Qualitative Research

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    KumeuGirl.com

  • Does MR have some catching up to do?

    1 Nov 2009 | 1:37 am
    Browsing a couple of ad agency bloggers, and came across a couple of interesting pieces. This deck uploaded by Jason Oke demonstrates the issues with connections planning: Connections Planningness View more documents from Jason Oke. If agencies are moving towards a new understanding of what people do, and how they use media; and towards identifying people’s real problems. [...]

  • Bricolage

    31 Oct 2009 | 7:54 pm
    Popularised by Wendy Gordon, the analogy of the bricoleur (or a ‘do-it-yourself ‘ person) was initially created by Claude Levi Strauss when discussing the concept of mythic thought. A 2002 Admap article described the shift from where ‘we use contact with consumers to generate material from which to extract insightful and useful meaning’ to: ‘we use qualitative [...]

  • academic research

    30 Oct 2009 | 8:57 pm
    There is a breadth of academic thinkers: Chris Kelty, Clay Shirky, Tom Boellstorf, Mimi Ito, The Daniel Miller Assemblage, Danah Boyd’s dissertation on social media, Lisa Galarneau dissertation on gaming etc. Developing Cyberethnographic Research Methods for Understanding Digitally Mediated Identities by Natalia Rybas, Radhika Gajjala discusses academic ethnographic theory and implications for practice of [...]

  • recent winner of slideshare contest

    14 Oct 2009 | 8:37 am
    Healthcare Napkins All View more documents from Dan Roam. inspiring use of ppt and diagrams

  • finding beauty in larger companies

    27 Sep 2009 | 6:37 am
    It’s been a while since my last post, there’s nothing like an integration during a recession to remind one about change, and the true and very real challenges of business. It was an article about this very integration that prompted this post, an article that I myself could have written ten years ago when [...]
 
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    FreshMinds Research

  • Alistair Leathwood takes to the spotlight

    Alistair Leathwood
    3 Nov 2009 | 9:32 am
    I was recently interviewed by Research magazine for their online ‘Spotlight on…’ feature, the video of which you can now see on their site. If you’d prefer to read my (admittedly rather vague) recollections of my answers to the mixture of research and non-research questions put to me, then here you go. Although I’d advise you watch me in all my 3D animated colour glory… 1. Which buzzword could you do without? ‘Rocket science’, as in ‘its not…’ Grrr! So much of a cliché that even ranting about it is clichéd. I’m also one of those people that gets very upset at the…

  • “Down with this sort of thing” - the art of protesting

    Jake Griffiths
    3 Nov 2009 | 6:27 am
    One of my favourite Father Ted episodes sees the good Fathers protesting about a blasphemous film called ‘The Passion of St. Tibulus’. Although on watching the film neither understands it, they are ordered to protest anyway. They are famously captured holding placards that say ‘Down With This Sort of Thing’ and ‘Careful Now’, as a stream of well-to-do folk from Craggy Island ignore them and go to see the film for themselves. Thanks to Ted and Dougal’s excellent efforts at drawing attention to it, ‘The Passion of St. Tibulus’ becomes the most successful…

  • That about sums it up…

    Dave Bevan
    30 Oct 2009 | 8:34 am
    Some simple wisdom from Indexed, a lovely little site full of gems like this: Now, if we can just design a research project that could compare this hypothesis to some real-life cases… About the author Dave Bevan is an Interim Analyst working mainly in the Education Team at FreshMinds Research. He previously worked for the G77 (group of developing countries) at the Rome Chapter of the United Nations, and before that was a dessert chef, a tour guide on London’s open-top buses and an inconsistent stand-up comic. Dave’s interests include this, this and this.

  • Quality, customer care and Mr Burnham’s mistake

    Jake Griffiths
    30 Oct 2009 | 8:04 am
    It’s a year since we first started talking to NHS organisations about our ‘customer care in the NHS’ package of research. And I can now tell you that we’ve successfully delivered our very first piece of customer care work - to NHS Sefton. With customer care being a topic of discussion amongst the team for the best part of 12 months it’s been great to see the interest from multiple sources on our visits to NHS Trusts across the country. The philosophy of our customer care research package is to drive understanding of customers through better patient experience, increase good…

  • Staycation: here today, gone tomorrow?

