About

At Ground Level Research we are experts at uncovering great stories within companies. When shared, such stories deliver rich reflections that show what a company stands for. The stories we tell are entertaining and instructive tales of employees and customers that often provide unexpected insight for our clients. Ultimately, these stories have the ability to teach companies about themselves.

A lot of what we do involves tracking down and talking to employees who we call “believers.” Believers are the people who best embody the loose set of tenets and ideas that make a company what it is. Believers span a range of types: A believer we met at Gap was a denim salesman who lived and breathed blue jeans. A believer who we came to know at Starbucks was an assistant manager who treated the store as her own. Believers have a lot to share.

Stories in hand, we produce documents, slide shows, and videos for client use both internally or externally. Sometimes we write case studies and document testimonials and customer stories for use by our clients. Sometimes the stories we produce can work really well as a form of new school advertising appropriate for external use. There are great stories happening in your company that you may not know about. Our expertise is in finding them. So what’s our story? Ground Level Research was founded by Alex Frankel. After a decade writing books and feature articles about creative business practices at leading and innovative companies, Alex turned his journalistic research methods towards assisting companies. Alex is a former business writer, author, and contributor to Wired and Fast Company magazines. Alex has published two books about corporate culture and language: Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words into Big Business and Punching In: One Man’s Undercover Adventures on the Front Lines of America’s Best-Known Companies. Alex has spoken to audiences worldwide, from Google in Mountain View to Unibanco in Sao Paulo.