Kyōkan Connection
Kyōkan [共感]: shared + emotion
Every behaviour has a reason. Finding it, and making sense of it, is my job.
Fifteen years of qualitative research across healthcare, digital products, and brand. My work gets at why people do what they do, and how to respond strategically.I do that work in the Japanese market directly.
Japan - the usual suspect
"Why is Japan always different?!"It's a question I hear often. Global teams know it's coming before the fieldwork starts: Japan comes back different, the difference is hard to explain, and what can't be explained gets set aside as a market quirk. The finding is filed in the appendix as a market observation.Without an implication, it never reaches the recommendation.I understand where the difference comes from, and I've spent fifteen years on the other side of the table, building strategy with global teams.I know which insights matter, and how to tell them.
WORK
Qualitative & Design Research
study design, facilitation, interviews, synthesis and analysis
Strategy & Delivery
personas, journey mapping, opportunity mapping, strategy, workshop facilitation
Japanese Market Leadership
end-to-end market arm, cultural decoding, global–local alignment
Selected case studies available on request.
about
I'm Mali Schaefer. I've spent fifteen years in qualitative research and design strategy: agency-side as Global Practice Lead at a behavioural science consultancy, client-side as Market Research Manager at Eli Lilly Canada, and independently since 2019.I was raised between Japan and Germany, trained in design research at OCAD University, and continue to collaborate on local Canadian projects with OCAD U Co, the university's strategic innovation studio, as an Associate of Human Insights.Growing up between languages and cultures, I noticed early that the same situation produces different behaviour depending on where you're standing. What's obvious in one market makes no sense in another. So I work from the world view outward: understand how someone navigates their world, and the behaviour stops looking irrational.That applies as much to a study run entirely in Toronto as to one across five markets.
English (native) · Japanese (native) · German (fluent comprehension, conversational)
Markets: Canada · United States · Japan · Germany · United Kingdom · Europe
get in touch
I work with agencies as a senior lead inside their project teams, and directly with organizations running multi-market research. Based in Toronto, working remotely with travel for fieldwork.
[email protected]