By Jeffrey Henning & Tamara Barber of Affinnova

Of the 1,612 links shared by the Twitter #MRX community in the past fortnight, here are the top 10 most retweeted:

1. Twitter: A Network of Influence – Jason Brownlee of Dollywagon analyzed over 100,000 tweets to identify the network of influencers on Twitter. The leading influencers were @lennyism, @researchlive, @raypoynter, @tomderuyck and @tomewing.

2. Pinterest: Get Stuck In – Writing for Research, Bronwen Morgan looks at the phenomenal growth of traffic to Pinterest, what it means for social networks and what it might mean for researchers.

3. Cartoons – Annie Pettit shares some of her recent favorite cartoons about statistics, research and pie charts.

4. Let’s Take a Long Hard Look at Ourselves – In the spirit of “Physician, heal thyself”, Tom Ewing exhorts, “Researcher, know thyself”: recognize that we’re subject to the same predictable irrationality as the people we study.

5. Apple, Suppliers Test Tablet With Smaller Screen – In sharing this article, the @researchlive writers say, “And this just in: Apple does do market research. (But whisper it they always have.)”

6. Mobile Market Research Trends, Part 3: Passive Data Collection – In the most popular of the three transcripts so far from the Survey Analytics webinar on Mobile Market Research Trends, the speakers discuss using mobile apps to passively collect data about panelists, such as GPS location, other apps used and mobile phone configurations.

7. How to Build an Online Community: The Ultimate List of Resources – Richard Millington of FeverBee shares 300 links for resources on building general-purpose online communities (not MROCs in particular).

8. 36 Questions to Help Commission Neuroscience Research – An ESOMAR task force has launched a new guide to help research buyers ask the right questions when planning neuroscience research.

9. Radical Market Research Idea #5: Drop the Decimals – Annie Pettit argues we should stop offering the illusion of precision and drop decimal points when reporting research results.

10. More Mobiles than Humans in 2012, according to Cisco – Cisco has published results of an analysis of global mobile traffic. A tablet computer use 300% of the traffic of a mobile phone, resulting in a dramatic upsurge in traffic from tablets, the installed base of which tripled in 2011. Having a similar disproportionate impact are 4G phones, which make up just 0.2% of mobile connections yet are responsible for 6% of overall traffic.

The full GRIT report is done! The designers have it now and it will be published within the next 2-3 weeks. I have to say that this just might be the best GRIT report ever, and that is in no small part due to the excellent team of folks who participated in this phase of the study.

Two people who deserve special recognition are Ray Poynter of Vision Critical/NewMR and Dr. Todd Powers of the ARF. I am singling Ray and Todd out here because I have decided to post the section of the GRIT report on emerging technique adoption in 2012; Ray and Todd (with a little bit of my $.02 thrown in) were the primary authors of that  module. So, in the case of this post you can consider it as coming from three authors working in concert with one another.

This is just a small taste of the fantastic analysis that will be in this GRIT report. While this excerpt only tells part of the story, what a story it is! The research industry is not just bullish but perhaps even excited about new methods, with MROCs, Social Media Research, Mobile, and Text Analytics leading the adoption curve with major growth expected across all four techniques. If these projections come to pass, 2012 won’t be a tipping point, it will be an avalanche of change.

Without further ado, here is our analysis of the results from the most recent GRIT study concerning what emerging techniques are expected to see adoption in 2012.

What emerging Research Techniques will be used in 2012?

The figures for what companies plan to use/provide in 2012 are approximately twice as high as the figures for what is being done at the moment. This is likely to be a combination of the growth in these techniques and also the power of optimism.

The New Mainstream

About two-third of companies expect to be using online communities and Social Media Analytics in 2012, this supports the view that Online Communities are now mainstream and that Social Media Analytics is becoming mainstream.

Will Mobile Reach the Tipping Point?

A big climber, from actual 2011 to expected 2012, is Mobile Surveys, with buyers jumping from a current 17% to an expected 53% and vendors expecting the increase to be from 24% to 64%. Does this mean that Mobile Surveys are about to take off?

If the figures in this report relate to the estimated 10% of regular online surveys that are being completed on mobile devices this might prove to be true. If the figures relate to specifically designed and fielded mobile surveys the outcome might be different.

One interesting anecdote that might shed light on this issue is that in a recent conversation with a senior leader at a global research provider they stated that within their organizations they billed well into the $100M range for mobile-based projects last year, although due to accounting system issues most of these projects were assigned to CAWI or CAPI codes. They were of the opinion that many large full service firms were struggling with issues like this and that the actual usage of mobile as a research platform was being underreported. Considering that many of the firms that are providing mobile research services are technology providers or sample companies, as well as the newer companies emerging into the space that are not members of any trade organizations that track revenue by method, it is highly likely that mobile research as a contributor of global market research spend is far higher than previously reported.

In the GRIT study we have chosen to focus on modality use as a share of projects rather than revenue and this may explain why GRIT is showing relatively high usage as a discrete mode but other industry studies are reporting far lower indicators.

It is also possible that this issue may impact other emerging techniques such as social media and text analytics as being underreported while actual usage and contribution to revenue is significantly higher.

If this suspicion is true, it supports the bullish attitude that GRIT respondents have towards the growth of mobile.

Buyer Pull

The only method showing more buyers than sellers is eye tracking, which mirrors the split in the current figures. Eye Tracking stands out as consistently having a different pattern of supply and demand.

Vendor Push

Approaches that clearly show more vendors than buyers in 2012 are: Mobile Surveys, Webcam based Interviews, Apps based research, Mobile Qual, Mobile Ethnography, Crowdsourcing, Visualization Analytics. Prediction Markets, and Gamification. All of these represent, to an extent vendor push, which is consistent with the drive to create operational and cost efficiencies as key competitive differentiators from suppliers. In other words, vendors remain focused on the “how”, while clients are more interested in the “Why”. . However, the shape of the total market should not hide the fact that specific buyers will also be driving the process by demanding innovation and change.

The Dark Horse and the Wooden Spoons

Text Analytics is fourth in the table of approaches expected to be used in 2012 and is strongly favored by both vendors and buyers, this may be one to watch.

The approaches that look to both buyers and vendors as niches are Biometric Response, Neuromarketing, and Facial Analysis.

Actual Use Versus Buzz Count

Note the Buzz Count data relates to the previous wave. What the comparison with Buzz and actual use illustrates is that there are two types of relationship between buzz and actual use. For about two-thirds of research approaches the number of organizations saying they use it is broadly correlated with the standardized measurement of buzz. Online Communities and Social Media Analytics are at the top, and items like Virtual Environments and Visualization Analytics are at the bottom.

