New Methods and Resolutions for 2014

New Methods and Resolutions for 2014

Versta Research’s winter newsletter comes out next week, which will focus on some new approaches to faster (and cheaper) market research.  In the meantime we have been thinking a good deal about where to invest in new methods and innovation during the coming year so that we continue to make our work better and smarter…

Versta Research Post

Polling Group Gives Nod to Online Surveys

The purists in the polling industry who have always insisted that only probability sampling is valid may finally be accepting that their methods are dead. This is one happy conclusion I draw from the debate over AAPOR’s recent task force report on non-probability sampling, which is nicely summarized (and debated) as the lead article of…

Versta Research Post

The Best Statistics Software

 There was a recent online discussion among colleagues who are active in the American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) about experiences with and recommendations for survey analysis and statistics software.  Many noted that traditional commercial software is getting extremely expensive, but that newer options do not always have the same capabilities that many of…

Versta Research Post

Big Question for Big Data: Does It Work?

The New York Times Magazine ran a feature article in June implying that big data and quantitative algorithms are the secret of how Obama won the election.  The young, technologically-savvy “Obama-wonks” who toiled in “the cave” writing thousands of lines of computer code, took advantage of huge repositories of data from the likes of Facebook…