MRIA Vue November 2010

the magazine of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association N OVE M B E R 2010

Brad to the Future Interview with Brad

Feld

What’s All the Buzz about Professional Development and Certification?

2011 and MCP Are around the Corner. Are You Ready?

Handling Small Survey Sample Sizes and Skewed Data Sets with PLS Path Modelling

A Conversation about MRIA’s Online Courses, with Dr. Carmen Sicilia of McGill University

NOVEMBER 2010

vue VUE MAGAZINE IS PUBLISHED BY THE MARKETING RESEARCH AND INTELLIGENCE ASSOCIATION ELEVEN TIMES A YEAR

COMMENTARY 6 8 10

Editor’s Vue President’s Letter Message from the Executive Director ADDRESS The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing

SPECIAL FEATURE 12

INTERVIEW WITH BRAD FELD A managing director of Foundry Group talks about rapidly evolving technologies, their impact on market research, and the challenge of proliferating data.

by David Hamburg

FEATURES 16

20

24

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WHAT’S ALL THE BUZZ ABOUT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND CERTIFICATION? MRIA’s Institute for Professional Development draws on the expertise of MRIA members, offers excellent, accessible education, and encourages professional development. Why? To ensure that quality prevails in our industry.

by Jeannette Bellerose HANDLING SMALL SURVEY SAMPLE SIZES AND SKEWED DATA SETS WITH PARTIAL LEAST SQUARE PATH MODELLING An emerging multivariate analysis approach offers an alternative methodology when there’s little available theory, correct model specification cannot be ensured, and predictive accuracy is paramount.

by Ken Kwong-Kay Wong A CONVERSATION ABOUT MRIA'S ONLINE COURSES, WITH DR. CARMEN SICILIA OF MCGILL UNIVERSITY A director at McGill’s Centre for Continuing Education talks about professional development, partnership with MRIA, and the role of social media in the future of education.

by Anne Marie Gabriel 2011 AND MCP ARE AROUND THE CORNER. ARE YOU READY? MRIA’s manager of Professional Development and Certification tells us how the new maintenance of certification program system will work.

by Fania Borok

INDUSTRY NEWS 30 32 34

People & Companies in the News Basic Education: The Field Management Group Q&A from the Professional Development and Certification Coordinator

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT 34

Education Courses

COLUMNISTS 40

B2B REPORTER

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CI CORNER

by David Lithwick and Enrico Codogno

by Ruth Lukaweski 41

THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION

by Ruth M. Corbin

44

THE INNOVATION ACCELERATOR

by Margaret Imai-Compton

42

NEW STANDARDS

by Donald Williams

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CLIENT-SIDE INSIGHTS

by Ron Silverton

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QUAL COL

by Ken LeClair

2600 Skymark Avenue, Bldg. 4, Unit 104 Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5B2 Tel: (905) 602-6854 Toll Free: 1-888-602-MRIA (6742) Fax: (905) 602-6855 Email: vue@mria-arim.ca Website: www.mria-arim.ca PRODUCTION: LAYOUT/DESIGN LS Graphics Tel: (905) 743-0402, Toll Free: 1-800-400-8253 Fax: (905) 728-3931 Email: info@lsgraphics.com CONTACTS CHAIR, PUBLICATIONS Stephen Popiel, PhD Senior Vice-President, Synovate Motoresearch Tel: (416) 964-6262 stephen.popiel@synovate.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF David Hamburg, Hamburg Consulting (514) 748-1827 david.hamburg@sympatico.ca MANAGING EDITOR Anne Marie Gabriel, MRIA amgabriel@mria-arim.ca COPY EDITOR Siegfried Betterman 2010 ADVERTISING RATES Frequent advertisers receive discounts. Details can be found by going to: www.mria-arim.ca Please email vue@mria-arim.ca to book your ad.

The deadline for notice of advertising is the first of the previous month.

All advertising material must be at the MRIA office on the 5th of the month.

Original articles and Letters to the Editor are welcome.

Materials will be reviewed by the Vue Editorial Team.

If accepted for publication, they may be edited for length or clarity and placed in the electronic archives on the MRIA website.

The opinions and conclusions expressed in Vue are those of the authors and are not necessarily endorsed by the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association.

Publishing Date: November, 2010 © 2010.

All rights reserved. Copyright rests with the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association or the author.

