Bridget Dalton of Truth Consulting on Reading the Future Through Culture

Dr. Bridget Dalton, Head of Truth Futures at Truth Consulting and a 2026 Greenbook Futurist honoree, joins host Karen Lynch to unpack what it really means to “understand the future through culture.” With a background spanning academia, poetry, and semiotics, Bridget shares how cultural analysis can act as connective tissue across quant, qual, and AI-powered unstructured data to create sharper strategic direction.

They explore how scenario planning builds confident “what next?” decisions, why multi-method work should surface productive tension (not identical answers), and how Truth Changemakers partners with the Ashoka network to learn from social entrepreneurs already building the future. Bridget also speaks candidly about dyslexia, neurodiversity, and evolving standards of “credible communication” in insights.

Key Discussion Points:

• Why culture is “future-baked” and how semiotics helps make instinct make sense
• Moving from curiosity (“why”) to action (“so what”) with scenario planning
• Blending semiotics, qual/quant, and AI-driven unstructured data for stronger foresight
• Truth Changemakers + Ashoka: learning from social entrepreneurs with a “pre-detection lens”
• Neurodiversity in insights: reframing credibility, communication, and talent

Resources & Links:

• Truth Consulting (learn more about the consultancy and Truth Futures)
• Ashoka (global network of social entrepreneurs)

You can reach out to Bridget Dalton on LinkedIn.

Many thanks to Bridget Dalton for being our guest. Thanks also to our production team and our editor at Big Bad Audio.

Transcript

Karen: Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of the Greenbook Podcast. I’m Karen Lynch. I’m excited to be hosting today, as I am every time. I enjoy doing this very much. But today I have the honor of introducing one of our 2026 Future List Honorees. So, this year’s cohort was announced recently. You’ve probably been tracking that. And Dr. Bridget Dalton has agreed to join us today. First of all, before I even introduce you, thank you for joining me on the podcast, Bridget.

Bridget: Oh, you’re very welcome, Karen. Thanks so much for having me. A very exciting thing to do in January, so I’m delighted to be here and to chat with you today.

Karen: Excellent, excellent. And so, let me tell you all just a little bit more about Dr. Dalton. She’s obviously one of our 2026 Future List Honorees, as I’ve said. She’s the Head of Truth Futures at a consultancy called Truth Consulting, which, if that’s not intriguing enough, just know that she’s also an experienced cultural analyst with a background in semiotics. And we’ve done a few podcasts with people who have expertise in semiotics, and you’ll know that I find the field fascinating, but also just the idea of, kind of, being a cultural analyst and somebody who is that tapped into everything, kind of cultural movements, I’m just super excited. So again, welcome, and why don’t you just expand upon that introduction and tell us more about what you do [laugh].

Bridget: Thank you so much. Okay, yes, so I’m Bridget Dalton. I’m Head of Truth Futures, which is a relatively recent addition to an amazing agency at Truth Consulting. It started 17 years ago by a group of, kind of, rebels in the insight world to shake things up and disrupt the space. And since then, have built a really, really solid, really impeccable reputation for, I don’t want to call it—I don’t like the term primary research; as a semiotician, I think that has connotations that sort of potentially devalue my specialism—however, as a consultative agency that specializes in really robust quant and really meaningful qualitative research and has a legacy in semiotics and cultural analysis to boot, we started Truth Futures when I arrived at Truth about 18 months ago or so with this specific purpose of leaning into the, kind of, strongly held belief that in order to understand the future, we have to understand culture, and building upon that principle to not necessarily, I don’t want to say track, I think that also has a weird connotation, but to put our arms around this messy, ever evolving, convoluted, complex, fascinating, sometimes fun, sometimes terrifying thing, which is culture that has the future kind of baked into it, and using lots of different methodologies, and crucially blending with qual and with quant and with AI, unstructured data and so on and so forth, we have built Truth Futures. And I’m very, very proud to lead that [offer 00:03:31]. And I think that the work that we’ve been doing the past 18 months has been, well, certainly, I humbly say some of the best I’ve ever done in my career, or I have done in my career. Yeah, and growing and very, very exciting times.

