The world's biggest small research company

I have asked myself before if big research firms can act small (see the post here), and back than, I already was convinced we could. As we all are here at Synovate. Now here's some corporate Synovate arguments I simply have to share:

Synovate's new corporate video! And make sure to not miss the final 15 seconds.... here it is, I think it's great:

Well there you had the original and official corporate video. But wait, there's more: the outtakes! Will they start a fight? Check for yourself, and do mind the final 20 seconds or so....:

Market Researchers to Follow on Twitter

There are all sorts of ways to find relevant people to follow on Twitter, but what better way than to use your network and share with all other researchers which Market Researchers are worth a follow on Twitter?

So as of today I am compiling a long-list of research professionals who you could follow, should you be on Twitter.

Now, of course this doesn't mean everyone below tweets about research 24/7, what you can expect though is that everyone on the list below is up for a chat about research and they're nice considerate people. They give out great links and aren't too fussed if you amble down the personal-interest lane once and a while.

Drop me a line if you want someone added, but please mind the following; the list should contain:

• Actual market researcher professionals, I mean real people (so no organisations or companies like @Toluna or @TNS);
• People who mainly twitter in English language; and
• Those who mostly tweet about market / marketing research

Your nominations can be sent to my via Twitter: @emiel1 or send an e-mail or leave a comment below.

Here is the list (last updated: 26 April 2009 - 17:36 GMT)

