Posts Tagged ‘Insights’

2 March 2010

Moving from Social Media to Social Business

by Guest Blogger: Peter Kim

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Thanks to Diane and company for giving me an opportunity to share thoughts with you via Verbatim. I’ve been following Communispace since 2006, when I covered social computing as a research analyst; now I see the value of what the company is doing through a lens of social business design.

Over the past decade, we’ve been witnessing the rise of social media. While we are fundamentally social beings, technology advances and cultural preferences have driven proliferation of these behaviors online. The series of tubes that carry data are wider and reach further than ever. Moore’s law still holds true, as does Metcalf’s—to which 400 million Facebook users across a variety of platforms can attest. We have become conditioned to share opinions on anything and everything in our new digital forums, salons, and echo chambers.

Thanks to Diane and company for giving me an opportunity to share thoughts with you via Verbatim. I’ve been following Communispace since 2006, when I covered social computing as a research analyst; now I see the value of what the company is doing through a lens of social business design.

Over the past decade, we’ve been witnessing the rise of social media. While we are fundamentally social beings, technology advances and cultural preferences have driven proliferation of these behaviors online. The series of tubes that carry data are wider and reach further than ever. Moore’s law still holds true, as does Metcalf’s—to which 400 million Facebook users across a variety of platforms can attest. We have become conditioned to share opinions on anything and everything in our new digital forums, salons, and echo chambers.

At the same time, many of us seem to have realized that pursuing work/life balance ends up as corporate Samsara. Instead, we’ve intertwined work and life to the extent that we do what we love and love what we do. (Or perhaps have gotten much better at fooling ourselves about it.) Along the way, we started bringing our toys to work and realized that our personal technology was better than the company’s.

Good businesses follow the action and most brands finally realize that these trends can be harnessed for commercial benefit. But using social media for business is easier said than done—so far, many brands have been tacking on social real estate to campaigns the same way they’ve been doing with digital microsites and banner ads. To make social media work, businesses must participate in this space differently than consumers; in other words, they’ve got to take a social business approach.

I think Communispace provides a great example in helping companies participate in social business. Using a framework developed by Dachis Group, here’s how I see the company creating social business value:

  • The Ecosystem. Providing connections with prospects and customers to help extend organizational functions beyond those on the payroll, e.g. marketing research.
  • The Hivemind. Allowing brands to become more culturally calibrated with their customers. Understanding motivations paves the way for social calibration.
  • The Dynamic Signal. Bringing out insight from previously unheard voices. The silos in existing listening processes prevent weak signals from being heard.
  • The Metafilter. Moderating discussion and drawing out signals from noise. Listening requires a balance of automated filtering and manual curation.

It’s time to shift from social media and get down to social business. Finding the right partners to help you get there matters.

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26 February 2010

Tiny Dancer

by Rocky Prozeller

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All posts by Rocky Prozeller

Secure your sequins and squeeze into those spandex, ice skating is in season. Through 14 days of Olympic Coverage there’s been naught but a single night where audiences weren’t subjected to ice skating in some form—the Opening Ceremony. Apparently by “coverage” of the Olympic Games, NBC meant a spotlight on skating in all its forms.

Despite a limited love for the sport, admittedly accredited to an inability to see past the pageantry nor distinguish between a salchow and axel jump , through this past weekend I had set a personal record in viewership—that is until Ice Dancing dominated Monday’s lineup and I was finally forced to put the games on ice.

Secure your sequins and squeeze into those spandex, ice skating is in season. Through 14 days of Olympic Coverage there’s been naught but a single night where audiences weren’t subjected to ice skating in some form—the Opening Ceremony. Apparently by “coverage” of the Olympic Games, NBC meant a spotlight on skating in all its forms.

Despite a limited love for the sport, admittedly accredited to an inability to see past the pageantry nor distinguish between a salchow and axel jump , through this past weekend I had set a personal record in viewership—that is until Ice Dancing dominated Monday’s lineup and I was finally forced to put the games on ice. 

My personal preference aside, the chorus of complaints from viewers has continued (and climbed) through the weeks. The USA-plus  plan for coverage, using downtime in skating to show snippets of other events (often on delay from earlier in the day) leaves something to be desired—like seeing other countries compete in any of the events. Those on the West Coast  are riddled with ridiculous three-hour lag times, despite having clocks tuned to the same time-zone as Vancouver and real-time access to results. Ignoring mass-interest in another episode on ice, US versus Canada in hockey, NBC excommunicated the event to cable’s MSNBC, a news network; 8.22 million fans followed (again, a near record in ratings), but we’re left to guess what the game would have drawn if offered en masse on basic cable.

