August 26, 2011 – by Rebecca
Here, in the conclusion of our three-part (see part 1, part 2,) interview with Caroline Baker from EMRA, we explore the traditional dynamic between women and men in France. In case you missed Part 1 and/or Part 2, Caroline is a highly regarded moderator and researcher originally from the U.K.
Do you find that as a moderator you need to make any adjustments depending on region or culture?
Not particularly. There are obviously differences in accents. In the south, let’s say Marseille, that accent is quite different from Paris. And of course the climate is different — Marseille is on the coast of the Mediterranean — so that might influence what people eat or what leisure activities people have. But generally, no.
One thing that has come out in recent news related to France is the whole Dominique Strauss-Kahn incident, which has been played up greatly here in the U.S. While I know the French of course have a reputation for romance, I was actually shocked to learn there was more of a penchant for sexual harassment in everyday business settings than I was aware of. Any perspectives on this?
It is interesting, because the whole “DSK” affair, as we say here — well, it’s been so fascinating to see the way people react. It’s true now that in France, it has finally provoked a discourse about the problem of a chauvinistic society and men’s behaviour. And what is now being said more openly by women is, “Yes, I’ve been in a situation in France, whereby men in the workplace behave in an offensive and a harassing manner” … and a lot of women suffer from it! At it’s worst extreme, it can be an offense akin to rape and at it’s least extreme, it can just be a sexist remark. But some men here just can’t seem to stop themselves from making a comment on the size of your backside or your breasts — they just can’t forget for more than five seconds at a time that you’re a female. And I think this is still very widespread in France. They like to say they’re “Mediterranean,” in other words, southern Europeans and “Latin lovers,” as if it’s acceptable to behave in that manner in the workplace. So yes, I do think the Frenchmen can be extremely sexist, but fortunately, they’re not all quite as bad as Strauss-Kahn. They can also be extremely courteous — which is not a characteristic I necessarily associate with English or American men!
You conduct quite a lot of all-male B2B focus groups in IT in particular. In fact, that was the case for the projects you and I have worked on together. Have you ever experienced a negative situation there — or are men in focus groups too intimidated because they know there are people behind the glass and they’re being video-taped?
[Laughter] No, I’ve never had that problem when I’ve been moderating.
But there is in France — certainly more than England (which is a more Puritan kind of society) — this idea that I’m a man and you are a woman, which is at it’s nicest a very tiny little undercurrent of flirtiness you have to acknowledge. You have to give it a little smile. I’ve often found that French men like to be charming — they like my accent (which unfortunately I still have, even after all this time in France!) and I’m often given little compliments on my French. They’re not trying to pick me up or seduce me. It’s just a kind of repartee or banter. It happens less in focus groups, because, as you say, they’re in a more formal situation.
But France is still quite a macho country and women get paid less than men for doing exactly the same job. And women can be hired or fired basically because they are attractive or not.
While it varies from country to country certainly, the status of women in business and in society seems to be a somewhat universal problem. We’ll have to fix that! This has been a lovely interview and I thank you for your insights and candor. Keep us posted on your new book.
I look forward to our next study together!
Me, too. Thanks, Caroline.
“Postcards from the Edge of Global Research” is a series of blog posts from Sylver Consulting about the challenges and rewards of orchestrating global and multi-cultural research. Next up in the series – “Interpreting the Arab World,” an interview with Dima Anbari of Tanweer MENA in the United Arab Emirates.
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August 19, 2011 – by Rebecca
This is the second part (see part 1, part 3 here) of my interview with qualitative researcher Caroline Baker of EMRA in France. In Part 1, we learned some interesting things about French focus group and interview participants. In this post, we’ll explore some language and logistical issues.
Can you tell us any stories about things getting lost in translation while you were moderating?
What very often happens is that we get messaging and other stimulus materials that have been badly translated — not because the translator is incompetent, but because he or she didn’t understand what was being said in English in the first place. Some IT companies in particular tend to use terms which only they understand and when the content is then translated into another language, it’s often even less comprehensible than when it was in English. That can be a problem!