But there is a small group of approaches where the buzz greatly exceeds the ‘ever use’ figures. For example, Biometirc Response, Neuromarketing, Facial Analysis, and Gamification all have much more buzz than their usage figures would have predicted. This pattern may imply they are about to become popular, or simply reflect that some topics that are widely talked about are just fashionable niches, or that the buzz may reflect that these topics transcend market research and are picking up buzz from a wider part of the market.

Future Intent vs. Actual Use a Year Later

Suppliers

In general market researchers were an optimistic lot in Fall 2010. The actual usage figures in Fall 2011 were about 50% of the figures ‘expected’ in Fall 2010. One difference stands out above all others and that is mobile surveys. In Fall 2010 the forecast was for 57% of companies to use it and the actual usage figure in Fall 2011 was 24%.

Considering that mobile seems to be a supplier “push” method, this perhaps indicates the overestimation of client demand, although it may also be a reflection of the challenges of migrating existing projects such as trackers to the new mode due to design and platform issues. Of course, as previously reported at least anecdotally it may be that that apparent over inflation is not that at all but simply an accurate projection based on business realities “on the ground”. If in fact we are seeing the tipping point in 2012, it has been suggested that new projects, particularly in emerging markets where mobile is the dominant means of consumer contact, will drive adoption. The GRIT sample was not asked those questions, so we’ll be exploring that in subsequent iterations.

The next group of four that undershot their estimates by 18 to 20 percentage points were: Mobile Qual, Online Communities, Social Media Analysis, and Webcam bases Interviews.

Buyers

Buyers were even more optimistic in Fall 2010, with the average actual only being 45% of the forecast. The biggest gaps were Social Media Analytics (30% instead of 68%), Text Analytics (16% instead of 47%), and Apps Based Research (6% instead of 32%).

Editor’s Note:  The digital world has no geographic barriers, so why should GreenBook Blog? In an effort to reach out to thought leaders in other parts of the world we’re starting a new series (soon to be section on the blog itself) called The Global View. In these posts leaders from various regions in the world will share their views and experience on the issues impacting insights professionals in their part of the world and/or globally.

First up we have Adriana Rocha, co-founder and CEO of eCGlobal Solutions, one of the leading “next generation” research firms in LATAM and headquartered in Brazil. Since Brazil is one of the most active regions of social media usage (especially via mobile devices) in the world I think Adriana’s’ views on issues related to new modes and models in research are particularly important to pay attention to.

So, join me in welcoming Adriana Rocha to the GreenBook Blog family and in ushering in a great new feature as we work to gain The Global View of market research!

By Adriana Rocha

Gamification, the concept of applying game-design thinking to non-game applications to make them more fun and engaging, recently has become one of the buzzwords not just for Market Research, but for Marketing, Human Resources, CRM, and almost all business areas and industries.

The reason is simple: its adoption is not an option, but mandatory for companies wanting to better understand and engage with the new generations, the ones who are fast becoming the main workforce and consumer power of the future. These generations mostly known as Y (those who were born between 1977 and 1994) and Z (those who were born after 1995), are incredibly sophisticated, technology wise, immune to most traditional marketing and sales pitches.

Gen Y’s are less brand loyal than its past generations, and the speed of the Internet has led them to be equally flexible and changing in its fashion, style consciousness and where and how they communicate. Gen Z’s are known for the rapid pace they are sharing thoughts, observations and experiences on a variety of media, topics and products. They are no longer limited to the home computer. The window for the world is carried in their pockets on mobile Internet devices, everywhere, at any time.

A main difference between Y and Z generations, though, is that Y’s remember life before the takeoff of mass technology, while the latter have been born completely within that realm. What they have in common is that they expect engaging experiences at their work place, or as consumers interacting with brands, products and organizations wanting to get their time and attention. In a recent study conducted last year by MTV with Gen Y’s , more than half reported that “People my age see real life as a video game” and “Winning is the slogan of my generation”. They also reported that a “game-like metaphor” applies to almost every aspect of their life.

So, my advice to market researchers: change the way you conduct question based surveys; look for new and creative ways of gathering consumer insights; treat respondents not as respondents, but as collaborators, people who need to be respected, motivated and engaged to share with you what they think, feel or behave.

Gamification is not an option: adopt it or die.

By Edward Appleton 

I was reading a thread of a NewMR Discussion – http://linkd.in/A2F4Wr – on optimizing MR Debriefs and was sensitized by Ray Poynter’s comment saying he believed in essence Researchers are truth tellers, not persuaders.

The implication being that persuasion is bad/potentially misleading, and “truth” the core of what MR is about.

I think both Suppliers and client-side Researchers need to correct our approach to be more persuasive, not less – and have a more bold but business-attuned approach to putting our view of “the truth” on the line.

Here’s my take:

1. All Debriefs will result in Action – something happens. The role of Research is to help shape a more informed decision. Persuasiveness is useful for our findings and recommendations to be accepted, and is particularly important if the potential decision to make is not 100% clear cut.
2. We need to take the view of the Marketing person we’re debriefing. “Here’s what I would do based on the data” is an approach that I think we often don’t feel bullish enough to take. Maybe we should. So: be empathetic, become knowledgeable and lean forward.
3. MR needs to be engaged as an active part of an operational team, often with many disciplines represented, not something apart from that. We should acquaint ourselves with other business factors influencing a potential decision and contextualize our findings as much as possible. Suppliers need to ask for contextual data, it’s valuable. This can be supply-chain stuff, sales or channel related, product development, finance – the more we grasp these other disciplines’ issues, the more we will be welcome as business advisers.
4. We have to sensitive to risk and qualify our findings accordingly. This is different from being risk-averse.
5. MR needs to be bold and not afraid to speak out if we see our findings taken out of context, misunderstood, or maybe even misused.
6. Researchers need to build relationships as much as any other commercial disciplines The better we know and understand the challenges and issues surrounding a business decision, the more impact we are likely to have as part of a team.
7. MR shouldn’t attempt to sit on a high horse. Our “truths” are invariably only part of the picture, something we do well to remember in the presence of people who have a different professional angle. Salesfolk, for example, can tell you about real-time competitive activity through their conversations with their customers that you may well not be aware of from a particular data set.

Is persuasiveness a skill-set you feel you’re good at? Do you have good communication abilities, interpersonal strengths, the ability to influence people?

It’s something that our industry would do well to look at, even in phases where the enthusiasm for new methodologies and tools is running high.

