The next time you find yourself wishing for a kinder, gentler manager or business client to work for, think again. This may be the kind of client who will not make the best use of your research, which for most researchers is one of the most depressing outcomes of all. That is what a fascinating…
Is it true that a survey respondent can race through a survey, giving identical high or low ratings on all questions, and still provide valid data? Absolutely, which is why we argue against coaching respondents to give “more thoughtful” and varied answers when filling out surveys. In fact, our post last week (Don’t Stop Your…
Maybe you got one of these printed notes from a cashier at Walmart, like I did: $1000 You can win a $1000 Gift Card and we can improve your shopping experience! Please follow the instructions on your receipt. “9” is NOT fine… We’re focused on an excellent experience. Please give us a “10” when we’ve…
As we put the finishing touches on our recently produced video introduction to Versta Research (see the video below!), I kept wondering whether videos really matter. I don’t jump on bandwagons without strong reasons to believe the wagons are going where I want. So it was a happy coincidence to come across research just published…
Or, at least, design thinking should be invading your market research, because it is invading the brains of business executives. The New York Times describes IBM as being on a mission to hire 1,500 design school graduates, and embedding them in all of its product teams. The Harvard Business Review published an issue in September…
Market research almost always relies (or should rely) on U.S. Census data. The data are rigorous, reliable, and fundamentally important to every business, not-for-profit, and government body in the United States. So if you get a package that looks like this, as a neighbor did last week, here is what you should do: Open it…
I’ve never been a huge fan of talking about generations like Baby Boomers, Gen Xers, or Millennials. Age differences make sense to me. But the dividing lines between “generations” commonly used in the media and in our industry seem so arbitrary. In fact, those dividing lines put me in the same generation as my aunts…
Suppose you asked me to bid on a research project, and I told you the cost would be $30,000. It’s an easy, rounded number. Probably too easy and too rounded. You would think “Where did he come up with that? Did he just make it up? Does Versta Research charge $30,000 for every project, even…
Getting research used is one of the toughest challenges market research professionals face. And we all agree (at least I hope we do) that it’s the most important part of what we do. It matters that the internal consumers of our work are actually using it. That we’ve turned data into stories that are understood.…
Try as we might, most of us are guilty of cramming too much data into our research reports and presentations. But why is this so bad? Can’t we help the reader along with executive summaries and a concise narrative in headlines, and all the extra stuff pushed into appendices? Why not offer details and high…