That’s another thing which I think is a shame, but I can understand why it happens these days — research has become so international, but it’s conducted within such a tight time frame. Clients are literally flying in, watching a few groups, and flying out to the next country the next day. There’s very little time to actually analyze what was said in the groups or maybe to discuss things a little bit, because everybody is so tired. By the time you’ve gotten through two B2B groups — which you can’t start earlier than 6.30 p.m. because people stay in the office late here — it’s 11 o’clock at night and the U.S. clients probably flew in that morning and they’re just completely knackered and the moderator is pretty tired because she’s just gone through back-to-back groups. It’s a pity, because I think sometimes everyone’s taking what’s said at face value over the course of the evening and they don’t take a step back and analyze it in the way it should be. They take things that the respondents have said literally. But in a way, that’s not the way to do market research. The way to do market research is to interpret and analyse what respondents have said and maybe also take into consideration what respondents have not said.
In the old days when research was more of a new thing, it was fantastic having clients in the backroom, because it was often absolutely the first time they had ever sat in on a focus group and heard their customers or their users talking about their products — so they were really entranced and everything was very satisfactory for all concerned. These days, it’s gone the other way. I get the impression they feel they have to be there, looking through the glass, almost like they’re policing that the research is being done with the right respondents in the right way.
I wonder if this is, in fact, a result of being more multinational in research today. As you mentioned, global research teams are travelling the world from city to city to city with not much time to spare. In the established research destinations like France and especially with experienced recruiters, there has always been a certain amount of trust that you’re going to get the right people in the room the vast majority of the time. In some of the emerging markets, it can be dicier with last-minute changes to the recruit, which can leave you feeling a little less than confident. You can’t help but think that this might make clients and global research coordinators feel a bit more on edge in general. Any thoughts on that?
Yes — that’s a good point, you probably need to keep a close eye on who is being recruited in emerging markets — although once again, I’d repeat a point I made earlier on — do make sure you are in touch with that researcher in that market before you finalize your research proposal, so that you are not asking her to recruit “five-legged sheep” — as they say in France.
I don’t want to suggest that us local researchers don’t want the commissioning agency to be there — on the contrary, it’s important to have a thorough briefing on the background to the project and to moderate the group knowing someone is there on the other side of the mirror! But the people I’m sometimes worried about are the end clients — fitting international market research into their crowded schedules, spending their days on planes and their evenings in a viewing facility!
Aside from Paris, which cities in France do you visit most often for research?
Lyon is the second largest city in France and it’s a good way south. It’s quite a contrast to Paris. Having said that, it is still a fairly affluent city.
The problem with France is that it’s centralized in terms of economy and industry. So it’s quite difficult to do business-to-business research anywhere other than Paris and Lyon and Marseille, because the companies just aren’t located elsewhere. There are always going to be SMBs (small and medium businesses), but large companies tend to be concentrated around Paris and if you try to find them in the other regions, you’re not going to find the decision makers. Even if there’s an IT guy based in Lyon, he will probably just be carrying out decisions made in Paris.
For healthcare and consumer goods, there are obviously hospitals and consumers all over France, so I would say for that kind of research, it would be Paris, Lyon, Marseille and then Lille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Tours. Now, we are starting to get some reasonable facilities in all of these towns. Twenty years ago, you’d have to use a hotel and hire a camera man. There were no facilities. But now, there are good quality facilities with the equipment that you need in quite a few towns.
How far are people willing to travel to participate in a focus group or interview in France?
One difference I can think of compared to London, for example, is that all of the research facilities in Paris are centrally located in the city. In London, there are a lot of suburban viewing facilities and you can move out into the suburbs and you can pick your area depending on which socioeconomic classes you’re looking for. So depending on the group you want, you can probably find a local facility in the London area that fits.
In Paris, that doesn’t exist. And that can sometimes be a problem. If you want certain people who are not likely to live anywhere near central Paris and you’re asking them to take part in groups in the evenings, it can just be harder to recruit them and persuade them, because they’re having to travel quite a long way.