Curious, as ever, as to others’ views.

SUPPLIER TIP:

Ask right at the start how the insights gained will be used. Get specific: what actions will marketing take as a result of the research? Bake this knowledge into your research design, and revisit it once you’re shaping the debrief.

Editor’s Note: Want to meet Edward in person and chat with him more? He’ll be one of the great presenters at the Market Research in the Mobile World conference coming up in Amsterdam April 18-19. Register now, seats are going fast!

Editor’s Note: Ray Poynter and his NewMR Team have put together a great virtual event being held next week on February 22nd. The focus is on Mobile Research in 2012 and they have a stellar list of presenters lined up. Although NewMR is not officially aligned with the Market Research in the Mobile World conference series, all the organizations involved are friendly and partner on a variety of initiatives and this virtual event could certainly be considered an unofficial “primer” for the upcoming MRMW conference in Amsterdam April 18-19.

I’ve posted all the details below. Make sure you register and attend; there will be a ton of cutting edge thought leadership on the subject of mobile research at this great virtual event!

Oh, and if you have not registered for MRMW Amsterdam yet, you better soon; we have limited space and seats are selling fast! You can use discount code GB20 when you register here:

http://www.eventbee.com/v/mrmw-eu

The first NewMR Event in 2012 will be on 22nd February and will focus on mobile research, asking the question whether 2012 will be the year that mobile research really arrives, reaching its tipping point, and becoming mainstream?

Like all NewMR events, the format will be webinar based, with people logging on from around the world to hear leading edge presentations. The presenters will also be logging on from their offices, homes, or even hotel rooms to present.

There will be three sessions for this event:

• Session 1: Sydney 10am (click here to register to attend)
• Session 2: London 10am (click here to register to attend)
• Session 3: New York 2pm (click here to register to attend)

If you are registering for the event and would like to make a donation to help NewMR bring this event to you please Click Here.

Speakers

Session 1 – Sydney 10:00 am to 11:45 am
Session Chair – Sue York, NewMR.org

• Steve August, Revelation, Qual Mobile Best Practice
• John Griffiths, Spring
• Sean Dunn and Ying Xin, Vision Critical Australia, Going mobile – creative uses of mobile research

Session 2 – London 10:00 am to 11:45 am
Session Chair – Ray Poynter, Vision Critical UK

• AJ Johnson, BrainJuicer, Mobile Research – Beyond just migrating online surveys
• Siamack Salari, ethos, Wild Apples Vs Orchards
• Navin Williams, Mobile Measure, Mobile Diversity and Mobile MR in Emerging Markets

Session 3 – New York 2:00 pm to 3:45 pm
Session Chair – Ray Poynter, Vision Critical UK

• Monique Morden, Vision Critical, The Battle Between Mobile Apps versus the Mobile Web
• John Williamson, QualVU, How Empowering the Mobile Research Proposition Will Drive Mobile Research to its Tipping Point
• Leslie Townsend, Kinesis, Say Good-bye to Single Mode Panels

Timeline for the event

• Presentations due – 10 February 2012
• Rehearsals – w/c 13 February 2012
• Event – 22 February 2012

Editor’s Note: Late last year our good friends at Research Access asked if we would like to conduct a monthly webinar series with them on the “big ideas” impacting market research. The premise is simple: we chart out the topics, recruit experts on the topic for a panel discussion, and have a live chat with audience participation. Since I am pathologically incapable of saying “no” to things like this, of course we agreed.

Dana Stanley of Research Access has written a brief on this inaugural webinar and I’ve reposted it below. The topic is “Turning Big Data from a Headache to a Competitive Advantage”.  This first webinar is going to be great, with some heavy weight experts in their respective disciplines tackling the practical issues of where we are in the implementation of big data offerings, the challenges facing the market research industry as a result, what it means for the future and even more importantly, how can this model provide real, tangible ROI for clients. We’ll also be doing summaries of the webinars and posting the recordings on our respective sites.

So where does this webinar fit into the blog and the overall GreenBook strategy? GreenBook is becoming a true multimedia organization and it’s a lot of fun to be a part of this transition. In addition to this blog, digital publishing, content marketing, and of course the advanced directory platform we are increasingly embracing various event strategies to deliver more value to the market research industry.  The Research Access/GreenBook webinar series joins Radio NewMR (our ongoing weekly podcast with Ray Poynter and the NewMR team), our general support of all NewMR virtual seminars such as next week’s Mobile Research in 2012, our involvement with various industry organizations and their initiatives and our own live event series of conferences such as Market Research in the Mobile World as another channel to bring the global business insights community fresh information, perspectives, and resources to help us all grow and thrive in a rapidly changing market.

By Dana Stanley

There are a lot of buzzwords out there in market research, and Big Data is one of them. I’ve been hearing that term everywhere.

I’m proud to announce that Research Access is partnering with GreenBook to bring you a webinar to help you understand Big Data.

This is the first in a series of webinars to be brought to you in 2012 in an exciting partnership between Research Access and GreenBook.

The webinar is entitled, “Turning Big Data from a Headache to a Competitive Advantage,” and it will be held on Tuesday, February 21 at 1pm EST / 10am PST.

Click This Link to Register

We’ve assembled a panel of experts to help you understand Big Data and, more importantly, give you practical tips for how to analyze it and turn it to your advantage.

I will be moderating the session, and joining me will be four expert panelists:

• Steve Cohen of In4mation Insights
• Charlie Wardell of Decooda
• Romi Mahajan of Metavana
• Lenny Murphy of GreenBook

Sign up for the webinar today, and when you attend, tweet your questions to the hashtag #mrxideas.

Orlando Wood, Managing Director, BrainJuicer Labs, holds the card that was delivered to Millward Brown

We all know BrainJuicer can be cheeky (anyone who has seen this video by Chief Juicer John Kearon can attest to that!), but today they really used that wicked sense of humor to great effect by sending a Valentine’s Day card to Millward Brown signed by some of the leading creative agencies in the world. I asked the BrainJuicer team what possessed them to send a gift to one of their major competitors and here is the answer I received:

Why are we sending our love to Millward Brown you say?

Well, we wanted to thank them for their bravery in publicly acknowledging that it’s emotion rather than persuasion that drives long-term brand success. We feel this is a seismic move on MB’s part and one with the potential to consign the era of ‘Persuasion’ to the past – and we were keen to thank them publicly for this shift in their thinking – as indeed, it seems, is the creative industry. Their article is linked on the card.

