I am a total Pinterest addict. I was an early adopter – I am the type of person who had folders on my computer full of images I liked, recipes, and craft ideas. Pinterest was MADE for someone like me.

By far, my most popular Pinterest board is my board on food. It has over 250 recipes posted to it, and over 200 followers. Its been interesting to watch as certain pins have their ’15 minutes’ – Avocado, Cream Cheese, and Salsa Puff Pastries had a short brush with fame, as did a Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese. They caught like wildfire for a day or two and then died off, silent ever since.

But even more interesting are the pins that have staying power.  They get re-pinned again and again, maintaining steady popularity over time. Here are a few actual examples:

Most of my pins have less than 10 re-pins. Each of these has between 70 and 85, getting re-pinned again and again and again. Why is that? What is it about leek and cauliflower risotto and corn fritters and a weight watchers bruschetta chicken bake that make them viral wonders?

And that got me thinking – isn’t that what qualitative is all about? Figuring out the “why” behind the “what?”

• “Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen” – The big risk is to have too many people involved. This will inevitably cloud your objectives and force you to explore a wider range of topics than perhaps are appropriate for your community. The conversation is more likely to jump erratically from topic-to-topic as you serve the needs of a large group of stakeholders, leading to frustration among your community members and higher attrition rates.
• Too Few New Ideas – The flip side of having “too many cooks in the kitchen” is having too few people on your core team. In this case, you risk running out of ideas for relevant topics to explore. You also have fewer internal cheerleaders helping you to market key insights broadly across the organization. While communities will generate topics on their own that you didn’t think to explore (and your vendor should be helping here as well), having a decent size core team in place will ensure you always have a set of valuable business questions to address in your community.
• Narrow Attention Spans & Confirmation Bias – Anyone who has been part of a large scale traditional focus group study has probably witnessed the executive who walks into the backroom of a focus group, leaves after one or two groups (of many) and then feels they’ve seen enough to know the results for the entire study. The same thing can happen in a MROC. The risk is that a stakeholder randomly logs in to your community for 20 minutes and begins to draw conclusions based on a small subset of the feedback.

So who should you invite, and what’s the “right” number of people to include? In my experience, it’s useful to think of two levels to your core team:

1. The first level has direct access to the feedback by virtue of a client observer login to the community. If you have a dedicated insights or innovation function that is leading the charge, then one or two key members of this function should be the ones to have this type of access. These should be the team members who will have quality time each week to spend with the community, and who know not to draw early conclusions from select activities.
2. The second level of your “core team” won’t have this direct observer access to the community, but they will still stay involved in ongoing conversations around topics to explore, might be involved in your weekly meetings and will be among the first to see the findings. If necessary, guided tours of the community will help these individuals understand how things are progressing.

The “right” number will vary based on your organization. In my experience, having about 7-8 people on the core team in total, with 1 or 2 having direct access to the site itself, is a “manageable” team size. Similarly, the “who” will vary based on who is funding the community, your objectives and goals, and organizational structure. A cross-functional team with members from marketing, product development, customer service, etc. will ensure that you get the maximum value from your community as possible.

There are broader industry regulations that might go into this equation which are too complex to go into here (plus, I’m not a lawyer), but these are some general guidelines for setting up a core team and controlling access to your MROC.

What has worked for your company? Comments are welcome!

When you think about gamification you might think of second life, role playing games, 3D war games etc., but this phenomenon at its core is simply about changing the way we are asking questions. For example, the article points out that when a particular question wording was changed from “Describe yourself” to “Describe yourself in seven words,” the results yielded almost two times as many descriptive words and a 15% increase in response rate.

The article goes on to point out that gamification is beyond language and question wording and can include design, visual elements, and ultimately methodology choice. However, I think we can all benefit from the understanding that it can all start with rethinking the way we are asking questions. So, how would you summarize your take on gamification of research in seven words or less?

On the expense of data plans…

I absolutely agree with Reg on this point. With many research projects being global in scope (and communities following in this trend), the cost of accessing a mobile survey or MROC could be substantial depending on the data plan a participant has and how they are charged for that data. In a mobile MROC in particular, there is more multimedia content that is necessary to download, leading to higher data usage by participants. Of course, we can always bump honorariums to help users pay for the extra data, but it’s a point to consider nonetheless. I’m lucky to be grandfathered into an AT&T data plan that gives me unlimited data for a decent price, but many other smartphone users around the world aren’t nearly as lucky.

On the point of ‘less than expected’

I think this is the best point in Reg’s article. In many cases, clients expect a lot more than simple survey responses. This is especially true in online qualitative research, where clients are used to in-depth, thoughtful responses to moderator-led conversations. While some people can write small novels with their thumbs, others are much more of the one-word response variety. Early tests we’ve done indicate it’s much more of the latter than the former. For many, it’s too time consuming and difficult to write lengthy responses or create new content on a mobile device. Instead, many use smartphones for content consumption. In the realm of qualitative research, this is far less useful.

On ‘set to divert’

I can’t speak to the survey side of mobile research quite like Reg can, but when I look to mobile MROCs in particular I see similar questions and challenges. For example, just because participants like playing Angry Birds and checking in on their Facebook friends doesn’t necessarily mean that giving them mobile access to a mobile MROC means they will contribute more content or become more engaged. Of course, giving them more channels to participate isn’t necessarily a bad thing, we just have to be careful to understand the unique role of mobile and how it fits in with the overall research objectives. I’m seeing a lot of the “shiny new toy” syndrome as I look around and see how mobile is being used.

