Nine of the ten things people raise most often are not on the form.
We give people forty topics to pick from and a box to write in. When we read what they wrote, the ten themes raised most often were, with a single exception, themes the form had no option for. Migrant and relocation experience was raised by fifteen people. Burnout and recovery by thirteen. Perfectionism by ten, imposter syndrome by nine, caring responsibilities by eight. Not one of those five was on the list of forty. This is a finding about lists rather than about people. A form built from what an organisation already knows will keep handing back what the organisation already knows, and the thing a member most wants to talk about can sit outside it for years with nobody the wiser.
What the numbers look like
Five themes people wrote in that the form had no option for
Number of people who raised each theme in their own words
The numbers
| Theme | People |
|---|---|
| Migrant and relocation experience | 15 |
| Burnout and recovery | 13 |
| Perfectionism | 10 |
| Imposter syndrome | 9 |
| Caring responsibilities | 8 |
Method
The intake asks what you would like help with and what you could help someone else with. Beside each question sits a list of forty topics, drawn from what organisers had told us their audiences care about. Under the list is an open box, and people use it.
We read every open-text answer given between February and August 2026, around 660 of them across 17 rooms, and grouped them into themes by hand. Two of us coded independently and compared. Where we disagreed about which theme an answer belonged to we talked it through, and where we still disagreed we left the answer out. We then checked each theme against the list of forty to see whether the form had given anyone a way to say it.
The counts are of people rather than of mentions. Someone who wrote about burnout twice counts once. Someone who wrote about burnout and about caring responsibilities counts in both.
What we cannot conclude
Everything below is a real limit on the finding above. We would rather you knew it from us than found it yourself.
- We cannot say how common these themes are among professionals at large. Everyone here chose to attend an event and chose to write something in a box they could have left empty.
- We cannot say the form caused the silence. A person leaves a theme out of a form for many reasons, including not wanting to raise it anywhere.
- We cannot compare the size of a write-in theme with the size of a listed topic. A tick box and an open box are different instruments and they do not produce comparable counts.
- Grouping free text into themes is a judgement. Two of us made it and checked each other, which lowers the error without removing it.
- We cannot say what happens if these five themes are added to the list. Naming a thing on a form changes how people answer it.
Cite this study
Please quote the finding with its sample size attached. If you need something we have not published, ask and we will say whether we have it.
All Along (2026). Nine of the ten things people raise most often are not on the form. Retrieved from https://www.all-along.com/research/what-the-form-never-asks
Other studies
- Every room was short on growth and long on personal effectiveness. 18 August 2026 · Four rooms, February to August 2026
- Six or seven people in ten answer us. The median business-to-business survey gets 8.18%. 16 June 2026 · around 660 responses across 17 rooms, February to August 2026