Research 2.0

Today I browsed on Facebook and ended up joining the Research 2.0 network. The first question on the discussion board was "what is Research 2.0". I gave it some thought and posted my reply: In short the Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 is

Web 2.0 refers to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users.

It describes Marketing 2.0 as Marketing 2.0 is a natural outgrowth of Web 2.0 as it refers to the transformation of marketing resulting from the network effect of the Internet. It represents a dramatic shift in marketing to account for customers researching and buying goods and services independent of advertising and marketing campaigns and messages. So taking the above into account, (Market) Research 2.0 could be defined as:

(Market) Research 2.0 refers to the second generation of market research where market information is systematically gathered, recorded and analysed making use of web-based communities and hosted services. Research 2.0 aims at engaging respondents with interview techniques that facilitate creativity, collaboration and sharing of information.

Since the term has not been defined in Wikipedia, I took the opportunity and started the Research 2.0 page. To my dissappointment I noticed that they did not want to accept the term because it was seen as unremarkable neologism.

What you say?

Going Mixed-Mode

For the fourth year the provider of market research software Confirmit has conducted a survey among research companies: "The 2007 Confirmit Annual Market Research Software Survey". According to the report, two-fifths of MR companies offer mixed-mode research as part of their offering: a substantial minority. In revenue terms, this remains a very thin slice of revenues. But the survey detects an upward swing in demand for multimodal data collection capabilities by research software buyers: almost half (49%) now demand ‘parallel’ mixed-mode capabilities. However, demand has remained flat for the more complex real-time switching kinds of multimodal data collection, which is clearly still a highly specialised activity. The reasons for mixed-mode research are many, see the graph below. The top two cited are research quality and methodology reasons – response and sample coverage. Reducing fieldwork costs was third in popularity as a reason, it is in fifth place as a ‘main reason’, overtaken by requirement from the client and being able to offer a more respondent-friendly method. The key findings and report can be downloaded from their site confirmit.com or by clicking here.

What is del.ico.us?

I noticed a comment to my previous post. Thanks for your question! One of the many great things about my job is digging into all that is new and web 2.0. I agree, it’s all great, and it’s extra-great when someone creates something that’s extra-special and I get to use it to make all of our lives easer. So this is to you Anonymous and for all of you who struggle to explain Social Bookmarking to your family and colleagues: Social Bookmarking in Plain English

Why You Should Be Life Hacking

The Internet continues to cause quite some stress for market researchers. We all know it's influencing data-collection, the competitive research landscape, quality of results, and next to the every day tasks, we need to keep up with the latest developments on top! The latest buzz word is Life Haking: should you be doing that? UK tech guru Danny O'Brien coined the term at a 2004 technology conference (the same conference where he also introduced the term "Web 2.0" it refers to the shortcut solutions for routine but time-consuming problems. And that's what we like to do: avoid time consuming problems...! I hear you think "don't I already have enough things on my mind? I don't have time to read the relevant blogs, listen to Podcasts, be in Second Life and still do research for my clients!" But don't worry: Lifehacking is all about making your (online) life easier. It helps you to focus on what things to read and what to skip. So here are two simple things you can start doing today as MR professional? Google Alerts You could start by creating Google Alerts on any of your key-account clients by combining multiple search items. I have a daily alert on "Synovate"+"online market research" to make sure I get all relevant press releases in my inbox. Del.icio.us Are you still saving your favorite web pages in your Internet browser? So how do you access your favorite research sites in the week end when you have them on your desktop computer at work? Try open an account at del.icio.us account and start saving your bookmarks online! Del.icio.us is a social bookmarking website - the primary use of del.icio.us is to store your bookmarks online, which allows you to access the same bookmarks from any computer and add bookmarks from anywhere, too. On del.icio.us, you can use tags to organise and remember your bookmarks, which is a much more flexible system than folders on your desktop computer! I can add you to my network on del.icio.us and by doing so you'll have access to all my bookmarks too!

Synovate's View of the Future

Synovate has a fun clip on YouTube illustrating their Online service / approach / function. The cartoon left Ray Poynter of the Future Place worried by some of the imagery of what is being offered (see his post). He thinks the use of the robot in the video implies that the future is rather a long way off, and avatars might have seemed more current since he things the robots looked quite old fashioned, perhaps designed by somebody who watched their TV in the 80s or early 90s. What do you think?