    Jamie Halliday
    26 Oct 2009 | 11:34 am
    So, the clocks go back for another year, and Britain readies herself for five bleak months of hibernation. From now until Sunday 28 March 2010, we’ll all be leaving the office in the dark, grumbling about Seasonal Affective Disorder and wondering aloud why on earth we don’t just go and live somewhere warm. British Summer Time is officially over. And what a very British summer it was, right down to the silly controversy in the press over the Met Office’s use of the phrase “barbecue summer” to describe some typically changeable weather - as though British people don’t actually…
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    Zebra Bites

  • The ‘new’ world of market research

    Katie Harris
    2 Nov 2009 | 2:58 pm
    I’ve just come back from a fantastic trip to Chicago where I attended the ESOMAR Online Research 2009 conference. You can find Jeffrey Henning’s brilliant recap here (he pretty much live-blogged it – very impressive!). Anyway, not surprisingly, there was lots of talk of ‘new’. And it would have been easy to come away with the message that the market research industry really needs to get with the ‘new’ programme or, quite simply, it will wither away and die. Because the new world of research is here! New methodologies. New technologies. New ways of engaging with respondents…

  • ‘Traditional’ vs what? ‘Unestablished’ research?

    Katie Harris
    17 Oct 2009 | 2:18 am
    The term ‘traditional research’ is often used to describe offline methodologies; mostly, I’ve observed, in the context of selling what I assume must be ‘non-traditional’ (??) online methodologies. In this context, the word ‘traditional’ conjures imagery of antiquated, moth-eaten and fusty research practices. And clearly, many offline methodologies are anything but. Not to mention that many research solutions require a hybrid of both online and offline approaches. But if we have to throw labels around, it’d probably be more accurate to substitute the word…

  • More stuff I wonder…

    Katie Harris
    2 Oct 2009 | 12:38 am
    Great post over at Ray Poynter’s (always) inspiring blog. The way Ray described a short-term community, I think, delineates a clever, and potentially efficient, research methodology. But I’m yet to be convinced of the long-term research community concept (although I’ve no doubt some readers are probably pulling their hair out over my apparent inability/reluctance to see the light/‘get it’). : P I’m assuming that in a ‘community for market research’ (vs a ‘community for customer relations/brand building’) context, a client will actually have some questions they want to ask…

  • Black or white? Discuss.

    Katie Harris
    29 Sep 2009 | 3:47 am
    Coincidentally, after my last post, this came up in my Google Reader today; More on the Problems with Opt-in Internet Surveys Here’s the first article; Study Finds Trouble for Opt-in Internet Surveys I had the great privilege of attending an AMSRS Professional Development session earlier this year to hear Jon Krosnick speak. He was brilliant. And so it’s with great interest that I follow this very timely and fascinating debate (hosted on Gary Langer’s excellent blog). Make sure you follow the links to get the full story/debate. It’s an important one. P.S And here’s a link to the…

  • Buzz off, I’m eating my dinner.

    Katie Harris
    21 Sep 2009 | 6:16 am
    So! Continuing with the #stuffiwonder theme… The telephone vs online survey debate. The one that goes; “Really, given that everyone’s moving from landline to mobile/cell these days, telephone survey sample representivity is seriously compromised”. More often than not (and, of course, depending on who’s doing the debating), it ends with a nod to online panel surveys. In this context, “…they’re probably just as good as – if not better – than telephone surveys”. Right? Well, I don’t know. Panels are opt in. And yes, the same can (and should) be argued about telephone…
 
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    Design Research

  • Why are Japanese lunches so beautiful?