Not long ago much was made of NBC’s creative use of ratings to endorse Leno’s return to the late night lineup, a policy they’re playfully pulling back out of their PR pocket . While its true viewership has vaulted past Turin—my attention isn’t for entertainment, it’s for endurance.

NBC is surviving on the success of America’s record run of medals and increased interest in more extreme events, while falsely assigning credit to their own “premier programming.” If the path to seeing Shaun White grab gold leads through tassels and toe loop jumps, then so be it—but my attention and affinity for the network is on thin ice.

–

Here’s to uncovering a universally understood maxim heavy hitters, the pleasure of a few work-free days!

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26 January 2010

What is Research without Closing the Feedback Loop?

by Richard Weiss

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All posts by Richard Weiss

In our business they say insights can come from even the smallest nugget. Well the light bulb flashed on for me last night while enjoying some prime time television. Among the menagerie of ads for cars, electronics, and food was an ad for Domino’s Pizza. I know what you’re thinking, pizza ad? Must be a glamour shot of drippy cheese, crunchy crust, and sizzling pepperoni (heck, I’m getting hungry just writing about it). Wrong.

In our business they say insights can come from even the smallest nugget. Well the light bulb flashed on for me last night while enjoying some prime time television. Among the menagerie of ads for cars, electronics, and food was an ad for Domino’s Pizza. I know what you’re thinking, pizza ad? Must be a glamour shot of drippy cheese, crunchy crust, and sizzling pepperoni (heck, I’m getting hungry just writing about it). Wrong.

Instead the president and managers of Dominos Pizza admitted their guilt, internalized their feedback, and fed (no pun intended) it back to the customer. No hiding behind the numbers here. Focus groups, Twitter, and more told Domino’s that their pizza was bad from its cardboard crust to its ketchupy sauce. Despite my fond college memories of late night Domino’s deliveries, they revamped their pizza lineup with fresher ingredients, better recipes, and a new sense of pride. But they didn’t stop there, they did the most important act of all and told the customer what they did with their feedback (you can see the video here).

This is what I deem the crowning achievement of their hard work. Rather than squirreling their research away and perhaps never acting on it, Domino’s aired it out for us and showed us how they acted upon it. Hopefully, the feedback inspired customers to feel empowered, to know their voice counts, and to continue advising Domino’s and others on what the customer wants. After all, who doesn’t want to hear that they affected change in the age of the consumer?

2 Responses to “What is Research without Closing the Feedback Loop?”

  1. Jani Fraga says:
    January 26, 2010 at 7:11 am

    This “turn-around” trend is becoming more and more important in the economy today. It is vital for a customer’s voice to be heard in a time where everyone is pinching pennies. If I am going to order a pizza, am I going to order one where I have deemed their sauce ketchuppy? Pizza in my house has gone from weekend staple to a special occassion, and so to hear that Domino’s has heard my plea for a delicious treat? (Put my order in with yours, Rich! I am getting hungry too!)

    Crocs and Windows 7 have also based a lot of their ad campaigns on the buzz around their products. Windows’ campaign of “I invented Winndows 7″ or Crocs “I like the Crocs sneakers, but I will never wear the red ones” show that companies ARE listening, and the result is something we can all bite into :)

  2. Rob Markey says:
    January 28, 2010 at 7:12 pm

    Great article, Richard. In December, Harvard Business Review published an article we authored on exactly this topic. You can find it here: http://hbr.org/2009/12/closing-the-customer-feedback-loop/ar/1.

    The Dominos approach to this situation is really refreshing.

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12 January 2010

Respect: Multiple definitions

by Karen Barone

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All posts by Karen Barone

Everything I know about respect I learned from the preface to Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”:

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men—go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families—re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem…

Everything I know about respect I learned from the preface to Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”:

This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men—go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families—re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem…

Yet, respect flourishes at Communispace and elsewhere when we strive to avoid privileging one voice over others. So rather than simply ruminating on my definition of respect, I turned to my community of friends and family and posed this question: What does respect mean in the workplace? Here’s a sample of the responses:

  • No clipping your nails at your desk; don’t wear perfume/cologne; say “please” and “thank you”; acknowledge co-workers by saying “hello” as you pass in the hallway; don’t gossip about your co-workers and/or clients; be kind.
  • I strongly agree about greetings in passing—especially with new people (even if you do not know them) to be sure they feel welcomed! Paying attention to people presenting in meetings, not being late for them. Considering others’ ideas, even if you do not immediately agree with them.
  • I think respect in the workplace also means expecting that people will do their job (and doing your own) but not holding people to artificial time requirements. For example, sometimes I work late because something needs to get done, but other days I leave early because it’s all done.
  • Recognizing and understanding expertise beyond one’s own, and allowing colleagues to do their job to the best of their abilities. Celebrating others’ skills and prowess, particularly those at a lower rung on the ladder, makes everyone better. A rising tide lifts all boats… or however that phrase goes.