• @alisonmacleod - UK - Researcher - Following 49 and 36 followers - 1st tweet: July 2008
• @berniceklaassen - Singapore - Head of TNS Interactive in Singapore - Following 126 and 79 followers - 1st tweet: November 2008
• @ccsavage - UK - Christopher Savage - Researcher - Following 458 and 381 followers - 1st tweet: December 2008
• @comerpatrick - USA - Patrick Comer SVP business development at OTX - Following 71 and 106 followers - 1st tweet: April 2008
• @communispaceceo - USA - Diane Hessan - CEO of Communispace a Research Community Software Provider - Following 2112 and 2603 followers - 1st tweet: April 2008
• @cristi_popa - Qualitative Researcher at Yellow Submarine research - Following 535 and 252 Followers - 1st tweet: October 2008
• @curiouslyp - UK - Simon Kendrick - Researcher at Essential Research and previously worked at ITV and GfK NOP Media - following 234 and 244 followers - 1st tweet: Nov 2006
• @duey23 - USA - Brian LoCicero - Director Client Relations - Kantar Operations - Following 63 and 46 followers - 1st tweet: June 2008
• @emiel1 - Netherlands - Emiel van Wegen - Researcher at Synovate - most tweets are in English - most tweets are Research 2.0 related - following 395 and 515 followers - 1st tweet: November 2007
• @ericsalama - Following 33 and 425 followers - 1st tweet: February 2009
• @insightsgal - USA - Researcher - Works for a tradeshow and publishing company - Following 531 and 468 followers - 1st tweet: August 2007
• @jeffreypeel - UK - Managing Director Quadriga Market Research and Communications Consultancy - Following 322 and 203 followers - March 2009
• @jennibeattie - Australia - Director at Digital Democracy - Following 365 and 377 followers - May 2007
• @jhenning - USA - Jeffrey Henning - Vovici - Geek since before Geeks were Chic - tweets focus on research communities and customer feedback - Following 1132 and 948 Followers - 1st tweet: July 2008
• @joelrubinson - USA - Chief Research Officer at the ARF - Following 632 and 574 followers - 1st tweet: September 2008
• @john_clay_r4 - UK - market research consultant specialising in energy - Following 375 and 314 followers - 1st tweet: October 2008
• @johngriffiths7 - UK - Researcher - Following 60 and 181 Followers - 1st tweet: June 2007
• @katetribe - Australia - Quantitative Researcher Tribe Research- Following 869 and 867 Followers - 1st tweet: October 2007
• @kumeugirl - Singapore - Lee Ryan - Qualitative Director AP, LATAM, Middle East and Africa at TNS - tweets about ethnography and qual - Following 146 and 128 followers - 1st tweet: January 2009
• @lovestats - USA - Annie Pettit - Statistician and Researcher and active blogger on MR - former VP Online Panel Analytics at Ipsos - Following 1873 and 1151 followers - 1st tweet: January 2009
• @mattrhodes - UK - Works at Fresh Networks - specializes in online communities and social media - Following 2155 and 2027 followers - 1st tweet: March 2008
• @mikemacleod - USA - Market Researcher at Lightspeed, previously at Harris Interactive - Following 1693 and 1908 followers - 1st tweet: May 2007
• @montenegror - USA - Multifaceted Market Researcher at Black Mountain - Following 314 and 229 Followers - January 2009
• @mrheretic - Market Research Deathwatch - an anonymous tweeter - mostly cynical but interesting pov on the MR industry - Following 37 and 96 followers - 1st tweet: January 2009
• @ogaudemar - USA - Olivier de Gaudemar - SVP Online Community at OTX - Following 138 and 268 followers - 1st tweet: December 2006
• @paulbanas - USA - so far the one and only representation of the client-side, Paul is a market researcher at Kraft Foods - Following 95 and 66 followers - 1st tweet: January 2008
• @raypoynter - UK - Director at the Future Place - frequent speaker at MR conferences on Market Research 2.0 and winner of ESOMAR best paper award - following 136 and 187 followers - 1st tweet: December 2007
• @researchrants - another anonymous researcher and partner in crime of @mrheretic - blogs frequently about Greenfield - in a glass half empty way - new tweeter and most tweets are on MR - Following 32 and 146 followers - 1st tweet: March 2009
• @researchrocks - USA - Kathryn Korostoff - Research Entrepreneur and founder of Research Rockstar, a market research training company and new on Twitter - Following 42 and 84 followers - 1st tweet: February 2009
• @rscionti - USA - Richard Scionti - Global CTO for Harris Interactive and former SVP Solution Services at TNS - Following 145 and 175 followers - 1st tweet: December 2008
• @tomewing - UK - Social Media Knowledge Leader at Kantar Ops - 297 and 405 Followers - 1st Tweet - June 2008
• @tomderuyck - Belgium - Connected Research Manager - Insites Consulting -Following 152 and 160 followers - 1st tweet: October 2007
• @tomhcanderson - USA - Tom Anderson - next generation researcher and former employee of TNS NFO - Following 948 and 672 followers - 1st tweet: October 2007
• @vincenthofmann - South-Africa - Qualitative Researcher at Submarine former employee at Synovate - Tweets on all different topics, but also on MR - Following 416 and 522 followers - 1st tweet: October 2008
• @zebrabites - Australia - Qualitative research director at Zebra - Following 372 and 639 Followers - 1st tweet: June 2008

Looking towards 2009+

First and foremost: all the best wishes for 2009 for you and your loved ones! It's that time of the year again: my Reader is full of good posts on the trends for this year and beyond. Last year, I had a post on the technologies that may reshape our Industry, find it here. Now I have to honest: I've been struggling with the 2009 trends. Only because of the Dutch blog molblog.nl did I come across the trend maps of Ross Dawson. He already posted the last version before Christmas, but hey, should you not have seen this before, take a look! Ross and his team made similar trend maps for 2007 and 2008 and now there is the Trend Blend map for 2009+. You can also click on the picture above to download the original pdf version ...

I like it how they added the Red Herrings and the Global Risks, in fact, I particularly like the risk of "People taking trend maps too seriously"

;-)

So maybe I won't come up with my own trends this year, and I'll simply take the best of Ross and the rest... How do you see the Industry evolve in 2009?

v2.0 of Market Research 2.0

Another year has gone by and 2009 is around the corner.  

Colin Stein Director of Marketing at ResponseTek made me aware of the fact that whenever you google for "market research 2.0" my post of a year ago still pops-up first.  So he asked quite rightly in a comment: 

...has the Market Research 2.0 discussion not been followed up by further discussion? 

Hasn't it? 

