Is it auto-qual, we-qual, mass-qual, or crowdsourced qual?

There is a growing trend for researchers to recruit customers/consumers/citizens to collaborate in the research process. One example is where smartphones are used to facilitate people capturing slices of their own lives, in pictures, videos, and comments. Another example was the Mass Observation project that utilised hundreds of people in the UK, between the 1930s and the 1960s, to capture their own story and the stories of the people around them. I think it would be useful to be able to refer generically to these forms of qualitative research, but there seems to already a wide range of terms, including: Mass anthropology Mass ethnography Auto-anthropology Auto-ethnography Auto-qual Crowdsourced qual We-research We-qual What are your thoughts? Would an umbrella term for these participative/collaborative qual approaches be useful? If so, what would your choice be?

Is Neuromarketing looking in the wrong place?

I was interviewed yesterday for an article that will appear in the new quarterly MRS magazine (now that the monthly magazine has gone entirely online). Although my bit of the article will be very small (if used at all) the interview did get me thinking about one key aspect of the interest in neuroscience. How much of our thinking, memories, and decisions happen within our own heads, and how much is determined elsewhere? I am struck by three strands of thinking that suggest that a large part of what we think of as being inside our own heads might not be, context, social copying and/or discursive psychology. Context The collected works of the behavioural economists are suggesting that a very large part of what we say, feel, do is context driven. This in turn suggests that what is inside our heads during a survey, brain scan, facial coding session might be entirely irrelevant to what happens when we are in the situation. Which is why there is a growing amount of interest in observational research and in techniques that speak to people ‘in the moment’, for example some mobile research. Social Copying For, at least, the last five years Mark […]

Some of my favourite blogs

I have just finished running several training sessions on quant research, social media, statistics and presenting and I received several requests for recommended further reading, so here are a few of my favourite blogs. The Survey Geek – Reg Baker. Reg utilises his extensive knowledge of market research to cast a sceptical eye over the latest trends and fads. Reg has a lovely, dry style, he is well informed and is frequently to be found shouting that the emperor has no clothes. The GreenBookBlog – multiple authors. Curated by Lenny Murphy, the GreenBookBlog attracts a wide range of posts from innovators, challengers, and pundits – usually focusing on the new in NewMR. BlackBeard Blog – Tom Ewing. Tom is another blogger with a dry style and a broad hinterland, Tom is enthusiastic about the new, but not blind to its traps and hyperbole. The LoveStats Blog – Annie Pettit. Annie is one of the global leaders in social media research and is in popular demand as a trainer and speaker. Annie is passionate about the new, but highly critical of the hype and the snake oil. Vision Critical Blog – multiple authors. Although the VC blog centres on research communities, […]

Research communities in APAC?

I am just about to submit my paper to ESOMAR on research communities in Asia Pacific, and I would love to bounce my key points off the NewMR crowd. Globally it looks as though about 50% of researchers interested in New market research are in an organisation which is either buying or selling research communities (e.g. MROCs, Community Panels etc). And this figure is the same in APAC as in Europe and North America? Globally about 6% market research agencies are offering research communities, and this is similar in APAC? In APAC, excluding Japan, Australia, New Zealand, communities have developed more slowly than in Europe and North America? In APAC, excluding Australia and New Zealand, the majority of community projects have been MROCs (i.e. qual and relatively small) rather than Community Panels (larger, quant + qual)? In APAC, excluding Australia and New Zealand, the majority of community projects have been short-term (weeks rather than years)? One of the key factors that limits large scale community projects in APAC is the absolute size of the research market (often $100million or less per year)? The relatively small size of research markets in much of Asia often requires projects to be multi-country, multi-ethnic, […]

Mobile Research in a Mobile World

I spent Wednesday last week chairing the first day of the MRMW conference in Kuala Lumpur, a well-attended event with participants and contributors from around the globe. The conference highlighted a number of key trends about mobile market research (MMR), including: Mobile is still, and perhaps increasingly, a hot topic for a wide cross-section of buyers, users, and providers of research. One key trend from the conference was that although smartphones are great for qual, and whilst some interesting work is happening on tablets, and despite the need to use feature phones at the moment, the future of most MMR (by volume and value) will be via smartphones and will relate to quantitative research. Several of the presentations highlighted that a key challenge, with MMR, is sourcing an appropriate sample. However, this problem is being reduced by the growing number of mobile panels that are springing up around the world, and the adoption of mobile-enabled research communities. Another challenge for MMR is the issue of how to fit a mode that focuses on short surveys (2, 3, 5, or perhaps 10 minutes) into a market where surveys have been getting longer and longer (30, 40, and even 60 minutes). The […]