I know that in America, people are often happy to jump in a car and drive 100 kilometres to get to a group. But here in Paris, there is a lot of traffic congestion and public transport, good as it is, may not be the ideal way of travelling home late at night
This concludes Part 2 of our three-part interview with Caroline Baker. Join us for Part 3, posting Friday, August 26 or jump over to Part 1, if you happened to miss it.
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August 15, 2011 – by Adriano
Congratulations, you’re set to do a research study with a global organization with offices and employees all over the world. From the moment you begin communications with them, you begin to schedule meetings using direct invitations from your Outlook or Google Calendar, Tungle, or the latest in online scheduling tools. Everything runs smoothly and your interviews and meetings go off without a hitch.
Continuing on your successful roll, you agree to facilitate a study with another group. Like always, you get the study set up and start scheduling interviews and meetings with the study participants, but on Day 1 you call your first participant and he/she is not available. Hmmmm. Curious. You call your 2nd participant. Same thing. Not available. Now there’s concern. Next thing you receive is a frantic email from your first call wondering where you are??
Stop. How could this happen? You check your communications and you did call at the right time. How could things have gotten so messed up? Better yet, how are you going to fix it? Here are 3 things you need to make sure are in place when you are scheduling interviews with participants.
1. Be mindful of how your participants might generally interact when it comes to meetings.
In other words, do they generally meet with people locally or are they accustomed to speaking with people all over the world. If they are only used to talking to people in their immediate area, they may not even think to look at the time zone indicated in their communications. Make sure that time zones are clearly marked in any emails or letters to them. It’s also a good idea to show them their appointment in multiple zones (e.g. 4:00pm EST/1:00pm PST).
2. If you are using a scheduling program or software, be sure that it converts time zone based on the
participant.
You need to be able to input your schedule in your home base time zone, but it needs to be clear to the participants which one they are scheduling in.
3. Confirmations are critical.
Many systems are set up to do automatic confirmations by email. However, you may want to consider doing a phone confirmation. This human touch is generally better received than an impersonal email but also can confirm that the participant knows the exact time and time zone.
Have any other tips for avoiding scheduling disasters? We welcome your comments here!
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August 12, 2011 – by Rebecca
This interview is part of a series of blog posts (see part 2, part 3, here) on the challenges and rewards of orchestrating global and multi-cultural research. We’ve been talking with some of our favorite partners around the world to learn more about their unique markets and how they’ve become the great researchers we love to work with. We hope you enjoy these “Postcards from the Edge of Global Research” and welcome your comments.
Here, I’m talking with Caroline Baker, founder and managing director of European Market Research Associates (EMRA) in France. Born and raised in the U.K., Caroline is a top-notch qualitative researcher who moderates in both French and English. I have had the privilege of working with Caroline several times in Paris and wanted to explore some of the language and cultural issues she has observed over the past 28 years that she has been living and working in France.
So, Caroline, tell me about your research background and how you found yourself in France.
I started in market research in London, where I worked for an agency which grew quite considerably during the time I was with it. It was mainly a qual agency. I was in the B2B section.
But I’ve always had a close connection to France. I lived in the southeast corner of England, and France was just the other side of the Channel. I had a close friend in France who I came to see a lot, a pen friend from college. So I had a particular interest in France.
While I was working in London, I persuaded my boss to send me to commercial French classes and one of the sessions involved writing a CV and a letter to go with it. I sent mine off — and to my surprise and delight I was offered a job by a market research company in Paris.
I was with them for 13 years, then I started EMRA, which stands for European Market Research Associates. As the name suggests, we conduct pan-European research, although our primary focus is on France. I mainly work in B2B, but I brought in an associate who specializes in healthcare research, so we do that, as well as some consumer work.
To differentiate our services, I’ve always tried to put an accent on being cross-cultural. What I enjoy is trying to explain the French to the rest of the world and also sometimes explain the rest of the world to the French — whether that’s eating habits or general consumer behavior or attitudes about finance. There are quite a few areas where you see some big cultural differences and I think that’s what makes market research interesting.