So what?

In re-reading this post I realize it sounds like I’m bashing mobile research. That’s not my intent at all… I’m the first to look for new cool technology to incorporate into research (in fact, that’s my role at PluggedIN). I should also mention that I’ve been wrong before when it comes to new data collection tools/techniques (see also: PluggedIN’s experiment with running research studies in Second Life). However, I get the feeling that mobile MR is the solution looking for a problem. Someone want to prove me wrong (please)?

-Matt

Since we were founded back in 2006, we’ve been working as hard (and fast) as we can to bring our vision for market research online communities (MROCs) to companies looking for better ways to develop customer insights. We’ve had our share of successes over the last five years, but wanted to “step on the gas” to really fulfill the vision for the company. As soon as we met the team at StrategyOne, we knew that it was the right fit to help us get to the next level.

Look for exciting things to come from us as we continue to grow and push the limits of what can be done with online communities for research and innovation…

- The PluggedIN Team

Back in the day, the same researcher that spoke with the client was the one who created, programmed, edited, and facilitated the survey or discussion guide for a client project. This was also the same person who prepared and presented the report to stakeholders. Today, these tasks are oftentimes subdivided between people who specialize in one of these areas e.g, survey programmers, quality control teams, field/sample teams. While this allows those of us consultants to theoretically spend more time understanding clients and interpreting reports into meaningful insights, it also stifles the growth of those programmers and field staff who never fully get to experience the client interaction and insight development process.

Perhaps I am old school, but I learned the most through challenging and uncomfortable experiences. I was forced to learn because I could not lean on specialization. My discomfort made me a better researcher and consultant for my clients. I still remember sweating over my first discussion guide for IT execs… the acronyms, the process diagrams. Today it is so much clearer because I was forced to sweat and learn about IT. Plus, the tools of our craft (e.g. surveys, bulletin boards) are so much easier to use now that specialization is not always necessary. It can actually be less efficient to go through multiple layers to field a study. Furthermore, we now have continuous methods, so studies are always live. The traditional “field” process and timeline has been disrupted entirely. Perhaps technology has been our ultimate Hyperspecialization.

In the future, I think the most effective research consultants will be part of moderately sized nimble teams that focus on client needs. Generally curious people that use a sophisticated (and easy to use) set of tools to drive insights. Tasks will still be slightly divided based on general methodologies, but lines will be blurred as technology makes things easier and we start to focus more on encouraging the growth of researchers/consultants and delivering real value for our clients.

I’m an active follower of what is happening in the social media/web startup space, and it seems as if the latest trend is to limit the number of connections a person can have to encourage stronger connection and engagement between people. For example, Path is an up-and-coming social network that limits the number of friends someone can have to no more than 50. The idea is that as the size of the group grows, people become less comfortable openly sharing with others. Path is just the beginning of this trend though… This article on Yahoo (via the New York Times) is one of many I’ve come across lately outlining this trend toward “smaller is better.”

If you’ve followed our blog in the past, you know that we’re big fans of limiting the size of market research online communities (MROCs) to improve engagement. People will hesitate to share openly with a few hundred people, but with 50 (or fewer) fellow participants it becomes much less daunting to share and connect. As a member of a small community, you will see friendly faces in every discussion and learn about who they are and what they are all about. It’s through this connection and dialogue between members that real insight emerges. The research team and moderation staff can do the same, leading to a better understanding of the audience and the development of stronger recommendations for the client.

I hate to harp on this point too much, but if you’re planning out a MROC I can’t stress the “smaller is better” advice more strongly… To me, this isn’t a “qual vs. quant” discussion; rather, this is addressing how we as an industry develop the strongest insights and ideas possible for our clients. Hopefully, this message will be validated by the “next Facebook” and future social media sites that spreading this idea as well.

However, I’m not jealous for the reason you might expect. While I do wish we could help make the world a better place here at PluggedIN, I’m more envious of the focus purpose driven brands have and their ability to compete in their marketplace on elements “above” their product.

Let me explain.

TOMS shoes doesn’t have to worry about coming up with the latest “gel technology.” They don’t have to worry about securing the most trafficked location at the mall. They don’t have to offer hoodies, sign partnerships with sports franchises, or search for a high priced spokesperson to break into the skater market. They sell shoes by simply connecting with people who care enough to donate a pair of shoes and make the world a better place. All of these other market factors do not matter.

As a community driven research company, our world is filled with the latest “gel technology.” As an industry we are confusing clients to the point of indecision. Our points of differentiation are our methodologies, our unique models, our philosophies, our feature set. I wish we could find a higher purpose to rise above the clutter. I know research communities can help make the world a better place. They bring people together with dialogue, align with a common purpose, generate ideas and promote goodwill. Is there a higher calling?

In the research community world, we often ride the line between research and marketing. When we talk with clients, we do talk about the ancillary benefit of affinity/influence. We carefully suggest that a research community, though primarily focused on research, does fundamentally provide the environment for listening, recognition, and connection that can lead to greater brand affinity even “ambassadorship.”

I wonder though, what would happen if you took the qualitative research community model (small group, intimate/exclusive, sustained dialogue, facilitated understanding), but used it blatantly as a training ground for the next batch of influentials? Essentially, an Influencer Boot Camp where you listen to people, generously give attention/recognition, research and connect them with the content and ideas they actually like, then set them lose in the wild.  What do you think? Would we make ourselves more valuable in the eyes of our clients? Are we selling out? Does it matter?