He continues in his comment: 

... The legacy of market research is one of batch-based results, organizational silos of information, and executive analysis with little or no connection to the front-line. Your definition opens up the idea of research to the community, and the use of contemporary tools to enable real-time insight collection and knowledge sharing...

So what has changed over the past 12 months.  Well, Collin does give some insight into the answer:

 ... customer experience management and enterprise feedback management software [...] has forced an acknowledgement of the validity of customer feedback as primary data.  

He's quite right!  And much to my delight he adds a prediction for 2009 

... I suspect large organizations will start to see that there actually is something called Market Research 2.0 to embrace and endorse. 

In my original post of  November 2007  I expressed my disappointment  about how at that time Wikipedia decided that the definition I added to Wikipedia had to be removed since it was an "unremarkable neologism ",  Collin's comment almost made me repost it again, but he ends by asking the question which actually needs no answer:   ...do we need Wikipedia's permission first...?

Let me -- in a next post -- digg into what 2009 may bring us.  Until that post, send me a mail or post a comment if you have ideas on what 2009 will bring to the Market Research industry.

Trend for 2009: Mapamania

Yep, it's the end of the year again, time to start thinking of what is ahead.

Trendwatching.com just posted half a dozen of trends for 2009, including what they call MapaMania.   The post explains how they wonder if 2009 will be the year in which all things ‘contextual’, ‘app’, ‘local’, ‘urban’, 'tags', 'lidar', ‘smartphone’, ‘convenience’, 'Cell ID', ‘spontaneity’, ‘infolust’, and ‘GPS’ come together in one orgasmic celebration of map-based tracking, finding, knowing and connecting? 

This brings me back to my previous post on Location Based Survey and on the iPhone and market research.   Will 2009 be the year in which market research will actually start working towards location based surveys?   But if we just think a bit further on how this may impact our industry, let’s just remember that a future version of the iPhone will most definitively be a transmitter for the Global Positioning System (GPS). This will offer researchers the opportunity to exploit the user’s physical location and link this to mobile survey data. This will than offer researchers an opportunity to conduct “point of exposure” data collection centred on event tracking: Track the respondent's proximity to outdoor advertising, allowing effectiveness research, probing for recall, etc. The accuracy and precision will only become much greater in the next few years.

Embraced by eager consumer masses who will flock to anything from friend-finders to lowest-gas-price-locators? Aided by services that already know which street users are on?

Nokias expect half of their handsets to be GPS enabled by 2010-2012).  MapQuests, Navteqs, and TomToms of this world continue to build the necessary infrastructure, devices and apps, any market research company would be stupid not to be partnering or experimenting with these map-based services. 

Why? Geography is about everything that is (literally) close to consumers, and it's a universally familiar method of organizing, finding and tracking relevant information on objects, events and people. And now that superior geographical information is accessible on-the-go, from in-car navigation to iPhones, the sky is the limit.

So to conclude the future of market research will undoubtedly bring a new reality:

• in which the “portable Internet” will provide researchers with more timely, comprehensive and accurate recall of consumer experience, and
• in which the combination of consumer and product data with occasion-based event information will provide a new way of data collection.

Are you fighting the internal Community battle?

Whenever you are working in a market research firm which has proprietary online panels, you may very well be working on an internal project right now trying to mover your online consumer panels to a more Web 2.0 sustainable environment: towards research communities, not plain panels.

You may encounter some internal resistance or perhaps road blocks and you may need a lot of energy and time to convert those who are not as up to speed on Web 2.0 as you are.  Should this apply, but probably also simply for those who are working on a business case on research communities I found a great training.  Today I came across a presentation by Joshua Rosh, VP of O'Reilly's InPractice in which he offers hands-on advice on how to start-up social technologies in your company.  His webcast basically is a field guide to bringing social technologies into any organization. The webcast will explore how to: 

1. Make the case: how to bring Web 2.0 concepts into your organization (including convincing upper management)
2. Fail Forward Fast: how to create effective pilot programs without losing your head (or your job)
3. Spread the gospel: The key ingredients that make a successful Web 2.0 evangelist

Based on direct consulting experience, and with plenty of hands-on examples Joshua needs 40 minutes to share the do's and don'ts for all of you out there who are thinking to introduce social community services to your panels.  It's not focussed on our industry, but I think you'll get the idea and will easily be able to mirror the general best-practices and apply them to your research company.   After the 40 minute presentation, there is a 20 minute Q&A session. 