There’s a certain amount of thought out there that we’re becoming more and more like each other in today’s world. But there are still quite important differences in the way people think, the way people behave, the way people spend their money, the way people react to advertising. My background is in sociology, so that’s what interests me.
I’m in the process of writing a book called “Observing the French.” It’s based on my observations since I came to France back in the early 1980s.
What advice do you have for researchers coming to Europe from America or other countries to conduct a study?
One of the things I would say to a researcher in the process of putting together a proposal for an international project that includes Europe is: ideally, try to talk with your local research companies before you finalize that proposal.
What I often find is that by the time we are contacted in order to provide costs — and perhaps there’s somebody else in Germany and somebody else in Italy and somebody else in the U.K. — all sorts of things have been signed and sealed before we’ve been brought in. Methodology for example: perhaps the American researcher has suggested focus groups to the end client, whereas we might think IDIs (in-depth interviews) would have been a better approach in France. They might have decided to do the study in Paris and Lyon, but we might think it would be more appropriate to do it in two other towns. So, sometimes I wish that primary researchers would come to us earlier in the day. They seem to think they can only come to us once they actually need a quote. But we’re always very happy to share market knowledge and provide advice much earlier in the process.
Another thing I’d add is that some American end-clients tend to have a kind of homogenous view of Europe. It’s as though they almost forget that, no, we’re not the United States of America. We’re actually separate countries with separate languages. Often the schedules are such that Tuesday is Paris, Wednesday is Munich, Thursday is London and then they’re off to Rome. You kind of feel like they’re whirling through and they don’t have much time to take it all in. And they’re having to listen to simultaneous translators, which tends to render things slightly bland because it’s just one voice.
Are there any particular language or cultural issues specific to France that researchers should keep in mind?
Well, the French don’t very much like talking about what they earn. This is to such an extent that if we have a screening questionnaire that asks annual household income — which is such an embarrassing question to ask — my recruiters will inevitably frame it differently either by giving respondents quite big categories so they can say which they fall into or even establishing what they must be earning based on the jobs they’re doing. There are ways to ascertain income without actually having to ask the question so directly. Because it’s sort of impolite. The French wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing.
Another thing you’re not likely to speak openly about in France is your home or your lifestyle. You wouldn’t hide it, but it’s not something you’re flashing around.
There’s a saying in France: “Vivons heureux, vivons cachés.” It means “Live happily, live hidden.” So it’s almost the opposite from the impression we sometimes have of the States, where people might like to show off what they’ve got.
On the other hand, French people are generally good at expressing themselves orally compared to people from some other countries. I think that’s partially because the French educational system includes oral exams. For example, in England, the only reason you’d do an oral exam is if you learned another language and you needed to show proficiency. Otherwise, there’s no occasion where you’d be expected to stand up and actually talk for five minutes.
But this is the case in France and I think that may be one reason why French people are sometimes less nervous about taking part in focus groups. I often think that they take less time to get warmed up, because talking in front of other people comes slightly more naturally to them.
Another thing about the French, at least from my perspective, is that they are very creative — well, let me qualify that — they are very creative in terms of ideas. When conducting product development research in France, we often come up with things which have not been mentioned anywhere else.
There is an interesting contradiction here: French focus group participants can be creative in terms of ideas, but creativity in terms of putting together collages, finding images or symbols, doing drawings, seems to really stymie them here! I think again it’s a reflection of the educational system, because basically France has a very Cartesian sort of education. There’s not much creativity. They don’t do art. They don’t do theatre. They don’t do anything that would allow them to express themselves in that way.
Be sure to join us for Part 2 and Part 3 of our interview with Caroline Baker, posting Friday, August 19 and Friday, August 26, respectively.
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June 7, 2011 – by Adriano
There are many interesting companies out there applying Future Thinking, but Apple might just be the best example of an organization that can think ahead cohesively and create systemic, repeatable plans for the future.
