Learning from Steve Jobs

Understandably, technology news over the past week has been dominated by Steve Jobs’ resignation as Chief Executive from Apple. While he will stay on as Chairman, Tim Cook – former Chief Operating Officer – will take the helm. There have been many wonderful pieces on Jobs (though some do read like obituaries) – these from [...]

Observation and participation

One of the (many) criticisms of market research is that it is based on artificial, post-rationalised claimed responses. This line of thinking contends that there have been plenty of studies showing us to be unreliable witnesses to our own thoughts and actions – therefore surveys, focus groups and the like can’t be trusted. Obviously, the [...]

Legacy effects

Earlier this week Seth Godin blogged about legacy issues. He stated that “The faster your industry moves, the more likely others are willing to live without the legacy stuff and create a solution that’s going to eclipse what you’ve got, legacies and all.” That might be true, but legacy effects are just as prevalent on [...]

Ten things I learned from the New MR Virtual Festival

My previous post included all of the notes I took while listening into the New MR Virtual Festival. This post contains the key things I took away from the day, and have subsequently been mulling over in the 2 months (!) since. NB: All slides shown below are taken entirely without permission. If a creator [...]

The battle of big versus small

EDIT: An updated version of this article can be found here Précis Particularly in research, but also in other marketing disciplines, big agencies and small agencies will compete for tenders against one another. Normally, one agency is successful. I find this strange as the benefits of several agencies specialising appear, to me at least, to [...]

The gamification of surveys

How can gaming principles be used in research? This is a fascinating area that I know Tom Ewing has been spending some time thinking about. I haven’t, but a combination of some frustrations on a project and reading this excellent presentation, entitled “Pawned. Gamification and its discontents”, got me thinking specifically about how gaming principles [...]

Avoiding insights

I really don’t like using the word “insight”. As I wrote here, the word is hideously overused. Rather than being reserved for hidden or complex knowledge, it is used to describe any observation, analysis or piece of intelligence. And so I’ve avoided using it as much as possible. In an earlier tweet, I referred to [...]

My name is my name

So says Marlo Stanfield. And he has a point. Reputation means a lot. But reputation is about perception, and there are multiple perspectives in which it can be viewed. Broadly, reputation can be thought of in four inter-related spheres Yourself – your personal brand Your organisation (this itself can have several facets, if your organisation [...]

Criteria for agency selection

According to my CIM coursebook, the following criteria should be used to shortlist agencies Area of expertise Quality of existing clients Reputation of principals and experience of staff Agency fees and methods of charging/payment In-house resources Geographical cover While the selection of the agency should be based upon Credentials – track record and feedback Creative [...]

The mobile phone is the drill to extract the data

Last week I wrote a blog post entitled “If data is the new oil, we need a bigger drill“, where I complained that we weren’t making enough use of the potential data available to us. That post was in relation to online research. But on reflection, the opportunity is far greater elsewhere. On the mobile [...]