Karen: I’m so glad to dig into all of that. You know, you are, again, one of these honorees that we only welcomed 20 to the 2026 cohort out of the you know, dozens and dozens—dozens upon dozens, nearly a hundred, I think. Sometimes more than a hundred, sometimes just shy—of applicants, after, you know, even more nominations come through. So, what was your reaction when you found out that you’d been named an honoree? 

Bridget: Oh, my goodness [laugh]. Well, you know, the clue is in the name. I feel terribly honored. It’s really—if I may, I should say I was frankly moved when I was nominated in the first place. I thought that was a vote of confidence that my colleagues at Truth nominated me, and I find that really—that’s an important part of my job, to feel that I really value my colleagues and they value me. So, I was really touched, and I felt almost daunted by the prospect of having to justify [laugh] that nomination. So, when I found out that I was an honoree, I was really bowled over. I mean, what an incredible thing. And I think specifically in the context of early career that means something to me, particularly as somebody who is within the first ten years of my second career in my life. So, I’m a—I think I’m a slightly, I don’t know, but I suspect that I might be a slightly rare case and that I’m not necessarily, maybe as young as the other honorees, however, I am as green as—not green. They’re not green. I’m not green. But within ten years of my career. So, I’m very delighted to have been able to experience something like that, despite not being a spring chicken, shall we say. And post pivot. So, I feel very, very honored, and also to be in that list with a group of such brilliant and inspiring people, and I feel, you know, enter into that community is really wonderful. So, thank you, and thank you to all of the team at Greenbook for that.

Karen: Oh, well, you’re quite welcome. You know, thank you for what you’re doing for the industry. You know, we are—Greenbook is in service to the industry. We really want to see individuals and businesses within the industry grow, and we try to help them in that growth. So, when we see, kind of, the applicants come before us, and we have a rigorous kind of judging matrix and all that, where everybody assesses everybody and then the people rise to the top, each year, we’re always like, “Yes, that makes sense that they rose to the top, for a lot of reasons.” But I do want to just go back to what you said about the difference because I do want to talk about what you did in your previous life. The Future List is reserved, for those listening who might be saying, “Wait, isn’t it the first ten years in your career?” It’s the first ten years in your insights career. So, we can mark, you know, we can mark people who, you know, started in insights within the last ten years, fresh out of school, or people who came into it. Now, there are some adjacent fields where, you know, maybe, if, maybe, if you started in marketing and you come to insights, that’s a little blurrier, but you came from academia—

 Bridget: I did.

Karen: And I think you know when we have people in the insights industry that come from academia, they do bring a different lens into it. There’s a lot you learn in academia that you can bring into your work as a researcher. And I think that is, to me, a very, not only important entrant into our industry, but a lens that we all could benefit from. How would you describe that sort of transition for you?

Bridget: There are so many interesting directions of travel in the sort of space between academia and insight. And I’d also posit that a career in insight can teach you a lot for academia. So, in fact, my exit from academia—and so, just… to tell you the story of my work, my academic work, and all of my scholarship was in American poetry, specifically in studying and analyzing the notion of kindness in modernist American poetry. So, it was quite—I undertook quite an obscure, maybe weird, possibly ill-advised doctorate. But I did it, and I learned a lot about teaching, about groups, but also, I think crucially, about making arguments and sharing ideas, and I think I wanted to do more of that. And in fact, when I was making or thinking about exiting academia, I happened to meet a woman who’s still one of my very best friends, who is leaving advertising to go into academia. And we passed by each other, talking about our respective experiences, and I couldn’t wait to get into a commercial environment. What she described, she’d been a really successful strategist in the advertising industry prior to becoming now an incredibly successful academic. But, I suppose what I would say that I think academia brings is the consistent reference to the exam question, the idea that our analysis, our thinking, our insights, must be clear, well put, not original for no sake. Effectively, what I’m saying is, in academia, we talk about the contribution to the field, and I think it’s very important to do the same thing when it comes to insights. Contribute to the field of insights, contribute to our clients’ field of influence, their commercial objectives and challenges, and think and articulate a lot is, I guess, where I see the most crucial overlaps.

