This Month
March 2010
This month sees the start of a series of podcasts with leading market research thinkers which Surinder Siama asked me to co-host with him. You can find them on Researchtalk. Pat Molloy CSO of Confirmit and Siamack Salari the ethnographer talked to us about applications they have built for the Iphone. What was so interesting about this discussion was the polarisation between a professional using a consumer platform to distribute a research product. And another developing software which would generate him income and force him to keep pace with his customers even if none of them ever used it for research! Many companies are now switching to using tools which their customer are using for all sorts of reasons. And one of the benefits is that they will actually pay you for them! What apart from your products are your customers already paying for and using which you could use to market to them more effectively?
Cloud of Knowing taking shape..
The annual Market Research Society conference is taking place in 3 weeks time. And I am due to give a paper on The Cloud of Knowing project which has been gathering pace since last year. We have just had our second meeting which was dominated by discussion of research robots - used to draw in people on social media platforms. It is one of the more controversial examples I shall be referencing. Because you're not supposed to research people without telling them what you're doing. Quite apart from telling them that the individual they are 'following' isn't even human! But the conventional command and control language of 20th century marketing with brand 'owners', customers and research responders is starting to look more than a little dated. Ethical guidelines drawn up for mass marketing aren't very helpful. One of the ideas I shall be suggesting is that CRM is a much better place to start research from now. Because you don't need to keep asking the same basic questions about who they are and how much of your product they use. Because you ought to know. And it should be easy to put research questions on top of that which are more natural and which are more interesting for them to answer. Invasive market research isn't done for yet but I believe it will become less relevant as we find organic ways to talk to our customers more or less continuously. Next month I can tell you how the paper was received.
I should also mention that there will once again be a Research Liberation Front fringe event at the conference. This year our theme is art - we are asking research agencies to exhibit objects coming out of research which they consider have artistic value. We intend to exhibit these in a nearby gallery where the works can be viewed. We have even found an art critic to come and rate the work! Just search for the Research Liberation Front for more details.
Idea of the month: Co-creativity & Co-opportunity
Remember that this year I have opted to share big useful ideas instead of books or websites. Instead of books and websites. Cocreation is about using the imagination and enterprise of your customers to develop your products and your communications. Proctor & Gamble do it now. IBM use LINUX an open source software system to deliver their services. Walkers got far more publicity by asking their customers to create a new flavour than they could ever have afforded. How could you get your customers more involved? John Grant who I have interviewed a number of times has a new book out called Co-opportunity. Which I haven't read - so that isn't a book review then! But on John's past form I bet its good.
Upandcoming
I'm running in and out of peoples' homes this month doing research. And back to Romania to run a few day's training. Plenty of space in the latter half of the month if you have a project you would like to discuss.