    Sam Ladner
    1 Nov 2009 | 1:19 pm
    I am a big fan of MUJI, the simple Japanese housewares company. So I was quite interested to read a post by their art director Kenya Hara on the New York Times’s “Room for Debate.”  Hara argues that Japanese people have …a special ability to focus fully on what’s right in front of our eyes. We tend to ignore what is not an integral part of our personal perspective. We ignore that our cities are a chaotic mess, filled with ugly architecture and nasty signage. Hara believes that Japanese simplicity is a function partly of this narrow focus. Beautiful designs are…

  • The essence of qualitative research: “verstehen”

    Sam Ladner
    15 Oct 2009 | 5:54 pm
    “But how many people did you talk to?” If you’ve ever done qualitative research, you’ve heard that question at least once. And the first time? You were flummoxed. In 3 short minutes, you can be assured that will never happen again. Folks, qualitative research does not worry about numbers of people; it worries about deep understanding. Weber called this “verstehen.” (Come to think of it, most German people call it that too. Coincidence?). Geertz called it “thick description.” It’s about knowing — really knowing — the phenomenon…

  • Detecting Social Media Bullshit: A Sociologist’s View

    Sam Ladner
    29 Sep 2009 | 7:00 am
    Social media “gurus” abound these days. Which ones are worth listening to and which ones are bullshitters? Philosopher Harry Frankfurt exposed bullshitters in his famous essay “On Bullshit.” The liar knows what the truth is and cares very much about concealing it. The bullshitter, on the other hand, doesn’t care what the truth is and has no compunction in stretching it. The same goes for social media “gurus.” Those that care what about rigourous examination of the social may be wrong, but at least they take great pains to analyze the phenomenon. Those…

  • Designers are from Venus, Six Sigmas are from Mars

    Sam Ladner
    25 Sep 2009 | 7:05 am
    DT has a great post over at Design Sojourn that discusses Six Sigma methodology and how it relates to design. He cites Tim Brown at IDEO who argues that Six Sigma is essentially Newtonian, while design thinking is quantum. In his own design work, DT expressed doubts about using Six Sigma: After studying the Six Sigma process, I point blank said: “There was no way any of my designers are going to be judged on the quality and success of a design based on how many sketches or iterations we did before we deliver it.” Both Brown and DT cite Sara Beckman, who recently discussed the topic in the…

  • When “woman” means “short”

    Sam Ladner
    21 Sep 2009 | 10:35 am
    Sociological Images has a great post about product design gone wrong due to stereotypes. Lisa writes that Moto Guzzi motorcycles have created a “lady seat” (I kid you not; that’s what they call it). Lisa points out, quite rightly, that the only characteristic that makes this a “lady seat” is its size: So really, it’s just a lowered seat for people who are shorter than the imagined person for whom the motorcycle is being built. This is a use of sex as a shorthand for referencing physical characteristics that (may or may not be) true on average, but are not…
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    Cheskin - Fresh Perspectives

  • Modeling Consumer Economic Mind- States: The Tension Between Hope and Predictability

    Miguel Gomez Winebrenner
    5 Nov 2009 | 3:14 pm
    As an economics major in college I was overwhelmed by predictors of economic success that were based on hard variables such as GDP, unemployment, velocity of money, among others. All of these variables are important in predicting the state of economic affairs, but at the time I was also intrigued by other “softer” variables. For example, I was curious about the role that patriotism played in the economic success or failure of a nation- my hypotheses was that a nation of highly patriotic individuals was more likely to outpace countries with a lower index of patriotism. The premise being…

  • Is the Trend Towards On-Demand TV Applicable to the Hispanic Market?

    Miguel Gomez Winebrenner
    14 Oct 2009 | 11:04 am
    On-demand technology like Apple TV is one more piece of evidence that consumers, thanks to the Internet and DVR capabilities, have and will continue to hold more and more power over what they watch, when they watch, and how much/little advertising they want to see. TV as we know it, including TV for Hispanics, is drastically changing. But there is debate as to how concurrent the new general media paradigm is to the Hispanic media evolution.