The background here is that for years Millward Brown (and just about everyone else who tests creative content, especially against norms) has focused on explicit measures of persuasion vs. the implicit aspects of emotion such as engagement and enjoyment. In fact, as more evidence arose that persuasion elements were not reliable indicators of campaign success in the new social marketing  paradigm  there was quite a bit of debate within the industry on what  the best measurement approach was, with the 2 sides seemingly divided between explicit and implicit models. Even up to last week the debate continued, as evidenced by this exchange on the blog of Mark Earls, author of Herd & I’ll Have What She’s Having.

Now it seems as if the debate is done and Millward Brown has acknowledged in a recent publication that yes indeed, emotional factors may be better indicators of long term brand success than traditional metrics:

It does seem that persuasion is not necessary for long-term brand building. This highlights the need to be clear in setting advertising objectives either in terms of short-term sales effects or longer-term brand building.

…Our database shows that, among other things, emotionally powerful ads are more memorable (‘Should my advertising stimulate an emotional response?‘ Millward Brown)

The variety of different emotional responses obtained by award-winning advertising highlights that there is no one emotion to trigger for successful advertising. rather, the successful ad triggers the emotion that is relevant for that brand and positioning.

…The analysis presented here helps to explain the overlap we observe between creative advertising and effective advertising.

While creativity cannot be defined or prescribed, its effects can be measured, and creative ads tend to be enjoyable and involving, and different to other advertising. They tend to stimulate an emotional response. Effective ads also tend to generate these responses – and they are also likely to be well branded.

The analysis also highlights that one differentiator between creative ads and effective ads is that effective ads are more likely to have the brand as an integral part of the advertising.

There is no single route to effective advertising, and this is particularly in evidence in looking at emotional response, where no one emotional response seems to be related to effective advertising.

Despite having the biggest pretesting database in the world, Millward Brown acknowledges that the base sizes for this analysis are not as robust as we would wish. Still, we do believe that the analysis adds a useful contribution to the debate.

That’s the insight that many creatives have known instinctively (or at least anecdotally) for years and many agencies have had the sense that this truth was being ignored by the explicit, persuasion based metric model. It’s quite the victory then for an industry leader like Millward Brown to acknowledge the role of creativity, emotions, and implicit measurement in brand success, so with tongue firmly in cheek BrainJuicer and many agencies wanted to send a thank you to the brand measurement leader for legitimizing this new and intensely exciting area for both marketing and research.

Here is the Valentine. It’s pretty funny, so enjoy it for what it is meant to be: some good natured and friendly ribbing between leaders in the industry.

I’m just glad that all involved are embracing new ideas and doing the work to determine how effective these various approaches are. It’s a brave new world of brand relationship building and this is important stuff. None of us can afford to rest on our laurels or make assumptions based on old models that may not take into account new knowledge or a changing cultural framework. That’s going to be important for everyone to remember as we move forward, because we’re just at the beginning of this journey of understanding the true drivers of consumer decision making and relationship building.

Hats off to BrainJuicer for being emotional measurement pioneers and evangelists, to the creatives for being..well creative, and to Millward Brown for having the intellectual integrity to embrace new ideas. It’s taken the hard work of all involved in this debate to get to this point and everyone who has pushed the boundaries deserves kudos!

I have a great relationship with both BrainJuicer and all of the Kantar family of companies and have nothing but profound respect for the leadership these firms show in the industry. It’s only a good thing that some of the major players in the industry are finally agreeing on the same basic model; now we can all work together to build off of this knowledge base for the betterment of us all!

And by the way, April Fool’s Day is right around the corner, so I fully expect to get pranked myself now since I publicized this one. Give it your best shot; I promise I’ll post that one too!

UPDATE:

BrainJuicer just posted a video of Will Goodhand delivering the valentine to the Millward Brown office. It’s pretty hilarious in a “The Office” kind of way. Hats off to all for being good sports and having fun with this. I can’t wait to see how Millward Brown pranks them back; this could be a lot of fun to watch!

UPDATE:

Nigel Hollis of Millward Brown posted his own archly tongue in cheek response to the BrainJuicer prank this morning here. Here’s an excerpt:

I understand that the nice people over at Brainjuicer sent our Millward Brown London office a Valentine’s Day card. My name was on the card (even if they delivered it to someone else). How sweet of them, I’m so happy that they would think of me (thanks, guys!).

But I can’t believe how long that card took to get to us. It must have been lost in the post for decades because it strangely suggests that Millward Brown has had a recent change of heart over the role of emotions in advertising. When in reality, Millward Brown pioneered the measurement of emotion in advertising decades before Brainjuicer appeared on the scene, and has championed the longer-term effects of advertising for almost as long.

I sense a bit of tension here, so I’m going to make a public offer to all involved: let me play relationship counselor. Let’s sit down and debate the issues to clear the air, then hug it out. After all, the good news here is that all parties are in agreement that emotions play a critical role in the long term success of relationships between consumers and brands; the rest is just a difference in opinion in how we go about measuring them and I think an open and honest exchange of ideas on that front would be beneficial for us all.

So let me know guys; think of me as the Love Doctor (because I love you both!), and the doctor is in anytime you want to sit down and talk this out!

By Ron Sellers

In my last post, I detailed some of the issues and concerns in online panel research (from the Grey Matter Research report More Dirty Little Secrets of Online Panel Research), including the following:

• Panels that send respondents 50 – 60 survey invitations per month
• Overly long questionnaires and/or questions that are impossible to answer
• Panels that allow respondents to complete survey after survey in one sitting
• Absurdly low incentive amounts
• Surveys that are in the field a mere matter of hours
• Panels that insert their own questions before yours
• Studies that were irrelevant to their target population
• Panels that carry advertising on their website or give respondents sales messages under the heading of a “survey”

There are some really, really bad panels out there.  The question is, how can we as researchers navigate these treacherous waters?  In short, what can we do to avoid these bad panels and practices?

First and foremost, we must pay attention to the field.  Quite frankly, fieldwork is not exciting.  One might even say it’s boring (apologies to field specialists out there!).  But it is also critically important.  It’s much like the chassis in a car – forgotten under the sleek exterior and plush interior, it’s still what holds the entire car together.  It’s not enough to hand your project over to a research vendor or a panel company and wait for the resulting data.

Decide what you actually value in a panel.  Do you care what the incentive is?  Do you care what the field time is?  Do you care whether your project is subcontracted to two other panels in order to fill the quotas?  Do you care whether or not they use a router?  Why or why not?  Think strategically on this.