In addition to respect, our other values include: Client Dedication, Excellence, Integrity, Adventure, Energy, and Ownership. This week will highlight some of our dedicated employees that exemplify some of these values. Be sure to check back later on this week for a special video post as well!

One Response to “Respect: Multiple definitions”

  1. Katie (Dennis) Adams says:
    January 12, 2010 at 12:29 pm

    I just need to express my astonishment at your ability to follow-up your post about the Jersey Shore with a Walt Whitman quote. Seamless. Brilliant.

    I would also like to add to some of the R-E-S-P-E-C-T definitions already offered: Strive to make more time for in-person correspondence with colleagues, rather than sticking solely to e-transmissions. I think sometimes we hide too much behind our computers, rather than engage in actual conversation. Something I am working on doing in 2010…

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8 January 2010

The “First” Decade

by Bill Alberti

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All posts by Bill Alberti

I thought I’d try a little experiment as I start the New Year. I wanted to look back at the past decade and see what really stood out—to better understand how the first decade of the 21st century would be remembered. So, here’s what I did. I copied text from Wikipedia entries for “events” during each year of the past decade and created a “word cloud.” The simple visualization tool gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a body of text. So in this case, the bigger the word, the more often it appeared in descriptions of the important events of the last decade. Have a look:

I thought I’d try a little experiment as I start the New Year. I wanted to look back at the past decade and see what really stood out—to better understand how the first decade of the 21st century would be remembered. So, here’s what I did. I copied text from Wikipedia entries for “events” during each year of the past decade and created a “word cloud.” The simple visualization tool gives greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in a body of text. So in this case, the bigger the word, the more often it appeared in descriptions of the important events of the last decade. Have a look:

decade

I don’t know what to make of this. It looks depressing. There is a lot of “killing,” “kills,” “killed,” and “crashes.” Also, “US/United States,” “Iraq,” and “President” are prominently featured as one might guess. As are “government,” “Minister,” and “International.” “People” is a frequently mentioned word too, but probably associated more with all of the afore mentioned “killing.” 

Unfortunately, this is how a lot of the past decade will be remembered—for the politics and the tragedies that dominated the headlines. The other day I heard the past decade called “the nothing decade,” suggesting nothing good came out of it. Sad.

Against the backdrop of so much negativity and nothingness, it’s hard to think of any progress made in the past ten years. However, as equally prominent as any of the other words in the “word cloud” is the word “first.”

  • Firsts in science (e.g., first privately funded spaceplane to achieve spaceflight; first face transplant; first draft of the human genome).
  • Firsts in statecraft (e.g., first female president of Finland; first directly elected president in Afghanistan; first African-American president in the US).
  • Firsts in human rights (e.g., first gay marriages).
  • Firsts in pop-culture (e.g., first episodes of Survivor, American Idol, and Dancing with the Stars).
  • Firsts in technology (e.g., first iPod, iTunes and iPhone).
  • Firsts in sports (e.g., first [and second] World Series wins for the Red Sox since 1918; first, second, and third Super Bowl wins for the Patriots; first National Championship win for Syracuse basketball; and first Championship win for the Celtics since 1986).
    NOTE: I might be a little biased in what I chose to represent in “sports.”

The developments of the next decade will in many ways be the further progress made against the firsts of the past decade.

And when we look beyond the Wikipedia entries, there are our own events that shaped the past decade for us—and many of them our own personal firsts. In the ‘00s, I got married; had a son; started a new job; and bought my first iPod and iPhone.

For me, the ‘00s were not a decade of nothingness. It was the beginning of something. I saw the world differently. I reimagined life and its possibilities—both for good and for bad. I was more connected—to the world around me and to the people in it.

I’ll bet that when we look back at the ‘00s with a little more time and experience under our belts, we will see the events of the past decade—both personal and universal—as starting points and firsts rather than as nothing.

What are your firsts from the first decade?