Karen: Yeah, it’s so interesting. As you’re talking, I’m thinking about the mindset shift of, you know, when you’ve completed the research and you’re answering the research questions, but there must be a different rigor, to use that word, which when I’ve talked to other doctors in insights, they’ve, you know, talked about learning, kind of, academic rigor. But there’s something else about being very true to the original question with an almost like, that’s my commitment, like, a commitment to the purpose of this research feels a little more intentional than maybe what an insights professional might do, which is like, oh yeah, I’m seeking answers. But there’s a difference between seeking answers and committing to the question—I think—that might be very, very subtle, but seems really poignant to me right now. 

Bridget: That’s a very, very interesting point. I think when I say question, I mean the strategic challenge at the heart of the reason we’re all there, and so, rather than a provocation, rather than a why, the why is the thing that is so fascinating and keeps me endlessly drawn to semiotic approaches and cultural analysis. But the ‘so what’ is extremely important, too, and I think that’s arguably a really major difference between the sort of academic space and the insight space. But I also think, and if I may, I find a bit more freedom in commercial insights work. I think being exploratory in your methods and your expression is one of the, sort of, requirements of innovating an insight, and I think that sometimes with academia, you’re working incredibly hard for simple permission to play, and I don’t know whether that’s quite what we need still. And I really encourage… obviously, we don’t. We’re not—we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, but I think that there’s a—we can experiment and work more rapidly and potentially more creatively in a commercial space with insights themselves, that sort of intangible idea of, what are we going to do with this? And it means we can play and experiment more.

Karen: Yeah. Let’s just stay there for a moment because what does—you know, we’re talking about, you know, play and experiment, this exploration, even when it comes to methodology, what does that look like for people listening, who are like, yeah, sounds great. How do I do that?

Bridget: Well [laugh]. 

Karen: How? How, Bridget? Tell us all how? 

Bridget: How—yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. Okay. I suppose I could talk to semiotics. I think you really need to know what you’re doing in order to take it for a spin. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that people with less experience don’t have very valid contributions to make, to method and approach. I think for me, the sort of the space that I like to play in is, how can I make this mean more to more people? How can I look at the conventions, look at the—not lose the rigor, but tinker and experiment with modes of expression, with styles of storytelling, but remain true to the, sort of, the core tenant of a semiotic argument, which is to make instinct make sense, to understand the crises in culture that will provoke the emergent narratives that will be the future that our clients inhabit. And I think it’s so important to deeply understand that, as your mindset. And then I think, go nuts. Another thing that I think is really important when it comes to, sort of, experimentation and innovation is to really, really listen to what other methods do, need, where they hit stumbling blocks, where they’re incredible and you’re not. And I think that that’s one of the things that I’d say characterizes the trajectory of my career is, learning more every day that I need to listen better to my colleagues because I think it’s that kind of weaving together, understanding where there are dovetails, understanding where tensions add value and methodologically is—I mean, [laugh] I’m going to—it’s been, how long have we been talking 15 minutes, and we haven’t said AI yet. But that’s where—

Karen: I—, right [laugh]?

Bridget: Aha. I’m a pretty dusty academic, despite having worked at an AI-driven insight agency a minute—

Karen: Right? 

Bridget: —of a development director. But that’s not replicable. That’s not something one can generate. It’s a personal thing. What we do, yeah, and understanding that deeply, you know, it’s play, but it’s also like long-term gardening. Cultivation, nurture, understand what you don’t know, learn what you can and listen, and I think that’s where, at the moment in my career, I’m most excited.

Karen: Yeah, so it sounds to me and correct me if I’m wrong, just trying to understand kind of the work you do. It starts earlier, necessarily, earlier in the process because we’re really wrangling with—it’s before methodologies might be thrown out about types of research to do and even what the research questions are. But you’re kind of laddered up to the higher level of the business challenges, kind of, what are the big strategic unknowns.

Bridget: Mm-hm. 

Karen: Because all this listening has to happen there to make sure that you are feeding down to the right things. Am I right in assuming that Truth Consulting and Truth Futures is further up in that?

