Ever wonder what all those big data companies, who make tons of money selling information about you, actually know? With newly heightened concerns about data privacy, some companies will finally give you a peek. And it’s not too impressive. Maybe it’s good enough for mass marketing, but for those of us in research who sometimes…
As a citizen and voter, I am appalled to learn that our government routinely spies on the phone and digital communications of ordinary people and businesses and now harasses the journalists who are bringing it to our attention. And as a business owner in the market research industry, I am deeply concerned that government spying…
Dilbert could have read one of many articles over the last two decades about employee satisfaction and engagement. There is an abundant literature on (1) how to define, conceptualize, and measure employee engagement, (2) how employee engagement drives business outcomes and improves profitability, and (3) the social-psychological antecedents of employee engagement, like the “sense of…
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…
I usually feel guilty when returning merchandise to a store—like some over-indulged child, ungrateful for what he has, or unwilling to finish all the nutritious food on his plate. But recent research shows that if people like me can get over the guilt, companies actually make more money from us. How does that work? Research…
Want to stay at the very top of your professional game and gain a significant edge over competitors? Want to dazzle colleagues with real insights that nobody else is yet discussing? Look no further than the Ivory Tower. Throughout the year our academic colleagues are producing a treasure trove of ideas and knowledge based on…
As market researchers pay more and more attention to the need for compelling data visualizations, Hans Rosling’s work with interactive data is becoming a catalyst for a fascinating new type of data visualization: animated statistical graphs. He uses them to show world social and economic trends over time, and the effect is exceptionally powerful. Here…
A few years back, some researchers were predicting that social media would cause a seismic shift in how we conduct brand research, customer satisfaction tracking, innovation research, and so on. Others were not so sure, arguing that the fundamentals of data collection and analysis will always be the same. Both sides were represented on a…
I rarely miss the world of academia after having jumped ship twelve years ago, but one thing I always appreciated was that teaching involved distilling ideas down to their simplest and most essential form. Students often led the way for me, asking questions that forced me to clarify, deepen, and condense. So it was again…
It is hard to find an appropriate use for Google Surveys, because, as we outlined in a review article last fall, its capabilities are limited. But last week we needed a quick incidence test of how many U.S. adults own a certain type of investment product. Google Surveys seemed perfect. It was not fast, by…