In 30+ years, Apple has recreated entire industries and transformed business models. But their global success only exploded with the iPod, back in 2001. Since then, they have made it big with music (15 billion songs sold*), ebooks (130 million downloads), mobile phones (108 million iphone models sold**) and portable devices (25 million iPads sold). And now their newest innovation, the iCloud network, will take some processing and traffic burdens from wireless carriers’ networks and therefore make iTunes even more powerful and useful for end users. The new service will let people listen to their song collections without having to transfer individual tracks manually to a music player. Apple announced iCloud yesterday at the Worldwide Developers Conference – WWDC.
Courtesy of engadget
The common theme found in all these products is Apple’s ability to monitor trends very closely and put a laser focus on anticipating needs and improving the user experience. Once their new offerings hit the market, the company always follows their adoption, how well they are performing, and then uses that information to improve and perfect the devices. For example, the iPad 2, with two useful cameras and lighter weight, is a much better device than their first touch screen tablet.
But Future Thinking is only part of the story. Apple not only keeps an eye in the future, but also applies Design Thinking and is extremely coherent as company. It concentrates all its resources and collective intelligence, and marshal all of them in the service of a well-aligned group of products and services with a focused strategic direction. This strategy allows Apple to be efficient in their activities and disciplined about new product releases, pricing structure, and, more importantly, differentiated in the eyes of consumers.
So, how can you infuse Future Thinking in your organization to improve your own products and services?
Most successful organizations have a “Future Thinking” approach in place, using foresight tools and methods to plan for and anticipate the Future. Learn more here how Sylver can help not only anticipate the future but proactively prepare for it by uncovering growth opportunities, creating scenarios for the future, and finding ways to incorporate scanning techniques into your business practices…all of which will help you to define organic growth opportunities for your organization.
References:
* http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wwdc-2011-apple-ios-5-integrates-twitter-sports-new-notification-menu/50005
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone
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June 3, 2011 – by Brianna
Our recent three part series on diary studies took a look at the mechanics and best practices of conducting a diary study. But, what do you do when levels of education and accessibility to technology don’t align with how you might conduct your average diary study? Do you abandon ship, assuming that this is the very best research method to use for the data that you seek? At Sylver, we say “not necessarily.” Instead, you get creative and start thinking outside of the box.
So, let’s explore what 3 considerations need to be made to achieve success when you’re conducting diary studies amongst undereducated and/or technology deprived populations.
1. Define exactly what the limitations are. Ask local specialists questions, such as “What level of language literacy will your participants likely have? What does their access to technology look like, both in terms of hardware and connection? And what’s their comfort level with technology?” Get their response to these questions, then account for less than your expectation…just to be on the safe side. Now you know what you’re dealing with and can start to determine how to best structure your research gathering process.
2. Determine the amount of interaction participants will need in order to trust you and perform. Can you get away with making a few phone calls to your participants and a nice FedEx delivery package? Amongst most populations in the USA, the answer is probably yes. In rural Brazil, for instance, the answer is likely “no.” There, you’re more apt to be successful with a local “fixer” – a trusted person within the community that you’re trying to gain access to. Hire this “fixer” to be an extension of your research team, training him/her on how to explain the objectives of the study to each participant individually, to be the person to collect the self-reported documentation once it’s complete and to potentially conduct an interview with participants leveraging the material that has been collected, if necessary.
3. Choose self-reporting methods based on your constraints. If literacy is an issue, get visual. Pictures are worth a 1000 words, right? And disposable cameras, surprisingly enough, can still be bought. If technology accessibility is the problem, well…you can always fall back to paper and pen. Point is, there is always a solution whether it’s found in disposable cameras, stickers, journals, etc. You just have to be willing to let your mind do some freewheeling to find the solution.