  • The Greenest Big Companies

    Kelli Peterson
    23 Sep 2009 | 5:12 pm
    This week Newsweek’s cover story promotes an exclusive ranking of “The Greenest Big Companies in America”. This is an important moment in time. In 2006, Vanity Fair was among a few high profile publications that devoted entire issues to the green movement and their distribution was reported to have been the lowest of the year. Fast forward three years and Newsweek’s list marks an important moment in time. Joining the other high profile annually released classifications such as the Top 100 Companies to Work For (Fortune), the Top 100 Global Brands (BusinessWeek) and The Largest 500…

  • iWise for Great Quotes

    Leigh Marriner
    26 Aug 2009 | 2:11 pm
    The iWise mission is to organize the wisdom of the world. It has quotes on every topic imaginable, and from many famous people, and a real-time wall of people adding quotes every minute. It’s a great site – fun to dip in and see what catches your eye. If you like to add signature lines to your Outlook messages, this is a great source. Since Cheskin Added Value is all about change, I browsed through the change quotes: Change before you have to. (Jack Welch) What I said never changed anyone. What they understood did. (Unknown) They say that time changes things, but actually you have to…

  • Design Measurment Metrics

    Darrel Rhea
    26 Aug 2009 | 11:53 am
    Wouldn't it be great if we could just tap into the body's physical responses to design by leveraging the best technology, software and science? We could remove all the messy, subjective and mysterious parts of understanding how people are influenced by aesthetics. It has long been a promise of science fiction that computers will be able to read our minds. It is also an implied promise from a range of physiological measurement techniques currently being applied to marketing problems. Let's look specifically at eye tracking and assess its utility in measuring packaging effectiveness. First, eye…
 
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    The Human Element

  • That’s why it’s called ‘research’

    Alison
    22 Oct 2009 | 6:18 am
    A wee rant.  I came across this conversation about online communities on Research Live.  There is a discussion of the pros and cons of research-based online communities, branded online communities, and right at the end a commenter who says that all this community talk is ridiculous and simply listening to internet buzz (via networks like) Facebook is the way forward. Listen, my children. Many many years ago, I was a wee trainee research manager for a company that did a very boring thing.  We made the fragrances that go into washing powders.    We did not think this was at all dull.  We…

  • Can market researchers have an opinion?

    Alison
    15 Oct 2009 | 8:04 am
    Robert Bain of Research Magazine has a blog post today about the way that business people pick on market research as a way of underlining their modern business credentials.  He quotes a piece by Marc Babej, a marketer writing in Forbes magazine who fixes the passing blog reader with a flinty stare and declares:  ‘You burned big bucks to collect scads of data. Too bad much of it is meaningless.’ Babej’s article is less a research hatchet job and more about ’smart’ research investment: after all, he has a proprietary technique up his sleeve. It got me thinking…

  • Evidence and belief

    Alison
    1 Oct 2009 | 5:12 am
    This morning, news came in from the inquest into the death of a 14-year old girl, Natalie Morton, who died shortly after receiving a vaccination against HPV (human papilloma virus).  In short: the poor girl had a malignant tumour in her chest which was undoubtedly the cause of death. This hasn’t stopped the anti-vaccination squads from speculating about the safety of the vaccine.  The Daily Mail, long-time opponent of most childhood vaccinations (except the ones against really horribly scary illnesses) has already been running a story depicting HPV vaccination as ‘a mass…

  • The curious case of the game show neuroscientists, or how NOT to research an online community

    Alison
    3 Sep 2009 | 4:15 pm
    I’m a fond member of the blogging/social networking site, Livejournal.   Over the last few days, I’ve seen the most incredible shitstorm unfold, over the cack-handed efforts of two rogue academics to research what they were pleased to call ‘the cognitive neuroscience of fanfiction’. Background First, a bit of background: Livejournal (one of the original social networks) is a vast and varied set of subcultures, and interconnected blogs, dominated by film, TV, book and gaming fans.    It is more counterculture than culture, really: it tends to be left-wing, creative and anarchic.

  • On hating Ryanair: We hate to serve and it shows

    Alison
    11 Aug 2009 | 6:38 am
    Back from holiday.  I’ve been sceptical of the whole value of the ‘brand conversation’ movement for a while now, and if my recent holiday taught me anything, it’s that brands are about the harsh (or sundappled) reality of the brand experience… So. Ryanair. Is there such a thing as a toxic brand?  Ryanair seems to embody the modern fuck-you brand:  it is supposed to deliver low prices etcetera etcetera, yet it does so in a way that frequently alienates and enrages the end customer.   I don’t suppose Ryanair does qualitative research (ya think?), but if…
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    Co-creating the future

  • Good service in London! You wouldn’t believe it!