Ask questions of the panel provider.  What incentive will you pay respondents?  How long will you keep the field open?  Will I be able to get the data from the mid-interview terminates and/or the unqualified respondents?  Can you complete this entire study off your own panel or will you be subcontracting it?  If I’m using profile information from the panel (e.g. I only want married respondents), what proportion of your panel has that information attached and how recent is the information?  Make sure you’re comfortable with the answers.

Then set expectations.  For instance, Grey Matter Research has clearly communicated to all of our panel vendors that all respondents must come from their own panel (no subcontracting), that they are not allowed to insert their own questions before our survey (no portal use), and what the field time is to be on each study.  We review and test all survey programming before the field.  We get the data from the unqualifieds and mid-interview terminates, looking for any bias in who was invited to take the study and/or who didn’t make it all the way through.  We review the data afterward, looking for speeders and straightliners (even if the panel company promises to do that).  If they deviate from our instructions, they don’t work with us any more.

When the survey is in the field, monitor the progress.  Be involved.  A research vendor can’t effectively put a survey into the field for 12 hours and skim a convenience sample off the panel if you’re monitoring the progress of the study and have agreed that the field time will be four days.  Set expectations with the vendor for what you want out of the field management.

Pay attention to research on research.  In addition to Grey Matter’s reports on panels, there are other resources out there, such as the Grand Mean Project from Mktg. Inc.  Read.  Listen.  Talk to other researchers.  Talk to the panel companies themselves (or make sure your vendor is doing these things).  Read panelist comments at websites on which respondents discuss panels and panel members (such as www.surveypolice.com).  Learn.

Do the research the right way, regardless of the methodology.  A nonsensical question is a nonsensical question, whether it reaches the respondent through an online panel, a mail survey, their smartphone, or a landline phone call.  I will never remember exactly how many times I have rented a car in the last 12 months, no matter what you want out of me as a respondent.  And I will lose interest after 40 minutes, or after a few lengthy, complex grids.

Finally, do some poking around yourself.  I had no idea that any supposed “research” panel would dare to include a bunch of sales messages to panel members, calling each one a “survey,” until our panelists found it through this test.  A completely unethical practice, and a clear violation of section B2b of the CASRO Code of Standards (of which the company is a member)…and one you could only learn about if you were a panelist.

If you are on the client side and work with research vendors who acquire panel sample for your studies, are you confident that your vendor takes these steps (and others) to focus on quality?  Have you thought strategically about why you would select one panel over another, or about what would disqualify a panel from your consideration?

If you contract with panels directly (either as a client-side research or as a vendor), do you take these steps (and others)?  And if you work with a panel broker, are you even aware of where your sample is coming from?

Ultimately, it’s up to the research community to reward good panels with business and suffocate the bad panels by letting their business dry up.  Price should not be the only determinant, and panel sample is not a commodity and should not be treated as such.

If you’d like a copy of More Dirty Little Secrets of Online Panel Research, e-mail me at ronATgreymatterresearch.com.

Graphic by David Armano, EVP, Global Innovation & Integration at Edelman Digital.

As we’re prepping the final draft of the latest GRIT report for publication, I’ve been taking a long hard look at the “GRIT 50″ section (the analysis of the MR firms perceived to be most innovative). Thanks to the input of of several folks, especially Renee Smith, Global CRO of Kantar, we’ve been looking at the data a few ways and that has informed my analysis of what the story (or stories) are regarding the ranking. I keep coming back to one central theme: the companies listed are masters of social marketing, and this idea explains how relatively small, new entrants onto the list compete effectively with large multinational firms. That certainly is not the only story, but for the purposes of this post we’re going to focus on how social media is leveraged to create and strengthen brands for business growth, and the principles that should be part of that strategy.

Obviously I am just a spectator when it comes to how these brands are leveraging various channels to market themselves, but what seems clear is that in the age of social media reach and influence translate into brand equity. Brands that can “own” a piece of mindshare across a channel (social, print or broadcast media) or an attribute (innovation, social responsibility, quality, etc..) can leverage that for real growth. This model is true across verticals and markets. This truism drives the growth of social media analytics and influence scoring and is a major focus of the use of those approaches for research purposes.

OK, I assume you already get all that and I promised you a discussion of how to actually apply this idea in the real world. Without seeming too self serving, lets use myself and GreenBook as an example of this model in action. I promise I’m not tooting my own horn here (well, at least not much), but I’ve always found it easier to use my own experience as a context for sharing information vs. a more abstract and objective analysis of others.

About a year ago Tom Anderson (arguably the master of using social media for brand building in MR) interviewed me about how I got started on this journey. I won’t repeat that here; if you’re interested you can find the interview on Tom’s blog. Let’s pick up from there.

2011 was the year that I began to get comfortable with my new found online visibility that my synergistic relationship with GreenBook had created, and it started to translate into opportunity in the “real world”.  During that time I was consciously attempting to build brand visibility for GreenBook since that was one of the objectives of our consulting relationship, but somewhere along the way I became part of the story I was attempting to craft for my client.  As a result I learned a few key lessons that I’ve tried to practice, such as:

1. Find a POV.
2. Sharing is good karma. Actively try to support others and share their content.
3. Quality content is King when it comes to social media. Actively create or support others who create engaging and interesting content.
4. Transparency and openness is the foundation of social trust.
5. Social reach is driven by rules 1 -4; your network will expand and to an extent become viral if you focus on those rules.
6. Influence is a by product of content and reach. It’s also a responsibility. People trust you, so work hard to reward that trust.
7. Each day is a new opportunity to do more for others. I can’t stress that enough. It’s called “social” media for a reason so learn to play well with others.
8. Brand equity is a by product of rules 1-7. If I had to write a formula it would be something like this: [[C (content) x S (sharing) = R (reach)] x [T (trust)]= I (influence)]]
9. Brand equity is proportional to financial opportunity.

I’m definitely not perfect at any of these, but I do try to let them guide my strategy as much as possible and I think the formula is a successful one. It’s also the same model that I believe all brands need to consider in the Social Media Age.

I’ve been thinking of this a lot so far this year because, despite my attempts to deny it, I too have become a brand. Or more precisely, I have become inextricably linked with the GreenBook brand and have become, to a large extent, the public face of my favorite client. For all practical purposes, by being an evangelist for the MR industry I have also become the Brand Evangelist for GreenBook. It’s an odd thing to consider, but there it is. Of course I always knew I had a personal brand, but in my past running research organizations my personal brand was always in the background of the corporate brand. Now that I am front and center it’s forced me to apply the principles of brand marketing in a very different way than I ever had to before. Since I finally accepted the truth of the situation I’ve become increasingly aware of the parallels between my own journey and how companies can use a similar model to build their own brands and compete effectively against far larger organizations.

