PROTOCOL 05 – PUBLIC RESEARCH DIVISION
Preference Calibration
Learn what they actually like, without a questionnaire vibe
- Materials
- two subjects, honesty about small things
- Objective
- Recalibrate the instrument. You know what they liked when you met. Preferences drift; assumptions don't. The gap between the two is where disappointing gifts come from.
Procedure
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Rules of calibration: no judging any answer, no "since when," no immediately promising to act on anything. Data collection only.
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Run the sweep – both subjects answer everything:
- What's something you loved five years ago that you're now mostly done with, and haven't formally announced?
- What's your current actual comfort food – not the charming answer, the real one?
- What kind of attention do you want when you've had a terrible day: solutions, presence, distraction, or food? Rank all four.
- What's something people keep giving you or doing for you because of a preference you no longer hold?
- What tiny luxury would you never buy yourself but always want?
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Each subject repeats back the other's most surprising answer, to confirm receipt. Calibration without confirmation is just chatting.
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Store quietly. The correct use of this data is unannounced accuracy three weeks from now, not a same-day demonstration.
Expected results
At least two live preferences you were operating on stale data about. The final question's answer is, incidentally, exactly what the Lab's Gift Reconnaissance protocol is for.
Findings worth keeping? Some of what surfaces in a protocol – the story, the detail they'd be embarrassed you noticed – is exactly the raw material the synthesis division turns into a finished song about them. The Lab merely notes the pipeline exists.
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