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The Fax Club Experiment – a conversation with co-author Hannah Verrall
9 Plays1 day ago
The value of discussions in an anonymous environment
Hannah Verrall is a technology consultant and software designer, who was invited by David Hieatt a co-founder of the Do Lectures to participate in an experiment.
All Hannah would need to participate is a fax machine, a classic piece of communications technology, and the time to answer one question every week for a year.
Hannah along with ninety-nine other people accepted David’s invitation, to anonymously answer one question a week for a year and the Fax Club Experiment was launched.
Now a collection of the answers produced within the experiment have been published in a book.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds Hannah and host Michael Millward discuss the experience of answering questions in an anonymous environment. What Hannah learnt from the experience and how participating in the first Fax Club Experiment has inspired Hannah to expand the experiment.
This is the podcast for any business person who wants to explore new ways of facilitating a more open way of knowledge sharing.
Buy The Fax Club Experiment from Amazon.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Independent Minds
00:00:05
Speaker
Made on Zencastr. Because Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform that really does make every stage of the podcast production and distribution processes so easy.
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello and welcome to The Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abysseedah and people who think outside the box about how work works, with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
Meet Hannah Varel
00:00:35
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I'm your host, Michael Millward, Managing Director of Abbasida. In this episode of The Independent Minds, I am discussing the benefits of being anonymous from Hannah Varel, who is one of the co-authors of The Facts Club Experiment.
00:00:52
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One of the outcomes from The Facts Club Experiment has been the creation of a book called The Facts Club Experiment. When Hannah is not involved with communication equipment from the last century, She works as a technology consultant and software designer.
Reconnecting After 30 Years
00:01:09
Speaker
Hannah is based in South Wales, a place I know well because Hannah and I used to work in the same company back in the last century. Whenever I returned to South Wales, I always take advantage of the trade prices on travel that I have access to as a member of the Ultimate Travel Club.
00:01:28
Speaker
I've added a link with a built-in discount to the description so that you can become a member of the Ultimate Travel Club as well. and just like me, travel at trade prices. Now that I have paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:50
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And probably good enough to share with your friends, family and work colleagues as well. As with every episode of The Independent Minds, we will not be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think.
00:02:04
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Hello, Hannah. Hi, Michael. Nice to speak to you. It's been quite a long time, really, hasn't it, since we spoke? Because it must be 30 years.
00:02:15
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Not quite. Not quite. Not quite 30 years, but probably getting close. Very close. I think I joined Newbridge, the company that we worked at together, just over 29 years ago, but not quite 30. So,
00:02:34
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yeah Oh, the numbers matter. It's like being seven and a half. Yes, yes. it we We could have gone to school, but we went there instead. ye but Well, that's a little bit of your history, but what have you been doing since those days and what do you
Hannah's Work as a Business Architect
00:02:52
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do now? I spend my time, my my official title is business architect, which means that I help organisations, companies work more effectively within the organisation, but I tend to work
00:03:06
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on software projects. So I help companies design software that then some other clever people build. I tend work with things that are customer facing.
00:03:20
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Many of my clients, you will know the their household names here in the UK or perhaps government departments, things like that. But more recently, I've been working with startups, companies with funding, investor funding as well. So that's been really interesting, doing some quite sexy novel things.
00:03:42
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Brilliant. But you've also found time to get involved with the Facts Club experiment. Yes. What is the Facts Club experiment?
The Facts Club Experiment
00:03:53
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So I'm i'm now but based in southwest Wales, which is my home area.
00:03:59
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There is another person who is actually from the next county north of me who likes conducting some strange experiments, very creative person called David Hyatt. And he, in back in December 2023, sent out an email to everyone on his newsletter saying is this the dumbest idea ever and the idea was that a hundred of us would sign up to receiving a fax and yes I do mean ah fax whirring in the corners running out of ink all of that good stuff every week and we would have seven days to answer the question that he posed us and then at the end of the year
00:04:52
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selections of our answers would be pulled together into a book and and published. But one of the the critical things, and I think the thing that appealed to me most, was the idea that we were all anonymous.
00:05:06
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bit like Fight Club, we couldn't tell anyone that we were a member of the Facts Club. So you can't tell anyone about it. You can't tell anyone ah about the questions. You can't tell anyone what your answers are. Well, it must have been quite strange.