Where is my personal evidence? Well, recently Researchlive published an analysis of the MR Twitterverse and I was surprised by my own level of influence within this analysis. Here is the graphic:

Click here to download a high-res version of the full network map

In the article, Brian Tarran gives some details on how this analysis was derived:

In December, when Tom De Ruyck of InSites Consulting was crowned Tweeter of the Year by the #MRX community on Twitter, we asked him how broad the reach of the social network was in the offline research world. He guessed that “a few thousand researchers” were involved in one way or another, with a small group of “very active people” leading the discussion.

But who are these people: the content creators, the sharers, the people driving debate and connecting people and ideas? Over two weeks, from 25 November – 9 December, Jason Brownlee of Dollywagon ran an analysis of all the messages carrying one of 350 keywords, ranging from ‘analytics’, ‘market research’ and the #MRX hashtag, to ‘biometrics’, ‘sample sizes’ and ‘paid respondents’.

Over 106,000 on-topic messages were collected in total, generated by 5,000 individuals or companies. Working with Jon Puleston of GMI, we narrowed the list down to the top 400 with an interest in market research and re-ran the analysis to produce the image opposite – a network map showing the lines of communication running between various Twitter users, represented as nodes.

Nodes are sized according to general influence. Brownlee explains: “People with the highest general influence tend to be the biggest, most credible players in a network. They create content that generates more in-bound links than anyone else, but crucially also tend to attract links from other credible players in the network.”

Brownlee has also applied a clustering algorithm to determine the main sub-groups within the market research Twitter community. These are colour-coded. “These groups are predicated on the frequency, pattern and density of connections between the nodes in each group,” explains Brownlee.

What this shows is how a relatively  small number of  individuals can use reach and influence to shape the debate within an entire industry while also building personal brand awareness. Just like the broader network of social media, Twitter influencers serve as  early trend spotters as well as channels for disseminating information to their audiences. In this example, the Twittersphere serves as a microcosm of the real world, or at least as a leading indicator of the topics that are creating buzz. It’s a bit of a “tail wagging the dog” situation, but the results are clearly a process that helps support brand growth.

This is when things get interesting. In the case of GreenBook it’s fairly easy to see how this is beneficial; influence and reach help drive traffic. GreenBook is a media company, so traffic means greater market share and that translates into ad revenue. It gets a bit more compelling when you throw me into the mix though. Nowadays I am primarily a strategic consultant and adviser to companies. I still have my own business initiatives at various stages of development, but the vast majority of my time and energy goes into my joint venture consulting practice with GreenBook, which is also where the majority of my personal revenue comes from. Just like any other organization, my efforts in utilizing various channels for brand building ultimately must support revenue generation. I love what I do today make no mistake, but I do have 4 kids to feed so making money has to come into the equation! My personal revenue comes through a few primary channels, most of which I work in collaboration with GreenBook on. They are:

1. Consulting engagements
2. Advisory work
3. Event production

Certainly the growth of my own brand (and that of GreenBook) has facilitated the expansion of each of these channels and (hopefully) will continue to do so as long as I continue to follow the rules I listed earlier. It’s those principles that enable me (or any other brand) to stay relevant and grow. In 2012 I am seeing that in action in a most unexpected away: speaking at conferences.

Yes, in the past few years I have been involved with a few events but usually either as a blogger, chairperson, or producer. This year is seeing the inclusion of whole new opportunities as a speaker and workshop facilitator that I never expected. My belief is that these new opportunities came about solely because of my social media strategy in action since in the case of most of these opportunities I was asked to participate; I did not seek them out. The exceptions are the workshops I am conducting and the events I am co-producing myself. That is quite a big change.

Here is how this is relevant for us all. By leveraging all of the channels available to me and practicing the “rules of engagement” I have outlined, my reach and influence is translating into both an extension into new marketing channels as a well as new revenue producing opportunities, and in most cases I have not had to seek them out! If you’ve run sales organizations or are involved in supporting them then you know how important that last statement is.

I want to be clear that this is a fairly clinical analysis of where I find myself. I’m not nearly as calculating as I might sound here, but the process fascinates me and I think a periodic SWOT analysis is healthy for both businesses and individuals. Trust me, I have plenty of weaknesses as well, but I’ve been lucky to literally stumble into an area of strength and opportunity that I am incredibly grateful for and respectful of.  I try to remember that every day is a new opportunity to earn the trust and mindshare of my audience. It can’t be taken for granted; this type of brand building is a compact between all stakeholders in the relationship. My part of that deal is to continue to find new ways to help meet the needs of the market research community in my own small way. It’s a responsibility I share with many others (just look at the graphic above to see who else is involved) and I try to do my part within this dynamic synergistic network. The same idea applies to any organization providing a product or service within their own market.

What I know beyond a shadow of a doubt is that the day I forget my responsibility in this relationship is the day that my brand and ultimately my value begins to decline. And again, I think that lesson applies to all brands regardless of their offering or markets served.

If anything, that is the lesson I was hoping to impart here. In order to effectively leverage virtually any media source in the social era you have to understand not just the mechanics of the channel but the dynamics of relationships in general. Those brands who get that are experiencing success. Those that are not are having a tougher time competing and have to rely upon more traditional (and expensive) tactics to make up the gap. Certainly this isn’t the only factor impacting either scenario, but I believe it is an important one.

It really is all about relationship building. The bigger a brand is the more important that principle becomes since it is so easy to succumb to an institutional, mass production mindset due to the very infrastructure necessary to support big companies. This is a lesson that the smaller “strategic consultant” type MR agencies that are beginning to gain greater market share within MR know very well and they leverage it across all of their customer touch points. It’s even a lesson that I am seeing various tech suppliers adopt as well, which is interesting indeed.

So, there is my take on my life on the “v”  (for virtual) list. I hope using my own journey of how developing social media reach and influence has translated into real opportunities has been helpful (or at least mildly interesting!) for you. This is certainly an evolving model that we’re trying to pin down here so 6 months from now I may have a very different take on this, and as long as you seem to find it helpful rest assured that I’ll find a way to share it with you.

Oh, and for anyone interested here is my pretty insane event calendar for this year (as it stands today) including a few new things that we’re working on that I hope to pull off. I promise that I will do my utmost to deliver real value through these channels as I try to do within social media. I hope to see you at one of these events this year!