Bridget: Well, I think ideally. I think that the earlier on you can engage cultural analysis as a foundational piece of work, the quicker you can get acute with the progression of knowledge about the type of research that you require. And from a consultancy point of view, yes, absolutely, the earlier the better. The higher up, the better, the kind of upstream stuff. And really that is absolutely, I suppose, in line with our perspective on the significance of culture as being so vital in all of the kind of key aspects of human life, you know, from politics to pop music, culture links those two spaces and pulls them together and pushes them apart. And by thinking of culture in that way, we start to understand the direction of travel, and therefore we link back to those, kind of, larger strategic questions, making informed… perspective, crafting informed perspectives on what will need to happen next. But also I would say that it’s not necessarily always a kind of—I wouldn’t want to imply that it’s only a high level… but like, quote-unquote, “High level operation.” It’s actually very much about granular, tactical thinking, understanding the interplay between different methodologies and finding out where we can fit to most effectively add value there, as well. I sometimes think—I mean, my practice has been semiotics, which I absolutely love as standalone work and insights cultural strategy work, and I think that it serves a really fantastic role in multi-method insights work because it quite often creates tension. It quite often seems to somehow butt up against what our qualitative research would tell us, or beg a question from some quant, but from my perspective, that’s where the real value lies. I don’t believe that it is worth using many, many methods to get the same answer. If we use many, many methods, we should have different inflections, it should yield different perspectives, different degrees of longevity in the thinking, and that’s where the real, major value-add in terms of insight comes. And also, I think you can use semiotics as almost the kind of cartilage in a big piece of primary research, the sort of, what’s the connecting tissue there, between the numbers, the people, the lived experiences, the why. So, I work very in the trenches, too, for sure.

Karen: Yeah. You know, as we’re having this conversation, you know what happens naturally for me is I’m like, all right, now I’m ready for some examples. Like, I want to see how this all plays out and make it a little more tangible, right, instead of kind of abstract and theoretical. 

Bridget: Sure.

Karen: So, can you give us an example of your work? And if you want to talk about, you know, the example that’s in our brief, which I want to get to, which was in your Future List application, the Ashoka partnership that you had, or any other examples. But let’s get—let’s [crosstalk 00:21:00][laugh].

Bridget: Oh, yeah. Okay, so I think there are many, many examples of the type of different types of futures work that we do. I could talk endlessly about the future of sound, which was a sort of multi-sensory exploration for the future of sound, for an auto client that we had, which was phenomenal. But I think a recent example, I shan’t talk in too much detail about findings, but I felt that our approach matched our ambition and our sense of a kind of innovative spirit because we blended unstructured data AI-powered social and traditional media listening with semiotics, with trends, and with a very, very important partnership that I’ll mention in a moment to feed into a big piece of scenario planning that we did that became the foundation for a major piece of work for a client of ours that could then fan out and be used to create a kind of unified bedrock of insight and future foresight for our client that could then spiral off into different categories, but will always return to that anchored sense of thinking. And we can trace every perspective or every strategic insight that we provide in that all the way back down to the data. And I love the idea of—I love scenario planning. I think, really, it’s such an exciting way to think, and I think it has just the right amount of structure to really invite creativity, which I love. So, that scenario planning is very, very useful and frankly, agile. I’m into agile. I like things to be nimble and moving and pacey all the time. But the other thing that we did as part of that project is we have a partnership called [Truth x Changemakers 00:23:11] as a part of Truth Futures, and it’s one of the elements of my role that I’m most inspired by and proud of. So, we have a partnership with the Ashoka Network at Truth Consulting, called Truth x Changemakers. And if you haven’t heard of the Ashoka Network, then… [laugh] that’s kind of what they intended [laugh]. 

Karen: [laugh]. Oh, interesting.

Bridget: But, I guarantee you will have heard of Ashoka Fellows, members of this network. It’s one of the world’s most influential networks of social entrepreneurs. There are over 4000 Ashoka Fellows the world over, all of whom are rigorously vetted, passionate social entrepreneurs who contribute and forge real change for people and planet. So, members of the Ashoka Network include, if you’re in the UK or know what the Parkrun is, Wikipedia, the Big Issue, the right to repair movement that started in France and it’s fanning out around Europe, which is a revolutionary organization holding domestic appliance manufacturers to account to—and beyond that category—to empower consumers to repair and in fact, Hugo, who’s the Ashoka Fellow who runs that initiative, has already changed legislation. So, the Ashoka Network is a group of incredibly passionate social entrepreneurs who are all equipped with what we describe as the pre-detection lens and a collaborative mindset. They see the challenges that are facing society, communities, people, and planet, and they find insanely effective ways to tackle that. So, we’re incredibly proud when we’re thinking about the future, to be able to speak to people who are already changing it themselves as individuals. The level of knowledge and insight, the intimate knowledge and depth of passion that they have for the challenges they’re addressing give us unparalleled insights. So, rather than—and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the hippest hipster of hip land—we’re talking to social entrepreneurs who are dealing with the concrete challenges of today, and we think that’s an incredible way to address the future for business. And that was baked into that scenario planning, so we were pleased.