    Arunima Kapoor
    5 Nov 2009 | 11:01 am
    The other day I was out for dinner at a posh (ish) London restaurant, Buddha Bar, and the most unexpected thing happened, it had great service! A friendly and attentive waitress, who pre-empted our needs and helped us make great choices from the menu. I am always quite shocked at receiving good service in London, so that when it happens I am unsure how to act. However, when it does happen (and because it is so rare) I tell everyone about it and recommend the restaurant, the staff and the food. This might be the ‘halo’ effect, but everyone loves talking about a great evening out and this…

  • A social revolution

    jkestner
    28 Oct 2009 | 6:35 am
    The tools that are (really only just) becoming available on the internet have the potential to place the interests of the many, probably for the first time in our history (since the early Medieval period, since…forever?) , on an equal footing with the special interests of the few. One of the things that has made it difficult for the many people without power to be heard by the few with power is that the advantage of the many (the fact that they are many) is often negated because it is so difficult to capture and channel the Moment in which a desire for change occurs (i.e. to harness that…

  • Brand Britain

    Suzanne Crouch
    23 Oct 2009 | 5:54 am
    There has been a lot of controversy this week surrounding the BBC’s decision to invite the BNP leader, Nick Griffin, on to the panel of Questiontime. Despite what we might think of Nick Griffin personally, the result made for a lively and interesting debate on modern Britain. I found the outcry about the BNP “hijacking” Churchill as a symbol of the BNP really interesting. Although I agree this is a worrying and gross misuse of the former war time Prime Minister’s name, I couldn’t help but think isn’t it worse that the BNP have “hijacked” the term “British” and made it…

  • Royal Mail Mess

    Ben Hayman
    22 Oct 2009 | 2:38 am
    I haven’t been pleased about receiving post since I was 12 - I got a birthday card with two one pound coins sellotaped to the inside from my Gran, and it was a happy day indeed. Now the familiar ‘CLACK!’ of my spring loaded letter-box signals either that I owe vast amounts of money to various utilities companies,  that Foxtons are trying to coerce me into selling my flat or that there is a new pizza takeaway in the area. Of course, we are all still dependent on The Royal Mail. We will all be directly or indirectly affected by this weeks’ postal strike. But for most people, our…

  • Customers now the #1 source of innovations worldwide

    Nick Coates
    19 Oct 2009 | 1:04 am
    A new report by Grant Thornton, including survey data produced by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), hit my inbox last week. Innovation: the key to future success? is a global study of open innovation practices that provides some early evidence of the inroads being made by customer-centric practices, including co-creation. A key finding is that “the role of customers, along with the attitude of companies to their customers, emerges as a defining characteristic in the survey. No longer simply passive recipients of goods and services, customers now help to shape the future of their…
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    UIE Brain Sparks

  • UIEtips: Gerry McGovern Says “Manage the Tasks”

    Jared Spool
    28 Oct 2009 | 9:36 am
    For years, we’ve known about the importance of completing tasks. Not the items on your to-do list — the users’ tasks. What we found in our research over the last 10 years is that practically every measure of users’ performance correlates strongly with the users completing their task. Users who achieve their objective believe the web site looks more professional, rate it as more fun, tell us it runs faster, and are more satisfied with the site. There’s no doubt: if you want users to love your site, make sure they complete their tasks. Yet, even though we know task…

  • SpoolCast: Innovation Beyond the Buzzword

    Jared Spool
    23 Oct 2009 | 1:31 pm
    Duration: 27.5m | 15MB Recorded: October, 2009 Brian Christiansen, UIE Podcast Producer [ Subscribe to our podcast via ←This link will launch the iTunes application.] [ Subscribe with other podcast applications.] [ Direct Link to MP3 File ] How many IBM or General Electric television ads do we need to see before we are groaning at the mention of the word “innovation”? It’s too late for me, personally. But that doesn’t mean real innovation is dead. Steve Jobs has been quoted saying Apple will innovate their way through tight times. This past week Apple announced…

  • UIEtips: Four Essential Skills for Information Architects – An Interview with Donna Spencer

