Yes, it’s been some time since I last shared anything, and with good reason — a lot of bad things of different shapes and sizes happened at the same time, coming at me from different angles, and it was an overwhelming experience.
So overwhelming, in fact, it’s taken almost 5 years to escape what happened, and I’m still struggling with some of the after effects.
But one thing kept me going, something that provided an essential escape, a place I could be distracted by ideas and problems of my own making, and that was the Under Cloud.
I won’t be expanding too much on what’s happened and instead focus on what’s happening…
I’ve had the chance to analysis the responses to 3 questionnaires I ran in 2022 via Prolific (as I said, bad things happened and slowed me down) and their data has confirmed much of the core hypothesis:
- Research is fragmented across many artefacts and media
- Saving is easy; retrieving and recombining is hard
- Organisational structures are inconsistent and unstable
- High cognitive load during research
- Notes and sources remain artificially separate
- Collaboration exists, but is crude and lossy
- Strong openness to better tooling (if it saves time)
- A concise cross-study synthesis is needed
If we abstract all three questionnaires into one sentence:
People research by collecting many fragments across the web, struggle to organise and reconnect them over time, and lack tools that preserve the relationships between ideas and sources as their understanding evolves.
I’m running 3 new questionnaires that build on the original to focus on the specific aspects of the responses and narrow the product-market fit. I’m also organising meetings with people in those markets, to build some first-hand information, and the conversations to date have been excellent.
Having sent a project plan to Sheffield Hallam Business School, I should know in the next couple of weeks how we’re to proceed with a comparative analysis.
Regarding the Under Cloud, I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t acknowledge the importance of AI and how transformative it’s been.
Based on the responses to the questionnaires I’ve built a (nascent) plan of action that’s a bit of a soft pivot, in the sense that it’s the direction I suspected should be followed but lacked the understanding to take that first step.
Most of what’s been discussed here began in the middle of October 2025, and I’ve seen a noticeable increase in momentum since the beginning of 2026.
I’ve risen to a point where I’m seeing beyond the horizon, and without realising it, I’m standing at the edge of a world of my own making, again.