00:05:24
Speaker
It was. Sometimes i would read some of the other answers and see whether I could... figure out if I knew other people from the community. David runs courses and he holds hosts the Do Lectures as well on his farm about an hour north of me. So I know other people who are in that. It's a very creative and eclectic group of people who attend the Do Lectures and and go to his courses. And there are some people I know reasonably well So it was quite fun trying to figure out if I knew anyone else in that cohort.
00:06:05
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You explained how it works. Quite simple, really. You get a fax once a week and you have seven days to answer the question that is on the fax.
00:06:16
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That must mean that there's quite a lot of paper so like circulating around. and Do you know who's answer asked the question? is That is one of the things. Do you do you know who ah has asked the question? Yes. So the question was always posed by David.
00:06:33
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Maybe not what he would ask us, but he's got a philosophy around the do lectures of being very entrepreneurial, being interested in sustainability, being really interested in creativity and being the experiment was really founded on the principle of asking counterintuitive questions and also trying to answer as counterintuitively as possible. So for me, it was ah a fantastic creative challenge. I spend a lot of my time with people who are
00:07:09
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Very creative, but in a very deeply technical way. So it was a really lovely experience to be with people who perhaps were artists. There were all sorts of creative industries represented. There were students, philosophers. i can't imagine all of the the different backgrounds that people had, but it was a wonderful experience about being with people who are different to my normal set of colleagues. I'm going to ask what may be a silly question, but counterintuitive is one of those words be applied in so many different ways, I think. So what do you mean by counterintuitive in this context?
00:07:59
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Well, firstly, i would say that there is no such thing as a silly question. Though sometimes I introduce myself as being It's my job to ask the silly questions. So I'm i'm not sure which side of the fence I sit on on that on that one.
00:08:15
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But for me, within the context of this experiment, counterintuitive was an invitation to not just give my knee-jerk reaction answer, but to read the question on the Friday. So they came out at Friday, 5pm every week.
00:08:33
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was to read the question and to sit with it maybe jot some notes but really to to think about it and probably almost all of the answers that I submitted they were probably my second or third attempt at that answer because the first one is is always quite superficial and it's It's what you're supposed to answer.
00:09:03
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But that invitation to take a whole week to think about the question and to think about my answer often made me end up with a completely different answer to the one I would have written if I'd written it on Friday evening.
Impact of Anonymity in the Experiment
00:09:19
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That's one of those things that makes me think, because i there is this sort of perception that as a manager, as a professional, you're supposed to know the answer straight away.
00:09:30
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whereas It just comes off the top of your head, off the tip of your tongue, and it's the right answer because people expect you to do that. You're you're the manager, you're the professional. But taking the time and knowing that everyone else is potentially taking the time to think about a question and how they're going to answer it almost feels as if it must have been quite liberating.
00:09:58
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It was incredibly liberating. And to be honest, the fact that we were all anonymous, we were each given a number. So we we were able to communicate with our fellow authors, our fellow experimenters, but only by number. So you might talk to number 37 54 or whatever, but we only knew each other by numbers. And that anonymity...
00:10:26
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was also great freedom, much more of a freedom than then you might think it was at first. It was, yeah, when you look at the book, you can see that people have been incredibly honest and have said things from the heart, things that they probably wouldn't say in real life or maybe only to their closest friends.
00:10:56
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Yeah, and a freedom is is probably the the best way to describe that. Yeah, yeah. It sounds almost as if it's okay to ask the silly question.
00:11:07
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There is no such thing as a silly question. But making the answers anonymous allows people the freedom to not worry about what or how they're going the answer will be interpreted or or the expectation of what someone's answer will be is not something that people need to worry about.
00:11:33
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Yeah, in in real life we're we're conscious of being judged. More often I think and more frequently than we're prepared to admit. We are judged about everything by everyone in many ways.
00:11:50
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That is a limiting aspect of life, isn't it? It is. And after this experiment, I strongly believe that that removal of judgment, that freedom, allows us to do some of our best work, whether that's for work or work on ourselves. There's some amazing answers in the book that I don't think we would have got.
00:12:19
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if it had simply been an experiment in being asked questions and answering them in a more normal style. Both the anonymity and the facts, that that very clunky, very old-fashioned format of delivery, created a a slightly different world for us, separate from the real world.