Karen: Yeah, that’s awesome. You know, in the qual space, you know, a few years ago, at one of the QRCA conferences that we had—Qualitative Research Consultants Association here in the US—and at one of the conferences, we were talking about kind of, you know, the interviews with experts, but also it was interviews with not just experts, but, you know, outliers, like random people that you wouldn’t expect to have an opinion, you know? Maybe we need to go talk to inmates. We’re exploring personal care; let’s go talk in prisons and talk to inmates. Or let’s go, you know, talk to, you know, the unhoused. And let’s talk to populations that are not your, you know, mainstream consumers, for lack of a better word, and just learn from human beings who will have a completely, radically different take, which was, you know, fantastic, if you were able to do that kind of work with—and certain consultants were able to, of course, do that kind of work. So, as you’re speaking and you’re talking about the Ashoka Network, I’m thinking to myself, like, that’s a brilliant way to get ahead of the future is talking to people who are actually working kind of in the future—

Bridget: Yeah, yeah. 

Karen: —you know, to make that kind of a change. So, very tangible. I love that. So, imagining that type of work in partnership with them, like, what are the opportunities for that type of work for, you know, people who are maybe not in that space? Maybe it’s a big brand. You mentioned that you worked for this car brand exploring the future of sound, and I know that I have worked with—I worked with [Carri Group 00:27:32] one time, spoke at our IIEX Europe event on some scenario planning that they’ve done with their clients. I was involved in a future movement at IFF, International Fragrance and Flavors, where we explored the future of food and the future of sleep and some other, kind of, future-forward categories. But how does this kind of dial into maybe brands like your car manufacturer? Like, what do they do with this information, which seems really great to have, but can they execute upon it?

Bridget: Well, that’s exactly back to that sort of earlier conversation we were having about your exam question, and that the exam question really is, so what? What should I do? And that’s the insights job, that the conversion, and that’s the consultancy element. Effectively, I think of a good insight, whether it comes from a social entrepreneur, whether it comes from a semiotic code, ought to be a provocation that asks some questions, that has a sort of a direction and built within it, right? Because that sense of, if we’re going to know what to do next, we need to know why, and that’s what these insights all—that’s the sort of relationship that they generate. And the reason, and I guess what I would say fundamentally, is about confidence. Giving our clients confidence about the decisions that they’re making. It needs to be robust in whichever way robust expresses itself in your methodology, but it has to have a rationale and be founded in some really solid thinking and evidence. And the ‘what next,’ I mean with the Ashoka example, so you mentioned I could give you a specific example. We worked with the woman who founded the Kelsey—which is affordable, assisted living—accessible living, rather—in San Francisco, and is rolling out around the Bay Area, and they’re looking at different locations—to ask her about what her clients’ requirements are when it comes to co-living, when it comes to modular spaces, when it comes to accessibility, in every different and in a broad set of aspects, what do the people that her organization serves need? What we’re hearing about then is an already addressed set of unmet needs, which is quite often what our clients need to learn about. And when we think about unmet needs from that perspective, from the social entrepreneur perspective, we are looking at maybe a group of people who are currently underserved, but our hunch is that group may not grow, but those needs may become more, quote-unquote, “Mainstream,” and if a brand understands that in the kind of global trajectory, the poly-crisis that we live in today, then they are equipped to start responding to future unmet needs of larger groups.

Karen: Yeah, yeah. That’s a great example. It’s such interesting work. I mean, it’s such an interesting journey, I would think, for a brand to be on, to kind of step out of what seems so immediate and really think bigger and think broader and think longer-term instead of, you know, oh no, we need to address—we do need to address this particular unmet need that is very visible right now because that’s what everyone’s clamoring about, but to say, let’s take a step back and punch it out a little bit. So, I love the work. It sounds fascinating.