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If you like this post, check out these other posts related to Diary Studies
Diary Studies Part 1: Choosing the Medium of Your Diary Study
Diary Studies Part 2: Defining the Scope of Your Diary Study
Diary Studies Part 3: Best Practices for Managing Your Diary Study
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May 20, 2011 – by Adriano
Once a year the IIT-Institute of Design brings together top executives and academics to compare strategies and discuss the role of design in exploring emerging opportunities, solving complex problems and achieving long-lasting strategic advantage for global businesses. This event happened last week at The Institute of Design’s Strategy Conference 2011, which took place at the Spertus Institute, 610 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, on May 12 and 13.
The conference’s theme, “Where to play, how to win”, structured a well diversified set of presentations. It explored the opportunities existing in emergent economies, challenges of the “broken educational system”, how human-centered design approaches are creating competitive advantage in businesses, and steps being taken to preserve famous design pieces. Yet, the presentations were heavy towards two topics.
By far the heaviest topic of discussion was finding business opportunities at the Bottom of the Pyramid – BoP communities, led by Glenn Armstrong and Seth Starner (both from Amway); Ted London (University of Michigan); Jamshyd Godrej (Godrej Group); Jun Cai (Tsinghua University); and Navroze Godrej (IIT-Institute of Design). They all talked about the opportunities and challenges of emerging classes in the developing world. They were generous to share examples of how robust research, co-creation exercises, and product adaptation strategies have helped them to define value to these communities. Amway’s presentation about building a local business model for Ghana in Africa was not only inspirational, but also a great case about encouraging new thinking among top executives of that company. They could write a book about it.
The second main topic of discussion was education. Connie Yowell (MacArthur Foundation), addressed the need to innovate in public schools to help us all transition from a “stock of knowledge” mindset to a “flow of knowledge” mindset. It was an inspiring, and much needed, presentation that hopefully will wake up policy makers in the immediate future. On that same page, Neeru Khosla (CK-12 Foundation) envisions a new text book industry providing more updated content to our youth and fewer trips to the chiropractor. Dr. John Seely Brown (Deloitte Center for the Edge and co-author of A New Culture of Learning), who calls himself Chief of Confusion, made us think of how human contexts impacts our ability to improve ourselves and achieve success. He thinks we need to rethink how we actually learn, and how we might cultivate imagination. He introduced an incredible story about five or so kids that came together to fiercely compete in surfing but also to continuously learn from each other. These kids would post their own surfing videos over YouTube to observe themselves experimenting – trying crazy moves, failing left and right but never getting discouraged. As a group, they learned from each other and created mind-blowing aerial moves. Among them is Dusty Payne who became a world champion and leader in above-the-lip surfing.
Courtesy of John Seely Brown
Putting more emphasis on the human-centered design process, the Peapod Labs guys (Jared Allen, Guillermo Krovblit, and Junyoung Yang) showed that the “secret sauce” to success is to prototype, prototype, prototype! While doing projects together at the IIT-Institute of Design, they created a successful platform of educational apps for the iPhone and iPad. This is because the difference between prototypes and real products is fading away, specially in the digital world. You can put a beta up and get feedback almost instantly these days. Peapod Labs has leveraged the strengths of this new reality well.
Courtesy of Peapod Labs
Chris Meyer (Standing on the Sun/Monitor), Jim Hackett (Steelcase), Jeanne Liedtka (UVA Darden Busines School), Kun-Pyo Lee (LG Electronics), and Larry Keeley (IIT-Institute of Design/Monitor) shared their perspectives on the future of capitalism, design systems and how design helps them with creating strategic value and competitive advantage. It is worth noting Jeanne Liedtka’s point of view on the intersection of Design Thinking and Business. Based on her previous research and books (The Catalyst and Designing for Growth), she explained Design as a set of behaviors that can help managers migrate from a fixed mindset to a high growth mindset, and also as a problem solving approach (as shown in the diagram below). Far from giving the appropriate credit to each speaker, it was a set of thought provoking, theoretical discussions. Craighton Berman, from Core 77, captured the essence of each of their presentations with nice sketchnotes.