One Response to “The “First” Decade”

  1. joyce griggs says:
    January 8, 2010 at 8:49 am

    My firsts from the first decade
    Tweeting; Not leaving home without my Flip camera;Commeting on blogs while watching democratic primary results for Prez

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17 December 2009

The Sandwich Situation

by Julie Wittes Schlack

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Meet the Sandwich GenerationIn both developed and developing countries, birth rates are generally dropping, life expectancies are increasing, the average age at which women have their first child is also increasing, and the needs of the “sandwich generation”—those people concurrently caring for children and elderly parents—are of growing interest to marketers. So when we planned our corporate research agenda at the start of 2009, we thought some exploration as to how this squeezed demographic was thinking and coping could be useful, especially to our clients in financial services, health care, and insurance.

Meet the Sandwich GenerationIn both developed and developing countries, birth rates are generally dropping, life expectancies are increasing, the average age at which women have their first child is also increasing, and the needs of the “sandwich generation”—those people concurrently caring for children and elderly parents—are of growing interest to marketers. So when we planned our corporate research agenda at the start of 2009, we thought some exploration as to how this squeezed demographic was thinking and coping could be useful, especially to our clients in financial services, health care, and insurance.

The personal relevance of this research was also inescapable. As we were beginning, it just so happened that I—a married 55-year-old mother of two who uses hair dye almost as liberally as I use coffee—was moving my elderly mother up from Florida to live closer to us, and also helping out my New York City-dwelling daughter with the security deposit and last month’s rent on her new apartment. And Katrina, my 26-year-old colleague in this research, was spending her weekends completing climbs to the summits of New Hampshire’s White Mountains with her 73-year-old father. I was exploring the sandwich situation from the perspective of a boomer whose children were relying on me less for financial and emotional support as my recently widowed mother’s needs were increasing on both fronts. And Katrina, who was facilitating these community conversations with a compassion and wisdom that took my breath away, was exploring the same set of issues, but from the perspective of a “millennial” (a meaningless moniker, I’ve come to believe) looking to what lay ahead.

I was prepared to hear a lot of stories from our community members similar to my own— stories about financial pressures, guilt, stress, etc. What I was unprepared for was the intimacy of the disclosure about the rewards as well as the challenges of caring for elderly loved ones. Our members opened up their lives and hearts, not just to complain, but to reveal how they feel, who they care for, how they cope, what they need, and what messaging they respond to and recoil from.

Sandwich GenerationWe learned that the sandwich is not a sandwich. The “squeeze” is not exerted or experienced equally. People are not stressed because they’re caring for kids and parents; it’s because they’re caring for parents and in-laws, period. But we also learned that the “burden” carries intrinsic rewards, that caring for elderly relatives yields moral clarity, a sense of purpose, opportunities to teach and model values for their children, and moments of surprising joy. And we were overwhelmed by the unmet needs that surfaced, by the opportunity for brands across industries to provide products and services that help care for aging parents, now and in the future.

But there was also another, unanticipated outcome to this research effort. It not only caused our members to reflect on their own lives and values, but taught us as facilitators something about the power of empathetic collaboration. I brought age, experience, and immediacy to our analysis, but Kat contributed fresh vision, challenging questions, and a young but wise perspective. And as a result, the output of our work was greater than the sum of its parts.

Here at verbatim, we tend to blog a lot about how passionate and committed our community members are (true), how visionary and strategic our clients are (amen), and how powerful and transformative customer-driven insight and innovation can be (hallelujah!). But the humanity and diversity that our facilitation teams bring to our work is every bit as worthy of celebration.

3 Responses to “The Sandwich Situation”

  1. Colleen Finnerty says:
    December 17, 2009 at 3:32 pm

    What a fantastic post Julie! I completely agree.

  2. Ted Morris says:
    December 18, 2009 at 8:57 am

    Julie,
    Nice post – your point about the instrinsic rewards is precisely what we are experiencing. In fact, we are getting to know our elderly parents as they really are, their unvarnished personna if you like. This makes for a much closer bond as we all pass through our respective lifestages. Cheers.

  3. Julie Wittes Schlack says:
    December 21, 2009 at 5:01 am

    Thanks for your comments, Colleen and Ted. And Ted, your point about getting to know one’s parents in new, less mediated ways, really resonated with me. While grueling, these years are also a real gift.

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1 December 2009

A New Day for Market Research

by Debi Kleiman

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All posts by Debi Kleiman

It feels a little different now, something is in the air. Now, people can’t get enough of customer insights, it’s the connective tissue in the body of business growth. It used to be that market research was this staid, project thing—have a question? Do a study! That just doesn’t work in today’s marketplace where customer attitudes and behaviors quickly become outdated, as markets and needs move at the speed of light.