Bridget: It is. And you know, what’s interesting about it is that when you were doing scenario planning, and you were thinking 10, 20 years hence, and you’re looking at the current [pastel 00:32:07] data, it’s quite clear that there are big changes afoot, and when you’re trying to look across lots of different markets, it’s incredibly challenging to craft a scenario map that may accommodate all of them or all of those different markets or all of those different outcomes. But that’s the reason that speaking to social entrepreneurs is so useful because they’re not telling us necessarily what to do, but how to do it, and what to look for, and how to start addressing those unmet needs. And I think that’s transferable as an insight to our client. That goes back to that travel between academia, insight, transferable skills. That holistic collaboration is completely vital to the way that we do Truth Futures. We say the future is now. I mean, where else is it from an insight perspective? So, we blend that social entrepreneurs, pre-detection lens, semiotics, lots of different… capabilities, and try to think.

Karen: You know you mentioned, sort of, what’s transferable, and it has me curious about skills in general. So, skills… I’m talking about the kind of soft skills, right? I’m talking about the skills that are not like, yes, you’re, you know, proficient in all things AI at this point. That’s pretty tangible, right, but I’m talking about the skills that are underlying that or even maybe it’s qualities or maybe it’s just traits that you have that not only brought you to this field, but then, you know, also got you on the kind of you know, 2026 Future List Honoree list this year. What do you think those qualities that you exhibit are that have brought you to where you are right now? 

Bridget: I think, as a self-effacing Brit, it’s quite difficult to talk about this, but I will.

Karen: [laugh]. Very fair. As the American asking you, we talk about that sort of thing all the time.

Bridget: [laugh]. I will—I promise, I’ll do my very best [laugh]. I think I am curious about understanding. Frankly, I’m an enthusiast. I think one of my key defining features, and people that I’m close to would probably vouch for this, that I can really get quite enthusiastic about absolutely anything. And that’s why I love semiotics. The most exciting project I’ve ever done in my life was on milk. It is a fascinating category. It’s a fascinating cultural material and object. I still talk about that work. And then I think—so enthusiasm, curiosity, and I think what I’ve spoken about before is, I think resilience. I think, humbly, I say that I don’t generally give up. I’m really dyslexic, and I learned to try to—my mother tried to get me to learn the piano, and I played from when I was six and I played it for six years, well, five years, and didn’t make grade one. But I didn’t ever quit [laugh]. So, that was probably something that I should have quit. I learned to play cello in the end. But my point is that it’s not in my nature to be passive in my career, and I feel that when I get knocked, I learn, and I am coming to terms with enjoying that, to some degree.

Karen: Yeah, thank you so much for just sharing openly, also because I put those out there for the inspiration for others, right? So, our honorees are often looked to by people who are just starting off in their career in insights, and they’re trying to see, you know, kind of what they should, you know, rely on for their futures, right? And I know you’ve also done some mentoring, training others in the field, kind of emerging talents that you’ve either seen something in them or you’ve just wanted to kind of help them bridge non-traditional backgrounds. So, tell me a little bit more about that work that you’ve done.

Bridget: Mentoring and training is an extremely rewarding aspect of what I do. I often, as a semiotician at different places, it’s quite… a bit unusual for people to just start as a semiotician. Quite often they’re taking a step out of a qualitative role or something like that. So, I often, when I have the privilege of mentoring or training people, it’s when they’re already really good at something else, but they have a curiosity and an enthusiasm to see a connection and make a different case, and I find that incredibly inspiring and frequently really surprising. And I think honestly, what you’re kind of doing a lot of the time when you’re mentoring or training people is giving them some guidance and some signposts on how people expect to have this argument made. So, here’s how you could express that. That brilliant thing that you just said, that, like, absolutely the best thing I’ve heard all day, that needs to go into a vocabulary that communicates quickly and effectively and well. What I’m always trying to do is to help people navigate a space so that their ideas, which come from perhaps an quote-unquote, “Outside” perspective, which are powerful, new and game changing, and show up well and are unignorable, and I think that’s very important.

 Karen: I can’t help but wonder—and I know we’re pretty much at time here—I can’t help but wonder, though, if all that work as a poet and studying poetry has shaped your ability to communicate and choose your words for, you know, sharing out whatever that is, that brilliant nugget that just has to be kind of formed and shaped and then shared. You’re probably not going to convince me otherwise, that all of that training as a poet [laugh] in academia didn’t have something to do with your ability to do that. 