• Virtual – February 15th: Netbase Social Smarts Series: Debating the State of Social Research
• Cincinnati – March 5-7: P&G Innovation Tradeshow (speaking on innovative MR techniques and suppliers)
• NYC – March 25-28 ARF re: Think (I am now on the Leadership Council of the Researcher of the Future Forum)
• NYC – March 27: GRIT Reception at ARF (more on that soon!)
• Amsterdam, Netherlands – April 16-21 MRMW Europe (Chairing)
• NYC – April 26: Future of Research Workshop at NY AMA (more on this soon too!)
• NYC – April 27: AIMRI Meeting – “Online research & social media on the international landscape” (speaker)
• Las Vegas – April 29-May 2: The Market Research technology Event (Co-Chairing)
• NYC – May 9^th: TRC Research: Frontiers of Research (Keynote speaker)
• St. Johns, NF – May 30 – June 2: MRIA Annual Conference (Keynote speaker)
• Cincinnati – July 17-21 MRMW US (Chairing)
• Austin – August 2^nd: SWMRA Educational Forum (speaker)
• Austin – August 15^th Neuromarketing and Cognitive Psych Event (tentative, GreenBook Produced))
• Australia – August 24-Sept. 1 AMSRS Annual Conference  & GreenBook Workshop Series (Keynote speaker)
• Atlanta – Sept 2-4 ESOMAR Congress (speaking or chairing a panel)
• Pittsburgh – October 14-17 Society of Insurance Research Annual Conference (speaker)
• Atlanta – December (tbd) 2nd Annual Insights Innovation Competition (Chairing, tentative)
• Delhi – December (tbd) Innovation in India Market Research Conference (workshop and Keynote, tentative)
• Sao Paulo, Brazil – January (tbd) Innovation in LATAM Market Research Conference (workshop and Keynote, tentative)

And just in case I’m not overexposed enough, don’t forget the weekly podcast GreenBook and NewMR put on: Radio NewMR.  Also, starting this month GreenBook and ResearchAccess are partnering to put on a series of monthly webinars using a panel/debate model on various topics of interest to the future of the industry. The first one is scheduled for February 21 on the topic of Big Data. Look for more on that soon!

As part of my ongoing series of interviews with the leaders that are shaping the future of market research, today I’m happy to give you a discussion I recently had with Matt Warta, CEO of GutCheck.

You might recall when GutCheck appeared on the MR scene in late 2010 with an announcement of initial funding of $2M. Many folks were shocked that the dreaded DIY model was being deployed within a qualitative research context, but others saw it as the logical extension of a highly successful business trend. As clients push for “cheaper, faster, better” solutions to fuel their insights needs enterprising and tech savvy entrepreneurs are going to heed the call. Matt and the team at GutCheck is an example of that.

For those not familiar with the company here is a synopsis from TechCrunch:

GutCheck is a new category of online market research that enables businesses and agencies to gain quick and simple feedback, directly, from target customers using IM functionality to perform interviews.

GutCheck, an online DIY tool, simply and quickly facilitates a one-to-one dialogue between a business and target customer. Target customers are found by using the GutCheck Recruitment Engine to choose the appropriate target demographic and offers the ability to further screen for a target customer through asking custom questions. The interview allows businesses to interview and ask their questions to learn how their target customers will respond to- new messaging, pricing changes, advertising concepts, updating packaging, product enhancements, gain feedback on product use or competitor product use – and many other business critical needs.

After all, who doesn’t want more direct feedback from their target customer?

One of the more exciting aspects of the GutCheck story is the fact that Matt, a VC and serial entrepreneur, was involved at all. I think it’s a great sign that someone with his background would choose to pursue a research offering and it speaks highly of the opportunities that exist within our space over the coming years. Many traditionalists may not like the model, but I think anything that helps attract investment dollars and drives innovation in research is a good thing.

I found Matt to be a great subject and his comments were highly insightful. I think you’ll enjoy them too.

LFM: Thanks for chatting with me Matt! GutCheck made quite the splash upon your launch, with many MR professionals reacting to the concept of “DIY” qual as a sign of the apocalypse. That appears to have quieted down a bit and folks are beginning to embrace the efficiencies that technology can bring to the research process, even qualitative research. Has that been your experience?

MW: That is a great observation.  At and around our launch, there were a lot of folks in the industry who viewed us a threat.  I think that has gone away to a good degree.  I think there are a couple of reasons for this.  First, we tend to attract clients who share our view of the world that by leveraging technology, they can be more efficient with their research projects, and those projects can be more affordable.  The second is that we are very busy servicing those types of clients, and I tend not to spend a lot of time with or looking for clients who don’t believe in our vision.   I also suspect that the adoption cycle for our technology within the Market Research field is no different than adoption cycles elsewhere.  To lift some of Geoffrey Moore’s classic work, you have Innovators who are the folks that hang out at the Apple store at 1am to get their hands on the newest iSomething; early adopters who are looking for a fundamental breakthrough in the way they can do their jobs; and the early majority who are the biggest part of the market for any technology product, but who typically look to the early adopters for validation and reference.  I think the market for our product is still very much in the early adopter phase.  I have conversations with big brands every day who have either started using online qualitative research in the last year, or have started an initiative in the last 12 months to shift more of their work over to online.  This wasn’t the case two years ago.  Their reasons for doing so are pretty simple.  Their budgets are tight, and they have less and less time to get things done. 

I saw some MRA numbers about a year ago which support this view.  MRA suggests only 15% of qualitative work is done online.  When I presented at TMRE and I asked folks how much qual work they thought was being done online, many in the audience responded in the 3-5% range.  However, if you look at the quant world, almost 50% is done online.  We believe the early majority is going to take online qualitative closer to 50% like it is for quant once online qualitative is much quicker than what it has been and when it is available at a much more affordable price.  I saw a recent new online qualitative product launch and the company was touting that it could do 15 completes on their DIY platform for under $6,000.  That is $400 a complete for those doing the math at home.  That kind of pricing is a big reason why online qualitative work has been kept in a box in the corner.  I think the Market Research market follows the same economic principles of every other market.  Meaning when costs go down (both hard costs and soft costs such as time) more of that good is going to be consumed.  I think that gap is going to close considerably over the coming years as folks like GutCheck and others optimize our platforms and leverage technology to drive down the cost of doing online qualitative research and decrease the time required to complete those studies. 

LFM: What is the GutCheck “story”? How do you arrive at the concept and how much traction are you getting now?