    Jared Spool
    22 Oct 2009 | 7:59 am
    I recently facilitated several usability tests, watching user after user struggle with our client’s web site. Not one user could find the most valuable content on the site. Every user knew exactly what they wanted and all of the information they were looking for was available — they just had no idea how to find it. Once they made it to the page with their content, they still struggled. The navigation links and categories were so unclearly written that users weren’t at all sure where to click. They had to work very hard just to figure out what content was available to them on…

  • UIEtips: Moderating with Multiple Personalities: 3 Roles for Facilitating Usability Tests

    Jared Spool
    14 Oct 2009 | 9:06 am
    Sometimes, just adding a mental image to something difficult can make it dramatically easier. I discovered this while helping people learn to become better usability test moderators. Moderating a usability test is difficult. There’s a lot going on, and you have to keep it all moving. Years ago, when we were privileged to have Carolyn Snyder working for us, she came up with a simple metaphor for facilitating usability test sessions. We called it the “Flight attendant, Sportscaster, Scientist” metaphor and it really helped us simplify how to moderate the session. In…

  • Effectively Moderating Usability Tests, October 21

    Adam Churchill
    14 Oct 2009 | 6:37 am
    You’ve just been asked to moderate a usability test. Whether it’s your first or your 199th, do you know how to do it and capture the best results? Will you be able to start it without a lump in your throat, or without being distracted by the thought that your every move is being watched? We’re bringing an expert in to help you make the most of this important research study. In our next UIEVS on Wednesday, October 21, Beth Loring will teach you 6 Golden Rules to Effectively Moderate Usability Tests. Conducting a usability test can be stressful, but you know how important this…
 
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    Martin Lindstrom

  • Brand vision - Absolut Branded Language

    Disney, Kellogg's, and Gillette are three completely different brands with one commonality. Over the past decade, they've established a branded language, whether they know it or not. In my latest book, we found 74 percent of today's consumers associate the word "crunch" with Kellogg's. Another 59 percent consider the word "masculine" and Gillette as one and the same. Americans formed the strongest association of masculinity to Gillette, by an astounding 84 percent. Disney scored higher in purloined language than any other brand. This brand welcomes you to its kingdom of fantasy, dreams,…

  • Wireless strategy - Useful techniques - B2Branding

    Let's discuss a product category that's excruciatingly boring: rolling bearings and seals. I want to look at SKF, one of the world's largest manufacturers of rolling bearings and seals. I don't know about you, but I couldn't think of a less sexy and uninspiring product line. If you didn't know this business or the brand, you'd think (when you visited SKF's site) you'd arrived at the wrong URL. SKF not only tells you about the company's support of one of the world's largest rock shows and how SKF products help their clients make delicious biscuits, it also has a special postcard section. The…

  • Wireless strategy - Product placement - Useful techniques - Future generations - BRANDchild

    You may be surprised to learn that close to 80 per cent of all brands purchased by parents is controlled by their offspring. But what will undoubtedly startle you are the figures that show a whopping 67 per cent of all car purchases is also determined by the children of the home – and not by the parents. Tweens (8- 14 year olds) are an increasingly powerful and smart consumer group, which in 2002 alone, spent and influenced an astounding €1.88 trillion. Did you know that an average British kid between 8 and 13 years of age is exposed to 22,000 television commercials a year? In fact these…

  • Brand vision - Blogs

    You can’t avoid them – the blogs. They’re so plentiful that the opinions they offer are forming part of news reports. Given the evident potency of blogs, therefore, the question is should blogs remain within their current sphere of influence, helping individuals to share their personal opinions on with the world, or should they be adopted by brands as communication tools? The fact is that the marriage between blogs and brands is no longer a vision. Personality brands, like Seth Godin or Tom Peters, already blog the net. And brands like Weight watchers, LEGO, Apple or Harley Davidson…

  • Optimizing sales - Brand alliances - Brand Alliances Put to the Test

    I'll bet that, more than once in your career, you've pondered the risk of teaming up with some other brand in a co-branding deal. The deal probably looked good; the conditions were perfect; but the brand... would it damage your own? It would be an exaggeration to claim that a number of studies have examined co-branding. But, luckily enough, I've managed to get hold of one study that might help us shed light on the issue. The Journal of Consumer Marketing published the study I’m referring to in 2000. It reveals a lot of interesting data and highlights facts of which we are possibly…
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    PluggedIN