LinkedIn to Provide B2B Sample

In case you missed the latest Daily Research News on MrWeb, yesterday they posted an article about LinkedIn.

You can find the original here.

It comes down to LinkedIn's initiative to provide a primary research service to help market researchers gain market intelligence from their database of more than 30 million members. By searching on any combination of qualifications, company, industry, title, expertise and keywords, clients will be able to profile industry experts who meet specific criteria.

‘LinkedIn overcomes quality and authenticity issues that other sample providers face,’ said Dan Shapero, Director of Business Services, LinkedIn.

I've seen Shapero asking for ideas on some of the groups onLinkedIn (like the Market Research Professional Group). He started discussions with his question on how LinkedIn can help researchers to be more effective. 'We'd really appreciate any thoughts that you have on using LinkedIn to reach B2B sample to conduct market research , to collaborate with researchers and to share best practices ' He explains.

Well I must say he's giving us the perfect example on how to use that professional social network!

The ResearchClub - Amsterdam

The Research Club is an open social event ( a real-one, not a virtual one !) for anyone involved in the market research industry. A free event to make new contacts, develop business opportunities and keep up to date with the latest industry developments.

With events held in London, Amsterdam and Hamburg, it is a way to meet with like-minded research professionals and an opportunity to create and maintain your own national and international networks - all within an informal setting whilst enjoying some drinks and finger-food.

For the Dutch readers: Amsterdam's next event is on Thursday October 9th in Amsterdam (in Café De Jaren). Anyone working in the Market Research Industry can join -- feel free to bring a colleague! For more information or to see pictures of the April "borrel" in Amsterdam, visit their site. See you there!

Market Research 2.0 -- the companies who do, and who don't...

Yesterday I attended the 4th annual online market research conference "Research 2.0" of the MRS in London. Extremely relevant content was shared, and there was one thing I realised in the plane on may way back home: Some great multinationals like BBC, easyJet, Unilever and Coca-Cola presented their approaches and uses of the tools the new web has to offer. Some great small market research agencies -- I guess niche-players and mainly UK focussed-- shared their relevant and interesting insights. So all in all it was very worth while being there. But where were the big global research agencies...?

The changing competitive field of MR

Today my reader explodes with posts on Google's new internet browser: Chrome. It reminds me of a thought I had regarding the changing competitive field of Market Research. Last spring, at the announcement of Google acquiring DoubleClick, I immediately thought of that other company that DoubleClick acquired: TangoZebra. Tangozebra claims to be the leading online advertising solutions provider in the UK and their response unit is in charge of providing online research solutions. Just take a quick look at their gallery, and you'll see what it is they do. But more importantly: you'll see where Google is heading! Now mind you: DoubleClick itself enables Google already with a strong behavioral targeting system to improve advertising efficiency. I wonder:

"Would these type of companies replace (part of) the need for traditional MR...?"

Anyhow, like I already concluded here, the MR industry will not like anything like today, and I gues the point I am trying to make is: Every now and than, organisations like EFAMRO, CASRO, ARF and ESOMAR try to forecast the industry's revenue growth, yet they don't usually include the new companies who are new to the industry. Generally, I see three type of new entrants who we simply loose track off (but shouldn't, clearly) :

1. MR companies who simply are not a member of industry organisations: e.g. Comscore or Gallup ...
2. Market Research 2.0 companies, either still independent, (Compete, Communispace...) or already taken over (AC Nielsen's Buzzmetrics, TNS' Cymphony...)
3. New Niche players (sometimes part of big companies) Experian's Hitwise, Google's TangoZebra, , ComScore's M:Metrics ...

The number new players in the MR field is dramatically increasing. New entrants and substitutes are becoming a major force of change, there are many players are out there… some big and well-known, others smaller.

Our competitive arena is rapidly getting tighter and tougher!