It feels a little different now, something is in the air. Now, people can’t get enough of customer insights, it’s the connective tissue in the body of business growth. It used to be that market research was this staid, project thing—have a question? Do a study! That just doesn’t work in today’s marketplace where customer attitudes and behaviors quickly become outdated, as markets and needs move at the speed of light.

Last week, I saw two things that made me really excited to be in the customer insights business. First, colleagues who attended the ARF Research Transformation initiative meeting in early November relayed some quotes from a speech made by ARF CRO Joel Rubinson, like this one:

“…marketers must become fast learning organizations. Researchers need to become agents of change to help the organizations they serve transform in this way. Such organizations realize that great ideas can come from anywhere and that there is shared control with consumers. To serve such organizations, the researcher’s role, must expand beyond measurement to also listening for the unexpected in order to inspire the organization.” (My emphasis was added.)

Inspiration!! Yes!! Inspiring takes things to a whole new level, and really, if businesses are serious about customer centricity, shouldn’t the customer be the muse? Isn’t this the way for insights to be strategic and game-changing—not just gathering dust in a binder on the shelf?

Then, to further add to this feeling there’s something big happening… BCG published a study stating that nearly 90% of blue-chip companies aren’t fully leveraging their market research functions because they are simply order takers instead of strategic partners generating breakthrough insights. In the best companies, researchers can answer the “so what” in a meaningful way and provide senior executives with perspective critical to their decision making. Wake up people! It’s time to seize the day!

Given the rapid growth of online market research, especially customer communities, (which according Forrester Research analyst Tamara Barber, is only going to continue to gather steam), there is a huge opportunity for customer insights professionals to get a seat at the C-table. They can have a connection to the voice of their customer (or non customer as the case may be) at all times. They have a listening channel to hear the unexpected—new, fresh, ever-changing perspective, to impact their business decisions both large and small. They can “bring it” every day.

I think we are at an inflection point in our industry; it’s time for transformation to take hold and bring about this new order for market research—customer insights are going to be the lifeblood for organizations that want to thrive in continuous change. (We recently did a webinar which talked about the change in thinking that’s needed for 21st century market research, and how insight communities can meet these needs; listen to the full session here.) Are you seeing this too? What do you think needs to happen to make researchers the “agents of change” in this new business order?

12 Responses to “A New Day for Market Research”

  1. Ken says:
    December 1, 2009 at 10:13 am

    Great post Debi. Terrific content and writing. A must read.

  2. Randy says:
    December 1, 2009 at 10:54 am

    Good insight! I’ve seen so many companies not leverage project results to their fullest. Plus mkt research groups within co’s are too dug into the weeds these days. There needs to be a layer of customer insight pro’s who are the trend spotters, and communicate to c-level. You can’t be digging through the weeds of SPSS, AND spotting the trends, AND pulling the slides together, AND working with c-level on “what’s actionable” on a daily basis.

  3. Twitted by drkleiman says:
    December 1, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    [...] This post was Twitted by drkleiman [...]

  4. Michael Troiano (@miketrap) says:
    December 2, 2009 at 5:11 am

    Amen. Market research is dead. Long live the fast learning marketer…

  5. Rachel Happe says:
    December 2, 2009 at 5:45 am

    Great post Debi -

    I couldn’t agree more and actually I see the secret sauce of all communities being very actionable, real-time, insights. The companies that use their communities to do this will have huge advantages if they can figure out how to quickly roll insights into corporate operations. Of course, all of that is predicated on being able to build robust communities… and that is not small feat and a barrier for many companies at the moment.

    Carry on with the great work you guys do :)

    Rachel

  6. David Meiselman (@dmeiselman) says:
    December 2, 2009 at 6:52 am

    Right on Debi!

    I think what you are driving at is also a corollary of the relationship development aspect of social media and leveraging communities for customer insight. Good insights SHOULD come from good relationships. As we move past the era of mass marketing and into the one of social connectedness at scale, the insights the marketer can get through customer relationships provide a real opportunity to listen to the customer at scale…

    To use one of those old SAT-like analogies, perhaps as Traditional Market Research was to Mass-Marketing, Customer Communities will be to Social Media Marketing…

  7. Cathy Harrison says:
    December 2, 2009 at 6:57 am

    Absolutely agree – these are exciting times. Too often still corporate researchers are excluded from key strategic meetings where they can get a full understanding of the issues. Cross-functional teams (always including a researcher) are the most effective way for companies to get a holistic perspective of the issues/opportunities and work towards a common goal. In the less progressive companies there is a disconnect between product development, brand management, marketing, sales, and customer service – driven by turf wars and inefficiencies. The researchers I know are intelligent and creative, fully capable of evolving with the times, but they need the support of the top executives. Sometimes a change in structure (and accountability) needs to come before a change in thinking occurs.

