Helge Tennø has created several visually arresting and thought provoking presentation decks and the latest is no exception.
We Need to Change is – in his words – a loosely structured collection of thoughts and references regarding the mediocre but promising state of market research
(RSS readers may need to click through)
I like the general thrust of the piece but don’t wholeheartedly agree with the conclusion. Ethnography is useful in situations where complex interactions can be synthesized and extrapolated to a wider population, but it is not a fix-all solution.
Saying that, I recognise the intrinsic flaws of rational surveying and am fully supportive of the moves to complement, or even supplant, survey data with observed behavioural information on a mass scale.
sk
Filed under: online resources, research | Tagged: ethnography, Helge Tennø, Market research, slideshare |
Curiously Persistent 
Hi Simon, thanks for commenting on the presentation :o)
I also wholeheartedly don’t agree with the conclusion :o), I can see it came a cross a bit to un-nuanced.
I believe Ethnography related research is a part of the better solution, but any situation requires it’s own set of tailored research (and hopefully a range of it in order to crosscheck findings).
I think exploring the possibilities that lies in “creatively” using data that is already accessible in existing digital interfaces between the customer and the brand is a very bountiful way to go. That was a point I was trying to make when referencing the different digital examples as well – we need to explore and identify the possibilities that lies in observing visitors actions.
Thanks again for the mention :o)
Yes, perhaps I was a bit harsh for picking up on a lack of nuance in a work in progress – particularly as I am in agreement with pretty much everything you say! Thank you for setting my brain off…
With so much digital data available, the amount of inferences and observations we can make our staggering. Once we can find a way of effectively processing it of course. Even if you took one moderately successful site and behaviourally tracked all users’ interactions with it across a period of time, you could quite easily get billions of pieces of data. I wouldn’t like to parse through that!