  • ESOMAR Online Research 2009 Takeaways

    2 Nov 2009 | 11:28 pm
    I'm finally back and caught up after ESOMAR Online Research 2009.  It was great to meet and hang out with fellow Twitter folks from the research industry, including @jhenning, @sawchuckMR, @duey23, @tomewing, @ZebraBites, @steveaugust, @katetribe, @shailibhatt (and many more...).   I won't go into a full recap of the conference presentations, since Jeffrey Henning of Vovici (@jhenning) did a great job of that on Vovici's blog, but I will highlight a few of the takeaways I had during the conference...Research insights through social media can be harnessed...somehow - The feeling…

  • PluggedIN at ESOMAR Online Research 2009

    21 Oct 2009 | 7:54 am
    In case you missed it in our monthly newsletter, PluggedIN will be at the ESOMAR Online Research 2009 Conference next week in Chicago.  Both Ben and Matt will be there to meet up with fellow online researchers.  We'll also be at the tweetup if you would like to catch up for a drink after the conference.  Hope to see you there!

  • Flickr and the growth of market research online communities

    19 Oct 2009 | 1:09 am
    I came across an interesting interview last week with Caterina Fake, co-founder of Flickr (click here to view the full article at Fast Company).  In the interview she talks about how Flickr got started, the environment that created their success and the role that viral loops played in Flickr's success.  There were a few takeaways that I thought would be interesting to share for those of us in the market research and online community space...Viral growth is one thing, great moderation is another - In the interview, Catarina talks about how in the early days of Flickr the founders…

  • Beyond surface level findings in market research online communities

    16 Oct 2009 | 7:26 am
    As many of the readers of this blog know, a major part of the moderator's role in research settings is to help people discuss experiences, feelings and memories in ways that go beyond surface level responses, given that people can have a hard time articulating these thoughts initially. Given this challenge, face-to-face moderators use a variety of techniques to go beyond surface level/rationalized responses and into the realm of emotions and drivers of decision making.   However, these techniques change a bit in the online research setting...  Here are a few of the techniques…

  • Creating a market research online community on "boring" topics

    9 Oct 2009 | 2:09 am
    In previous blog posts, we've talked about how it is important to have a shared purpose or background for members in a research community.  The stronger that shared purpose is, the more vibrant the community will (likely) be.  For example, a research community of iPhone users is likely to be a really vibrant group...  However, even if you don't sell a "sexy" product like the iPhone that people naturally talk about, you can still build a successful online research community...  You just have to be a little "creative" in the way you define your shared background.One…
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    The QuestionPro Blog

  • How to Define, Create and Measure Customer Experience

    Ivana Taylor
    5 Nov 2009 | 11:38 pm
    It’s very hip in marketing circles to talk about customer experience.  Nailing down the critical ingredients that comprise a customer experience, however,  can get tricky and make it difficult to craft a system that delivers a high-quality experience for your customer — every time. Experience is More Than a Story You may have noticed that whenever there are articles or case studies that reference customer experiences, they take the form of a story or a report on what happened and how it make the customer feel.  We aren’t often treated to the mechanics of how the company…

  • Double Opt In vs. Single Opt In: Which is Better for Building Your List?

    Ivana Taylor
    3 Nov 2009 | 11:32 pm
    One of the reasons we do surveys is to try and figure out what’s important to our customers – so we can do more of the good stuff, and less of the stuff that irritates them.  In this months guest post from Patti Renner, That Landing Page Lady, Patti shares some recent findings on how customers like to receive information.  There’s been a lot of discussion about whether it’s better to use a single opt-in (where the customer simply enters their e-mail) or double opt-in, where the customer enters their e-mail, wait for a confirming e-mail and then authorizes you to send…

  • Search Engine Marketing Secret #1: Build Your Site With Search Marketing in Mind

