheses with scientific rigour. Our work together will produce a provocative, persuasive, and defensible answer to your question that will stand up in front of your team, your board, regulators, and the media.
This is bespoke reporting, credentialed, and verified against primary sources. Depth plus narrative: a heart, plus a handrail.
How it works.
Phase 1. Framing
Two to three days.
I identify the question that’s being asked.
You get a short, structured document that you can circulate internally, including what the evidence already says, where genuine disagreement sits, where your assumptions are not supported by the literature, and what a full piece of work needs to establish to be worth a commission.
Framing is priced on its own.
Phase 2. Research and Report
Eight to fifteen days.
The full answer: argued, evidenced, and produced to be consumed by you, your team, and the world beyond. Not a literature review or a summary of what’s already out there; an investigative analysis in a format we determine, built to give you the clearest path forward, in the best direction of travel.
Included will be a narrative summary of the findings, and citations verified to academic standard against primary sources.
Speaking
Stories that unearth the unexpected
I am always excited to speak at thought-provoking events. I excel at chairing, moderating, and hosting fireside chats, and I love building the right keynotes for the right audiences.
Here’s a sample of my current keynote topics:
How to defend human messiness from the onslaught of optimisation. When staff push back on new AI tools, it’s tempting to treat it as resistance to change. But that reluctance is often critical thinking - a valuable asset to any team. How can you make it safe for everyone in an organisation to question the tools, and what should you measure besides adoption?
How is tech making decisions, and is this right for you? Based on two decades of reporting on Silicon Valley: what the billionaires believe and who their products are making decisions for. It ends on practical tests you can run on what you're buying to work out whether it's what your organisation actually needs.
What people actually use the internet and AI for, and what governments regulate for. There's a massive gap between the two, and this talk investigates how people work around it, and what organisations can do to close it.
Why you still need juniors on your payroll. Entry-level work is how people learn judgement and how firms planned succession. What's the balance between training them, and training AI for your business?
Since 2003, Aleks has produced commissioned research for UK government departments and trade bodies, global technology companies, design and innovation consultancies, and global consumer brands.
She has reported on the human stories in technological transformation continuously since 1999.
She has a doctorate in Social Psychology from University of Surrey, an Honourary Doctorate from the Open University, and a Bafta, an Emmy, and a Royal Society Award for her journalism.
Read more here.
About Aleks Krotoski
Get In Touch
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