Courtesy of Jeanne Liedtka
And last but not least, Bill Moggridge (Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum) addressed an interesting topic for the Strategy Conference. He shared his latest experience in leading the efforts to preserve historic and contemporary design at the the only museum of that nature in the United States. It doesn’t sound like an easy job to attract lay people to the museum, especially in the middle of the Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, NY, but Bill is confident it will do well. His slides were visually rich and entertaining, with some elements of IDEO’s personality, the company where he worked for many years. Michael Simborg shares more notes about Bill’s presentation in his UX|SearsSpeaks’ blog.
As always, the conference was well orchestrated and organized by Patrick Whitney, the Dean of the IIT-Institute of Design, and his team. With many years of experience putting on conferences, they know how to make a conference run smoothly.
So, is this a conference worth going to? I had a great time and learned some new things at the Strategy Conference despite the fact that some speakers are becoming repetitive. To enable it to reach its full potential in the coming years, I hope its organizers will take an iterative approach to reaching out to other communities that are also solving complex problems in creative ways. For next year, Patrick promised more excitements and we can’t wait to see how the conference will evolve.
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May 13, 2011 – by Brianna
Lately we’ve gotten some questions about whether or not customer surveys are a good investment of time and money for start-up companies. Sylver’s quantitative guru, Ellen Frank-Miller and I put our heads together and want to share our thoughts on the matter.
To answer the basic question, it really depends on how “Startup” is defined. If you’re a start-up with a huge client list, a survey might make sense. This could be true for consumer product/gadget type companies. However, if your client list is smaller, we think you should gauge your client’s satisfaction using more personal means. The term, “startup” implies something very young and surveys seem a bit too formal and impersonal for that kind of relationship.
Reaching out to people on an individual basis is more intimate and personal. Choosing this more personal way to interact says that you care about your customer and how your product or service supports them. In a small way, this simple act of reaching out personally is a way to tell your customer “thank you” and “we want to continue to do right by you.” A survey, on the other hand, rarely makes this type of connection.
Entrepreneurs also sometimes ask if a survey can help them determine the right market to target. Research definitely can help entrepreneurs determine the right market to target. But, surveys are only one of many research methods available to help answer questions about target markets. The research method you choose to use should be driven by the question you are trying to answer. In other words, what are you trying to know about the market? For example, do you want to know how many people own pet ducks? A survey is appropriate. However, what if you want to know what kinds of things people want to buy for their pet ducks? In this case, a variety of methods can help answer this question and choosing the right method depends on the larger context of why the answer to this question is important to the business.
Another thing entrepreneurs want to know is if a survey can effectively help them to validate the market they want to enter. Certainly a well-designed survey can provide information on a potential market but once again, remember that the question itself drives the method. “Validating” as a goal must be clearly defined before a research method is chosen. You can use both quantitative and qualitative methods for validation depending on what the goals of your “validation step” are.
So, are surveys of present and potential customers even necessary in the beginning or should you wait until the company is better established? Here at Sylver, we believe that research is important throughout the entire lifecycle of a company. Research is about answering questions (What do I have to offer? Who would find that valuable? How much would they pay? Does what I have need improvement? Is someone else offering something better?) Surveys are just one tool in the research toolbox. When to use that tool depends on what you want to know, not where you are in the lifecycle of a company.
Even if you aren’t a start-up, we encourage you to give us a call and find out more about how Sylver can leverage multiple research tools to help you maximize your market impact. viagra
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May 6, 2011 – by Brianna
To conclude our series on Diary Studies (if you missed them, Parts 1 and 2 can be found here: Part 1 and Part 2, respectively), we want to turn our discussion to best practices to use when managing your diary study. Because you will be gathering data over a period of time, a diary study is not the type of research that goes on autopilot. Therefore, you will need to ensure that certain set-up and monitoring protocols are in place before you begin. Understanding your study scope and the medium you have chosen for the study will dictate the best practices you implement.
In cases where you want to understand behavior over time, we recommend providing participants with one main protocol question that they will answer on a daily basis (or more frequently if the desired results support that need). This type of clear, repetitive instruction allows for the most simple and direct participation from your respondents.