  8. Twitted by dmeiselman says:
    December 2, 2009 at 7:00 am

    [...] This post was Twitted by dmeiselman [...]

  9. Debi Kleiman says:
    December 2, 2009 at 12:08 pm

    Great comments! Thanks! I am so excited to see the energy around this topic.

    It is about speed and actionability that leads to increased relevance – the holy grail of insight right Rachel? We’re digging deep for it every day, lucky to have amazing curious clients. Thanks. :)

    I agree Cathy, a change in structure could help the mindset shift. I think c-suite says they want insights but then doesn’t make it a priority to go to the source or make it a continuous feed. I think there’s something in the way insight gets served up in organizations that can make all the difference too. It needs to paint a picture, tell a story – inspire!

    So true David, and it creates huge possibilities to learn even more than ever before. It’s a true shift and the market researchers that harness it and recognize the value in these new relationships, rather than getting hung up on the technicalities, I think, are going to be the leaders going forward. Love your analogy!!

    Randy, it’s interesting to think that maybe there needs to be a “translator” skill set for insight pro’s –or a strategy layer on top to help bridge the divide to executives day to day decision making and what they are learning with consumers. Another idea — how about if executives incentives were aligned with how well they truly “get” their consumers. Could there be a measure for this?

    What else? Tell me more of what’s on your mind here…

  10. Barbara Bix says:
    December 3, 2009 at 10:09 am

    Hi Debi,

    Couldn’t agree with you more–yet so few B2B businesses gather market insights as a regular part of their daily operations. Sure, Sales is out there with prospects and customers but they don’t have the time–and aren’t financially motivated to share to disseminate what they learn–with the rest of the organization.

    It was interesting to note that Pragmatic Marketing’s recent survey noted that product managers are working hard on product roadmaps and marketing requirements–yet are spending very little time with prospects, customers or marketing research. It makes one wonder how they get products and communications right.

    Perhaps they’re not. I just sat in on a Marketing Sherpa presentation that said that getting the message right is a key concern for B2B businesses–so I hope they do start taking advantage of social media venues to get easier access to customer insights.

    That said I think the trend is moving in the right direction. With growing interest in web analytics, marketing automation, etc., companies see the impact customer insights can make–and that dearly held assumptions about customer preferences are not always valid.

  11. PRESS RELEASE: GM Announces Leadership Changes – Automotive News | Management Business Wisdom says:
    December 4, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    [...] A New Day for Market Research « Verbatim [...]

  12. foibles says:
    December 9, 2009 at 9:21 am

    speed and actionability indeed. It’s important to be agile. Tools for tracking raw trends and sentiments ‘in the wild’ have a use but they are often crude because the data hose is so fat and noisy (think: Twitter). Polling and surveys still have a place at the table, albeit adjusted for new media platforms. zoomerang’s facebook app comes to mind as one tool for fast action.

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2 November 2009

When Less Is More

by Guest Blogger: Kathryn Korostoff from Research Rockstar

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When you need meaningful customer insights, would you rather talk to 20 customers, or survey 2,000?

Many people would rather survey the 2,000. There is something comforting about basing important decisions on big numbers. Heck, even I am comforted by large sample sizes. But sometimes that confidence is misplaced. For instance, think about what happens when you want to understand a very precise customer group.

When you need meaningful customer insights, would you rather talk to 20 customers, or survey 2,000?

Many people would rather survey the 2,000. There is something comforting about basing important decisions on big numbers. Heck, even I am comforted by large sample sizes. But sometimes that confidence is misplaced. For instance, think about what happens when you want to understand a very precise customer group.

Maybe you target IT managers who use a particular combination of systems management tools. Maybe you need to research beer drinkers who prefer local brews. How about high-income, single parents? If you need to collect customer insights from hard-to-find groups, surveys may simply be unrealistic.

Ideal Isn’t Always Real

In an ideal world, you would match your research objectives to the methodology. Need to discover emerging usage trends? Qualitative methods will be best. Need to measure interest in specific product features? Quant is the way to go. But standard rules don’t apply when the goal is to get deep, meaningful insights from a hard-to-find target audience.