00:12:43
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And that was that was another joy of it too. Yes, yeah I can see it slows the whole process down. And as well as removing the judgment, it also removes the... When we use the word judgment, we can be talking about something or the expectation is that we're judging someone and that is going to have a negative consequence.
00:13:09
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But the other side of the negative consequence is the positive consequence. So as well as not being able to say to somebody, evil well, that's a silly answer, you can't also say that's a brilliant answer. Well, because we at least had each other's numbers, we were able to be supportive in that sort of sense and have a dialogue around some of the the answers and and the content and and maybe even turn it into a conversation rather than just ah ah a single response. And were all of those conversations also done by fax?
00:13:47
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Sadly not. So the the submission method where we gave our answers was sadly in the the modern world with one of the the popular question and answer websites, though we did have a private part of that. So only members of the the club could actually participate. Okay. And there were hundred members of the club.
00:14:13
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There were originally. Originally, that was going to be my question. Well, it is my question. 100 people started the year. And so there are 52 Fridays in the year.
00:14:24
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How many people finished the year as active members? Well, it's a difficult question to answer. So we wrapped up the year many many of us meeting in London and turning up to a room and I was one of the first people to arrive and they you know you'd you'd get there and you'd sort of look sideways at someone and and whisper facts club question mark and they would answer facts club exclamation mark and we'd
00:14:59
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almost like a secret society. i'm I'm sad to say that we don't have a secret handshake. Maybe that's something that we need to sort out. But we we met for the first time. Not everyone could be there in person because it's actually a very geographically diverse group. We have co-authors in the States and across Europe. So I think about 35 of us-ish made it to London.
00:15:34
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But some people, although they made it to the end of the experiment, decided that that was the point at which to pause and didn't continue onward with the second part of the experiment, which we weren't expecting.
00:15:51
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And that was that David set us the challenge of producing the book. So doing all the selection, all the editing, all the typesetting and everything else to turn it into a physical book.
00:16:08
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Quite a challenge. Yes, that took us eight or nine months. So wow nearly as long as writing the book in the first place. Did you know that the the answers were going to go into a book at the start? Yeah, that was one of the the premises for the experiment was that we would that there would be a book at the end. But we were not I'm not sure that any of us were expecting that we would be quite so actively involved with that.
00:16:38
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Were you conscious when you were providing the answers that someone said this this could end up in a book? Absolutely. Yeah. So we were striving, each of us, to write books.
00:16:53
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the best answer because one of the things that had been proposed in the experiment was that we would vote on the best answers and only the best ones would go into the book so there was a slight competitive edge to it to to make sure that yours your answer was um both interesting in its content but also well written in its style and some of your answers are in the book Yes, I haven't counted how many, which is strange because I was one of the people that was keeping account of how many of everyone's answers were in there. But it's probably something that I shouldn't announce publicly anyway, because that might lead you to deduce which number I am.
00:17:41
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Because all 32 of the co-authors who helped produce the book are named in the book, but all of our answers are still only attributed to our number.
00:17:54
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And the the cross-reference of which number belongs to which person is still a secret. Ah, it's intriguing. really is intriguing. So is the book the end of it or what happens next?
00:18:10
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It's absolutely not the end of it because...
Future Plans for the Experiment
00:18:13
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and There was a second experiment that David ran and that finished earlier this year, I think in March.
00:18:22
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I should check my diary. I'm the only person I know of who has done both of them. So there will be a second book. We think maybe maybe we'll do something different. We haven't decided yet. But also the whole experiment really...
00:18:43
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sort of piqued my interest. David Hyatt, who who set the original questions, has ah a strong interest in entrepreneurialism and in founders. So a lot of the questions where they were related to work tended to be directed more to people in charge of companies, small companies, but still in charge And the experience really made me think about the people I work with. So I work within large organisations, creating change within a large organisation, having to get buy-in, having to be persuading other people in order to to create the change that we're aiming for. And I've got a real strong interest in conducting a similar experiment but for change makers and entrepreneurs, people who create that change within an organisation without the power to just make it so the way that founders do.
00:19:52
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So in terms of them, what do you think that will look like, your experiment? Well, it's going have two slightly different things about it compared to the original experiment. and One is...
00:20:09
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but it I probably won't use faxes. the The number of faxes available on Etsy has decreased quite a lot after the first two fax club experiments. So and that might be a little bit of a struggle.
