What if someone else had to explain your views?

Most people believe they understand the people around them.

We assume we know what our friends think. We assume we know what our political opponents think. We assume we know what people from different backgrounds, communities, or experiences think.

Often, we’re wrong.

Say It For Me is a conversation project designed to test that assumption.

Participants are asked to answer questions on behalf of one another. Instead of explaining their own views, they must first attempt to explain the views of someone else.

Only after they’ve answered does the other participant reveal whether they got it right.

Sometimes the result is surprising. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s funny. But almost always it reveals something interesting about how we understand, or misunderstand, the people around us.

Why?

Modern conversations often focus on disagreement.

We are encouraged to defend our own positions, challenge other people’s views, and explain why we are right.

Far less attention is given to a simpler question:

Do we actually understand one another in the first place?

Before we can agree or disagree meaningfully, we should be able to accurately describe what the other person believes and why they believe it.

Say It For Me attempts to create that challenge.

What We Hope To Learn

The project is not about forcing agreement.

Participants are not expected to change their minds.

Instead, the goal is to encourage curiosity, understanding, and better conversations.

Can people accurately represent views they do not share?

Can they recognise common ground where they expected disagreement?

Can they discover misunderstandings they never realised existed?

These are the questions that interest us.

A Culture Factory Project

Say It For Me is the first public project developed by Culture Factory.

Like many of our future initiatives, it is built around a simple idea:

Shared experiences create opportunities for understanding.

We believe some of the most valuable conversations happen when people are willing to listen, learn, and engage with one another in good faith.

This project is our first attempt to create those conversations.

And hopefully, it won’t be the last.