MW: I love this question.  Prior to GutCheck, I had been a venture capitalist for well over a decade and prior to that I had founded a company.  I had a bit of a mid life crisis and decided that I wanted to start my next company, and grow something meaningful.  One of the entrepreneurs who pitched me when I was a VC is a guy named Carl Rossow.  Most of your readers know him as the guy who founded iModerate and Benenson Strategy Group.  For some reason, I never became friends with the CEOs who pitched me over the years.  Part of that is you have to tell a lot of these folks NO, which isn’t a solid way to start a relationship.  With Carl, it was different.  We became friends and that extended over to Jen Drolet and the rest of the iModerate team.  One of the great things about Carl is he has a ton of vision.  Ever since I knew Carl, he had wanted to start a DIY qual platform. 

So how did we get started?  One of the first people I called when I wanted to venture out on my own was my good friend Carl.  I was looking for some entrepreneurial encouragement, so I asked him to breakfast.  I pitched Carl on a couple of ideas I was working, and he told me they were stupid in his own Steve Job’s esque way.  However, he quickly redirected the conversation and told me he had just the opportunity for me, and we literally started the company right there and then on the back of a napkin. 

That fateful day was around 2 years ago.  We spent all of 2010 building out the platform and putting things in place with key partners of ours like uSamp and the former Opinionology team.  We launched in March of last year.  Traction has been good.  We have worked with 100 or so clients already with a good mix of those on the brand side, and a lot of agencies.  We are incredibly heartened by this progress, and have a new product coming out in the first quarter which we think will help us really accelerate the adoption cycle.  2012 is off to a good start and we are expecting to have a great year.

LFM: I had no idea you were a VC! That brings up an interesting question. In my experience VCs have stayed away from the MR sector, although certainly there seems to be more convergence now driven by the mobile/social data booms. What attracted you to this space, and do you think there is an opportunity to engage the investment community in new ways to help fund the development of new MR offerings? 

MW: The thing that attracted me was the white space that existed.  Historically, the VC investment community hasn’t been attracted to the MR industry because much of the MR industry has been services-based — and that is not typically an exciting business model for VCs.  Given that, the MR industry isn’t crowded from a technology perspective like other B2B sectors.  The shift in funding you noted is that the new opportunities tend to be technology platforms that have the opportunity to scale.  If you look at the primary market research industry, there isn’t a huge technology platform that dominates the way a salesforce.com does in the CRM industry for example.  Like most promising markets, there will be a proliferation of vendors at first, but it will consolidate over time.  Clients don’t want to manage myriad vendors at the end of the day.  They want one or two partners they can rely on to do most of their work.  

LFM: Based on data that we’ve been collecting as part of the GreenBook Research Industry Trends study on methodology use and emerging technique adoption, I am convinced that that 2011 was the “tipping point” for a variety of new approaches, including online qual, for largely the same reasons you cited. That certainly seems to indicate that 2012 will be a big growth year for firms like Gutcheck, but I think it also means that the competitive set is going to grow exponentially. As you move further along the market maturation curve, how do you plan to continue to stay ahead of the new entrants, many of whom will be trying to leapfrog you from a tech standpoint?

MW: The high-level answer is that we plan on staying true to our vision of making online qualitative research accessible to brands of all sizes.  In practice, that means making online qualitative very easy to use.  I think the tipping point you refer to is going to be one of exponentially more experimentation.  Experimentation will lead to repeat usage only if the the product promise is fulfilled.  It is one thing to talk about making online qualitative quicker, more affordable, and easy.  It is much different to actually fulfill on that promise.  So for us, staying ahead of that curve is working at fulfilling that promise every day.  If we do that, we are given the opportunity to start a dialogue with our customers.  That dialogue mapped to our organizational capabilities will drive our innovation forward. 

A good example of this is a new product we will be launching called Instant Research Communities (IRC).  We start beta testing next week with a group of customers.  I’ll let your mind wander on what this is, but the IRC concept grew out of dialogue we have created with our initial group of customers.  Once they were able to see what on-demand qualitative could do for them in a 1 on 1 setting, they instinctively were able to apply that capability to other uses — which is the catalyst for our innovation process. 

Finally, we plan on staying ahead of the curve by focusing.  Our customers are asking for a lot from a new product perspective.  They realize the capabilities of social, mobile and online in general are quite powerful.  There are a lot of companies that get in trouble by chasing the shiny object du jour.  We’ll stay ahead by sticking with what we are good at, and having the prudence to leave some opportunities for others where we know we don’t have a competitive edge.

LFM: IRC sounds pretty darn intriguing! I had also heard that you were exploring various mobile approaches so what’s next for Gutcheck? What can you tell us about your new product offerings coming down the pike?

MW: Like most product launches, we expect to get a lot of feedback on our IRCs, so I think we’ll be spending plenty of time in the near future implementing some of that feedback.  We also have a lot other ideas we want to build into IRCs after they are launched, so we’ll be pretty focused on that product for awhile.

In terms of our roadmap, we look at the world in a few different dimensions.  What are the applications are customers are asking us for?  What can we do on the recruitment front to make our customers’ lives easier?  How do enabling technologies like social, mobile, gamification, and video impact the first two areas, and how do we leverage constructs from these areas to move the needle in our applications.  To be specific, we will be working hard on weaving some or all of those enabling technologies and constructs into our IRC product.   

LFM: What’s your vision of the future of the broader market research space? How do you see things shaking out over the next few years in terms of the value proposition and positioning of the industry?  

MW: I wish I had that crystal ball.  We are obviously betting on more and more clients moving their qualitative projects online, and when they do, they’ll care about three things.  They’ll care about the quality insights they receive; how much it cost them to gain those insights (both from a hard and soft cost standpoint); and how long it took to get answers.  These are timeless currencies in my mind that aren’t changing.  Those who are well positioned against those currencies will succeed. 

LFM: This has been great Matt, thank you. Let’s wrap with some sage advice for our readers. As a serial entrepreneur and investor, any words of wisdom that you can impart to others who may be looking at trying to get their own visions made into a reality?

MW: First, don’t do it on your own.  Find a good partner or partners who you really respect, who compliment your skills, and who you enjoy being around.  Being an entrepreneur can be incredibly lonely if you are trying to do something yourself, and it is hard to get through valleys if you don’t have some good partners around you.  Second, don’t hide your idea.  The reality is someone else probably is thinking the same thing.  You need as much feedback from as many smart people as possible as quickly as possible to make sure what you want to build matters.  The idea is 10% of the game, and the execution is 90%.  After that, enjoy the ride.

LFM: Thanks for your time Matt, this has been great and I hope you’ll keep me abreast of the new products you’re rolling out. Best of luck to you!

MW: Thanks for having me Lenny, this was fun.