And this why I have recently found myself advising not one, not two, but four different clients variations of this statement: “…for your needs, in-depth conversations with 20 or 30 clients will be more useful than doing a quantitative survey of 500 iffy ones.”

I hear the quant folks screaming as they read this. Can N=20 ever be truly “representative”? Of course not. But neither is surveying 500 people (or 2,000) that can’t be validated, give lots of neutral or “don’t know” responses, or otherwise give indications they may not be as qualified as needed. 

An Issue of Trust

You and your colleagues won’t use market research data you don’t trust.

It’s that simple.

Hearing the words and answers of 20 clearly-qualified people engenders trust. You can tell they know what they are talking about; they can’t hide behind lots of “neutral” or “don’t know” check boxes. Their word choices are authentic.

In contrast, looking at a set of charts based on a survey of 500 people can easily raise red flags…too many “don’t know” responses, too many “neutral” responses. Other signs may emerge that make you think that some respondents should not have passed the screening criteria.

That being said, many will ask: What can you learn from just 20 conversations? Or 50? Or 10?

A lot. Especially if you ask the right questions, provide the right environment, and practice active listening. You may be surprised.

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16 October 2009

Modern, really?

by Mike Jennings

4 Comments »
Category: Opinion, Research
All posts by Mike Jennings

This week I’d like to virtually confess something. For years I’ve kept this a secret, but here it goes…

I’m a postmodernist.

One of my pet peeves is the misuse of the word ‘modern,’ specifically in the forms of ‘modernize’ and ‘modern times’ because it tends to be used as a term for bringing something up to date. As a postmodernist, I find this to be absurd!

Here’s why…

This week I’d like to virtually confess something. For years I’ve kept this a secret, but here it goes…

I’m a postmodernist.

One of my pet peeves is the misuse of the word ‘modern,’ specifically in the forms of ‘modernize’ and ‘modern times’ because it tends to be used as a term for bringing something up to date. As a postmodernist, I find this to be absurd!

Here’s why…

  • Postmodernists pay close attention to major shifts in society.
  • For us, modern times began during the Industrial Revolution and have since ended.
  • We believe that the technological revolution has begun and things are changing exponentially.

Not to freak you out or anything, but postmodernism is all around you. You experience it in so many ways, yet may not realize it.

Here are some examples of postmodernism in…

  • TV—Sitcoms began in the 50s, the height of modern times, and dominated TV until recently. They’re safe, predictable and have a beginning, middle, and end. Now we also have shows like Lost, where you can’t tell the good from the bad, the past from the present, or the real from the unreal.
  • Music—Mapping the musical landscape used to be fairly easy. There was pop, rock, country, hip-hop/rap, and a few others. Now in rock alone there’s alternative rock, gothic rock, desert rock, glam rock, rap rock, doom metal, folk metal, symphonic metal, grunge, post-grunge, and emotional hardcore… to name a few.
  • Graphic design—Check out the postmodernists in the Helvetica documentary! (Click here for the trailer)

A common theme among these examples is fragmentation—plots, genres, and designs are broken up and presented in little pieces. Stephen Brown, marketing’s postmodern provocateur, explains how even our sense of self is now fragmented…

“…the postmodern consumer performs a host of roles—wife and mother, career woman, sports enthusiast…DIY enthusiast, culture vulture, hapless holidaymaker, websurfing Internet avatar and many more—each with its appropriate brand name array.” 

With all this fragmentation going on, no wonder marketers are having a hard time finding those holy grails of insight. At conferences and in webinars we hear of a changing landscape, shifting paradigms, and the need to redefine market research. If you’re a postmodernist in the crowd you love the confusion. For you it’s a sign of exciting things to come. You dream of a future of mixed methodologies, multiple perspectives, and a beautiful union of qual. and quant. You tell your colleagues not to worry, we’ll all figure it out, and everything will be alright.

4 Responses to “Modern, really?”

  1. Ted Morris says:
    October 18, 2009 at 8:10 am

    Mike,
    Interesting that you include and begin with broadcast television as an element of postmodernism. TV still brings in the largest, constent audiences – we are watching TV as much as we ever did. TV also provides programs like Lost as well as sitcoms like Seinfeld and dramas like CSI that have large franchises and provide a continous viewer experience; TV is largely serialized on the networks and takes on an ‘afterlife’ with syndication and dvd releases. Cant’ say that about digital media and the likes of YouTube at this point. Broadcast TV is “programmed/relational” whereas digitalcast is “viral/transactional”. Cheers, Ted.