In process situations where you might ask your participants to take pictures of processes as they unfold, your protocol generally becomes more complex. In these instances, we recommend creating a shot list that will help people understand the range of imagery and contexts that you are looking for. Best way we’ve found to do this is to organize this list by people, places and things of interest and/or stages of a process. The shot list is not meant to be prescriptive. Rather, it’s meant to jog the brain of your participants and get their creative juices flowing.
In advance of the study, consider sending a physical letter to your participants (not just an email) to reinforce what they will need to capture in their diary entries. And if you are expecting your participants to document their behaviors out in the world, create a pocket card that they can take with them on the go. We’ve found that both the physical letter and the pocket card help to increase participation rates. From the participant’s perspective, receiving these materials makes the project more special in some way. And from a researcher’s perspective, ensuring that your participants have your instructions in front of themselves at all time, makes the quality of your data go up.
The biggest key to success with a diary study is how it is moderated. Just as any other form of research needs moderation, so do diary studies. Moderation of your diary study should be done on a daily basis. Before the study begins, it’s helpful to call every one of your participants to ask if they have questions about what’s expected of them. If it’s a diary study where you can view submissions on a daily basis, you need to do that. The first days are the most important, as you can generally course correct anyone not going to the depth you need. And then, finally, reaching out to participants on a frequent basis throughout a study is important. Those messages could be simple updates, like “2 more days to go” or simple notes of encouragement, such as a simple “Hey, you’re doing a great job!” or “Keep up the great work”. This simple interaction helps to develop your relationship with your participants and dramatically increases the quality of their responses over the period of the study.
Now you have a more in-depth look at diary studies so that you can start leveraging this powerful research tool in your own organization. Feel free to comment or provide feedback with your own insights and experience with this method.
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If you liked this post, check out others related to diary studies:
“The Camera Study Dilemma: Is digital really better?”
“Diary Studies Part 1-Choosing the Medium of Your Diary Study”
“Diary Studies Part 2: Defining the Scope of Your Diary Study”
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May 4, 2011 – by Brianna
A few weeks ago we wrote about QR codes and the possibilities they have to amp up networking efforts. Today’s Springwise gives insight into how a Madrid-based designer, Kavita Parmar, is using QR Codes to share the story of each piece she’s made. We think this is a great and innovative use of a QR code. It’s certainly gotten our wheels turning. Hopefully the same is true for you.
Here’s the blurb from Springwise on Parmer’s IOU Project:
We’ve been writing about product life stories for several years already, covering everything from bananas to furniture to fashion accessories. The latest spotting? A brand-new clothing line based on fabrics hand-woven in India that will give consumers a way to track each item all the way back to the weaver.
Eschewing mass-produced fabrics altogether, The IOU Project is now gearing up to launch a line of clothing assembled by craftsmen in Europe using unique, hand-woven Indian textiles. Each piece of clothing will be unique as a result, as one might expect. Perhaps even more important, though, is that The IOU Project plans to track each garment for every step of the way, making the resulting product life story accessible to the consumer via QR code. Consumers who buy the items will also be invited to upload pictures of themselves wearing them.
The brainchild of Madrid-based fashion designer Kavita Parmar, the line is due for launch in early May, according to its Twitter page. Parmar shared some details in a report on Pikaland: “The idea was to create easy classic pieces with a lot of beautifully made details. Of course, since each piece is unique it has its own QR code that takes you to the entire story of the product, the video/pictures of the artisan who made the fabric in India and the artisans who made the garment in Europe.” A video on YouTube explains the project’s premise in greater detail.
This will be a business to watch. We believe in the power of story telling…after all, this is a huge part of what we offer to organizations given our expertise in qualitative research. We wish her much success!
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Here, in the conclusion of our three-part (see part 1, part 2,) interview with Caroline Baker from EMRA, we explore the traditional dynamic between women and men in France. In case you missed Part 1 and/or Part 2, Caroline is a highly regarded moderator and researcher originally from the U.K.
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