Bridget: Oh, I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if you could say that academia is where you’ll learn concision. I think expression is very important. Knowing your audience is really important, but also your own identity and comfort and sense of satisfaction with how you say things. And actually, it’s not the academic writing; it’s the poetry that probably demonstrates best that. And actually because it’s modernist poetry, it’s very stripped back, no verbiage, try and be as direct as possible, which is the opposite of how I speak, but it’s my constant ambition as a writer.

Karen: [laugh]. I love this. I love this. All right. Well, like I said, we are just about out of time, so I just want to ask you if there’s something that we had thought that we would talk about, that we’d put in the brief that I didn’t get to, that you’re like, “I really wish we had covered this before we wrap.”

Bridget: Yeah, actually. I think that one thing that I’m very—that I feel that—at this point, when I received the honorary title, it comes at the first point in my career where I’ve talked openly about the impact of dyslexia and neurodiversity on myself as an insight professional, and I think all I would say is that I hope that the industry is changing. I mean coming from academia… you can trust me when I say I know how cruel it can be if you struggle with conforming to the conventions of written communication or numeracy, or so on and so forth. But I think that the industry is changing. I hope that we can get out of our obstructive, oppressive ideas about what constitutes credible communication. And I think again—we mentioned AI at 15 minutes and now at 42 minutes—I’ll say finally that you can’t generate neurodivergence and it’s a real gift, I think, but it takes quite a long time to get through all of the pretty horrible stuff that people will assume about you. So, that was what I wanted to say to anybody who’s listening. I mean, I wouldn’t—I don’t want to imagine that I’m offering inspiration, but if I am… I hope it’s changing and having a different perspective and a different approach is increasingly valuable in this day and age, so good for you.

Karen: I think that having an open conversation and sharing your struggles will be affecting somebody. And I think that there are people that are not open about what they’re going through and then other people don’t know, you know, whether they’re struggling with dyslexia or some other kind of neurodivergent… something, for lack of a better—I don’t want to categorize people, but you know, whatever their need may be. It could be a learning need. It could be a presentation need or difference, whatever makes somebody them, I love that you’re giving permission to people to not only be who they are, but then also recognize the hardships that it causes for them. I know what there’s a woman in the industry, she’s actually hearing impaired, and she’s always talking about, you know, kind of accessibility for her, and you know, we take it for granted people who can hear, you know, normally or [helpfully 00:43:14], or whatever, you know, that would be that we take it for granted, and it’s always good to have a reminder. 

Bridget: Mm-hm. Yeah.

Karen: So, you are inspiring. Thank you, even if you don’t intend to be. So, where can people connect with you, Bridget, if they either want to just know you personally because you’re a gem, or get some words of wisdom for you because you are brilliant, or even just learn more about your company because it’s out of this world [laugh]? 

Bridget: Well, yeah, I mean all… all of the above? So, I mean, I’m on LinkedIn, Dr. Bridget Dalton with Truth Consulting. But if you find me on LinkedIn, say hi. I’ll say hi back. 

Karen: Yes, that’s great. That’s great. And you will be coming to one of our events—

Bridget: I certainly will.

Karen: —as an honoree. You’ll be presenting at IIEX Europe, I assume. That’s the one that I would have kind of assumed, since you are in London. 

Bridget: Yeah. Unless you want me to come to America. I quite like doing that. I’m looking out for—

Karen: Well, you can certainly come to America and come to one of our IIEX events. You and I can talk about that also. But yeah, I think you’ll be speaking in Europe, and I just look forward to meeting you at any of the events. So, thank you for your time and your attention today. I loved it.

Bridget: Yeah, same. Thank you so much. It’s been lots of fun.

Karen: I’m glad. I’m glad. And it goes by fast, as I said it would. Anyway, thank you so much again. Also to our editor, Big Bad Audio, thank you for doing what you do. You know what you do more than we do and we just appreciate you. And to all of our listeners, thank you for showing up, for tuning in, for listening, for watching, for all of the things you do to show up for us. That’s why we show up for you. So, have a great day, everybody. A great couple of weeks, and we’ll see you next time on the Greenbook Podcast.