  2. Mike Jennings says:
    October 19, 2009 at 5:59 am

    Thanks for the reply, Ted. It’ll be interesting to see what will happen with digital.

  3. SZR says:
    October 19, 2009 at 11:56 am

    This was featured on an NPR piece last Thursday. Is that what spawned the idea?

  4. Mike Jennings says:
    October 20, 2009 at 4:27 am

    I didn’t catch that! A few of my colleagues have mentioned it though. Maybe I can find it archived somewhere. I first became a postmodernist in college and since then it’s been a lens through which I view the world. For years I’ve looked for the right venue to express my postmodern beliefs. Blogs are so postmodern.

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15 October 2009

Looking Back

by Guest Blogger: Tom Brailsford from Hallmark

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November marks nine years since we launched our first online consumer community with Communispace, in an attempt to create an ongoing dialog with consumers. It seems like a good time to look back at where we have come from and what we have learned over the last nine years. First, through the lens of hindsight we can respond to the protests of nine years ago, the loudest of which was, “You can’t do research on the Internet!” Second, we were told, “Nobody will participate.” And finally, since we view our business as emotionally based, we were told, “You can’t capture emotion on the Internet.” It’s easy to look back and then consider where we are now and see the shortsightedness of those who doomed our experiment. Today, everybody does research on the Internet. Consumers expect to be able to participate and be heard, and will whether you invite them to or not.

November marks nine years since we launched our first online consumer community with Communispace, in an attempt to create an ongoing dialog with consumers. It seems like a good time to look back at where we have come from and what we have learned over the last nine years. First, through the lens of hindsight we can respond to the protests of nine years ago, the loudest of which was, “You can’t do research on the Internet!” Second, we were told, “Nobody will participate.” And finally, since we view our business as emotionally based, we were told, “You can’t capture emotion on the Internet.” It’s easy to look back and then consider where we are now and see the shortsightedness of those who doomed our experiment. Today, everybody does research on the Internet. Consumers expect to be able to participate and be heard, and will whether you invite them to or not.

If companies are not actively listening, shame on them. Finally, we’ve had no problems capturing the emotions of our community members (some have even been asked to leave because of inappropriate emotional responses). An unexpected learning over the years has been the degree to which the community has provided a platform for the members to bond with one another in a manner we never anticipated. The communities have become something akin to the backyard fence for sharing ALL aspects of their lives with each other freely while we listen. Another observation from our nine year journey is the unexpected melding of qualitative and quantitative approaches using the communities. While we have always been clear with our business partners that the communities provide us with inspiration and insights, and not quantitative rigor, over time those two domains have begun to blur.

When qualitative exploration can be easily combined with quantitative observations, both approaches become more meaningful. Finally, we did not foresee how much the needs of our business would accelerate, and we have become heroes with internal and external customers because of the incredibly short term time frames relative to traditional approaches. As we look at challenges today, we did not anticipate the legal morass we would be in, as a private company trying to experiment with co-creation and innovation in our communities. I expect we’ll look back nine years from now and see those objections overcome. Bottom line, today’s connectivity has done just what we envisioned the Internet doing nine years ago, and that is breaking down the barriers that have existed between corporations and the people they are trying to serve. Here’s to the developments of the next nine years.

3 Responses to “Looking Back”

  1. tip says:
    October 16, 2009 at 5:36 am

    Congratulation, it was very interesting surfing around here, It was a great pleasure for me to visit and enjoy you site. Keep it running!

  2. Nick Rudd says:
    October 17, 2009 at 6:37 am

    Tom,

    You’re saving me the trouble of asking Diane Hessan to pass on a comment on Hallmark products (I logged on to the site because I know the company’s service to Hallmark and I’m not a member of the Hallmark online community.)

    I was flabbergasted to learn last month that Hallmark has stopped packaging wrapping paper in flat square packages and is using only rolls. Speaking as a sample of one, I really dislike the rolls and much prefer the flat packaging.

    All this was doubly important to me as I was flying from East to West Coasts with presents, which cannot now be pre-wrapped due to TSA regulations, and had no time at the other end to get to store before presentation.

    At the least, consider some specialty sales to airport shops!

    Nick Rudd

  3. Tom Brailsford says:
    October 19, 2009 at 1:29 pm

    Nick,

    Thanks for your feedback. I checked with one of our managers in Gift Presentation and she informed that she has the same problem. She solves it by buying gift bags and tissue, both of which can be packed flat and used to present gifts upon arrival. Hope that helps.

    Tom

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