    Ivana Taylor
    1 Nov 2009 | 11:45 pm
    If you’ve already invested money in doing customer research on your web site, but you’re still not getting the results you want, you’ll want to tune into our on-going series with Leslie Caruthers, The Search Guru.  It may not be obvious at first, but your web site holds a wealth of data about your customers, who they are, what they like, where they’ve come from and so much more. In my last article, we talked about what a critical ingredient search engine marketing was to your overall web strategy.  In this part of our series, I’m going to give you some insider…

  • Reminder: Change to QuestionPro/IdeaScale Login

    Rob Hoehn
    31 Oct 2009 | 9:56 pm
    We have made a slight change to how users login to the system.  Starting November 1, 2009, you will need to use the email address on your account as your username.  Passwords will remain the same and this change will not affect any of the surveys or data currently existing in your account.  The only change you will need to make is to enter your email address in the username field when logging into the system. After this change takes effect, changing your email address will also change your username.  Please take a minute to confirm that the current email address on your account is one…

  • Delivering surveys – 140 characters at a time

    Rob Hoehn
    30 Oct 2009 | 4:15 pm
    Very long URLs used to not really matter to people – people would surf around on the web and barely pay attention. Now, as more people share links via Facebook and twitter – the URL matters! Specifically, when you need to share a link on Twitter, a shortened URL is imperative. With both IdeaScale and QuestionPro, we’ve been working to find ways to get those URLs shortened down as much as possible. With that, we’re happy to announce new and improved URL shortening built right into QuestionPro. Now your survey URLs will be even shorter than before! Your new short URLs…
 
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    Blumen Research

  • Software for business analytics & dashboards

    Eric B
    25 Oct 2009 | 5:02 am
    After testing the boundaries with my last post on integrating Twitter within time dependent market research reports I am going to try to take a look at a more traditional topic, Software for Business Analytics & Dashboards.“Business analytics (BA) refers to the skills, technologies, applications and practices for continuous iterative exploration and investigation of past business performance to gain insight and drive business planning.” WikipediaThe area of business analytics and dashboards for business intelligence is fairly new to me and I have been researching two tools to possibly…

  • Twitter market research case study: Paranormal Activity

    Eric B
    13 Oct 2009 | 6:47 am
    While I am not a full fledged ambassador of using Twitter sentiment and analysis as a market research tool I can see the benefit in analyzing the data combined with a time dependent market research study using questionnaires and panels. Over the weekend the indi film, Paranormal Activity purchased by Paramount Pictures, which shot for a reported $15,000 grossed $7.1 million. The market push first included screenings at 12:00 am slots to build up buzz and fans could vote on a dedicated website to bring the film to their city. Paranormal Activity averaged $44,163 a theater over the past…

  • Actionable surveys

    Eric B
    12 Oct 2009 | 2:13 am
    A great article by John Goodman and Patty David from TARP Worldwide Inc. on why customer satisfaction surveys are not actionable was recently written for Quirks.com. I want to focus on the methods they bring forward to create a more actionable survey and expand on those ideas.Ask direct questions about what went wrong: Pre-populate your questionnaire with a list of things that could have gone wrong. This is a strong point and according to the authors it helps in uncovering as many as three times more problems. I assume that it provides a base and starting point for clients or consumers to…

  • Derived importance in the Importance Satisfaction Model

    Eric B
    4 Oct 2009 | 8:36 am
    In the post covering the value of the importance satisfaction importance model I mentioned three areas that have to be taken into account before drawing results from the model. The notion that respondents will correctly identify importance levels for each product or service attribute will now be up for debate.From the last post:It is up for debate if customers can correctly identify importance levels for each attribute. When asked an importance level for several attributes what client would not want to indicate that each one is important. You have my business now focus on everything. While…

  • Two new partnerships within the data space

    Eric B
    24 Sep 2009 | 7:20 am
    Over the past week there were a couple of quite interesting partnerships between technology and research companies. The first was between Ominiture and comScore, while the second and more interesting partnership from the new age market research standpoint was between Facebook and Nielsen. Omniture and comScore are going to be working together on a new product that will include data gathered from comScore with analytics from Omniture. The two companies will be able to show the audience size and how users interact with the actual site. The partnership stems from the fact that there can often be…
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