00:20:25
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The second part of it is that I want that to be a springboard into doing another, a fourth run of the experiment, but aimed 16 to 24 year olds.
00:20:39
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because I think they're another group of people who would strongly benefit from provoking questions that help them think more widely and help them think more creatively.
00:20:55
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Of course, I'd be using my own questions, not David's. David's ah ah david's questions, but um some similar themes perhaps. Yes. If I'm right, then one of the things about this is the, it's being asked a question and then being able to contribute an answer without it being attributed to you. So it's anonymous, but sharing it with everyone else.
00:21:23
Speaker
And then, which is fine. And that sounds like a great experiment, but the thing that then happens where everyone else can see your answers and but doesn't know who who has provided your answer.
00:21:37
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And then it's the learning that comes from the sharing of all of the different perspectives that is going to add value to either a team, an organisation, and even to individuals as well.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah. um A lot of our current readership have said that the book lives on their desk. they flick When they are faced with a challenge or they're feeling a little bit stuck in their day, they flick open the book to a random question and read the different answers. And the the answers were selected to have different perspectives, to to be different from one another. So we've we've had a huge amount of feedback saying that it has created both a...
00:22:24
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a sense of community for for the reader but also help them see different perspectives and and perhaps move out of their stuckness yeah yeah and i think in the 21st century 2026 there's an increasingly well there are increasingly fewer opportunities to see the different perspectives we live in a group think type world don't we Often we do, and whether that's based on some particular perspective, you know, if you're ah a supporter of a particular team or even within an organisation, we tend to
00:23:04
Speaker
converge on similar ideas over time. So this the challenge and the provocation of thinking differently and putting yourself into different thought experiments has been a wonderful experience as being one of the co-authors. I've certainly changed it between the two cohorts that I've been. I've given different answers even to the same questions. But for anyone reading it, hopefully...
00:23:34
Speaker
it will also make them think a little bit more differently and more broadly. Yeah, yeah. I can see how that that would happen. And I think the key part of it is this anonymity, the fact that you've got answers which are,
00:23:54
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The value of the answers is based upon the content of the answer rather than who has provided the answer. We're not blinded by white coat syndrome, for example.
00:24:08
Speaker
It's, you don't know, know, I have these symptoms. What is it that I have? If you get an answer from someone who wears a white coat and carries a stethoscope, we aren't programmed to believe that person more than someone else who may have had exactly the same symptoms and is being diagnosed with something completely different from what the person in the white coat is saying. And think that is one of the things that my perspective comes out as different to, and the great strength of the Facts Club experiment is you remove the status of the answer.
00:24:48
Speaker
as you're reading it because you don't know where it's come from i think all of the answers are elevated into being experts and to be honest my co-authors are all brilliant at what they do they are experts as well and it's it's lovely to have that little window into someone else's life experience Yes. Talking of life experience now, you've set out some plans for what you would like to do with the Facts Club experiment. How can people get involved?
00:25:20
Speaker
message me directly on LinkedIn and or you can go to thefactsclubexperiment.co.uk to find out about the the original experiment. That's great. And there'll be links to all of those websites in the description. But for today, Hannah, it has been really very interesting.
00:25:40
Speaker
do thank you for your time. Thank you very much. It's been a joy. Thank you, dick Michael. Thank you. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Hannah Verrill, a technology consultant, software designer, and one of the co-authors of the Facts Club experiment.
00:26:02
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us by using the links in the description. Hannah used fax machines, technology from the 20th century, which we don't see very often anymore. So if you are using 21st century technology to listen to the independent minds, you might want to know that if you've been having less than ideal experience, that three,
00:26:26
Speaker
has the UK's fastest 5G network with unlimited data. So listening on 3 means you can wave goodbye to buffering. There is a link in the description that will take you to more information about business and personal telecom solutions from 3 and the special offers available when you quote my referral code.
00:26:46
Speaker
I'm sure you will have enjoyed listening to this episode. of the independent minds as much as Hannah and I have enjoyed making it. So please give it a like and download it so you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:26:57
Speaker
To make sure you don't miss out on future episodes, please subscribe. You'll probably also want to share the link with your family, friends and work colleagues as well. Remember, the aim of all the podcasts produced by Abbasida is not to tell you what to think, but we do hope to have made you think.
00:27:16
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.