The interesting bit is usually at the edges

I have realised that I’m rarely most interested in the obvious bit.

Give me a category and I want to know who isn't being served.

Give me research and I want to talk about the person whose answer didn't fit the pattern.

Give me a trend and I want to know what is happening in reaction to it.

Give me the accepted way something works and I immediately want to poke it.

This is probably why I’m drawn to things people don't quite know how to talk about. Menopause. Sex. Infertility. Ageing. Death. Failure. Ambition. Money. The weird emotional bits of business that we pretend are entirely rational.

The centre is normally well documented.

There are reports, benchmarks, competitors and best practice.

The edges are messier.

And that mess is often where something new is forming.

This doesn't mean being contrarian for the sake of it. The mainstream is mainstream for a reason. Sometimes everyone is doing something because it is, in fact, the sensible thing to do.

But I think there is value in regularly turning your head slightly away from where everybody else is looking.

Who is being ignored? What doesn't fit? What are people talking about privately but not publicly? What tiny behaviour makes absolutely no sense according to our existing understanding?

What happens if that isn't an anomaly?

I think that's where a lot of my curiosity lives.

At the edges, pulling at something.