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association or the author.

All requests for permission for reproduction must be submitted to MRIA at publications@mria-arim.ca.

RETURN UNDELIVERABLE CANADIAN ADDRESSES TO The Marketing Research and Intelligence Association L’Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing 2600 Skymark Avenue, Bldg 4, Unit 104, Mississauga, Ontario L4W 5B2 Canadian Publications Mail Agreement #40033932 ISSN 1488-7320

On the Cover (L to R): Jason Mendelson, Ryan McIntyre, Brad Feld, Seth Levine

CO M M E N TARY / COMMENTAIRE

Editor’s Vue David Hamburg

MRIA members are fortunate to be part of an association with such a strong focus on education. We can benefit from a wide array of offerings, including webinars, major events like Net Gain and the annual national conference, and the CMRP program – the crown jewel of all the learning initiatives.

In this issue, we explore some of these career-enhancing opportunities through Jeannette Bellerose’s convincing article extolling the value of CMRP certification and Fania Borok’s informative piece on the new Maintenance of Certification Program (MCP).

We then move into academia in Anne Marie Gabriel’s interview with McGill University’s Dr. Carmen Sicilia, who led the MRIA-McGill co-venture that developed our association’s online courses.

In line with Vue’s visit to the ivory tower, we bring you Dr. Ken Kwong-Kay Wong’s academic piece on partial least squares, which will surely find favour among our PhD crowd.

We take a breather from formal learning with real-world education on social gaming, evolving technologies, and their impact on market research, in this month’s special feature interview with Brad Feld, a managing director of Foundry Group, the esteemed venture capital firm with a portfolio of investments in 24 high-tech Internet-based companies, including Zynga, the number one social gaming company on the web.

No doubt, you’ll learn a lot by reading this month’s issue cover to cover. The beauty is that you won’t have to write an exam later on.

Until the next issue.

Les membres de l’ARIM ont la chance de faire partie d’une association si fortement axée sur la formation. Nous pouvons profiter d’un vaste éventail de programmes dont les webinaires, des événements importants tels que Net Gain et les conférences nationales annuelles, de même que du programme d’accréditation de PARM – le joyau de la couronne des initiatives en formation.

Dans ce numéro, nous explorons ces occasions de développement professionnel dans l’article convaincant de Jeannette Bellerose prônant la valeur de la désignation de PARM et l’article d’information de Fania Borok sur le nouveau programme de maintien de l'accréditation.

Nous passons ensuite à l’université avec une analyse d’Anne Marie Gabriel sur le développement des cours en ligne par l’initiative conjointe de l’ARIM et de McGill sous la direction de Carmen Sicilia, Ph.D., directrice des Études professionnelles et de gestion au Centre d'études permanentes de l’Université McGill.

Dans le cadre de la visite de Vue à la tour d’ivoire, nous vous offrons l’article savant du professeur Ken Kwong-Kay Wong, Ph.D., sur les méthodes des moindres carrés partiels, qui intéressera sûrement notre bande de docteurs.

Nous prenons une pause de la formation officielle en abordant la formation dans le monde réel sur la planification sociale, les technologies émergentes et leur impact sur le marché de la recherche dans notre entrevue de fond ce mois-ci avec Brad Feld, le directeur général de Foundry Group, la société très estimée de capital de risque dont le portefeuille d’investissements comprend 24 entreprises de haute technologie point-com, y compris Zynga, le top des entreprises de jeux de hasard sur le Web. Il n’y a pas de doute, vous en apprendrez beaucoup en lisant ce numéro du début à la fin. L’avantage supplémentaire est que vous n’aurez pas à passer un examen à la fin.

Au prochain numéro.

David Hamburg, Market Research Consultant, Hamburg Consulting Editor-in-Chief, Vue / Rédacteur en chef, Vue Email: david.hamburg@sympatico.ca • (514) 748-1827 • david_hamburg • http://davehamburg.blogspot.com

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Letter from the President Ed Gibson, CMRP

The role of market research companies in society is to provide a forum for input into commercial and government decisions; MRIA’s role is to enable companies to do this effectively and to preserve our franchise to continue to do so in the future. The association has three pillars supporting this overall platform: the publication of standards through which we can demonstrate our integrity; providing input to governments to ensure that our interests are properly represented; and the maintenance of the knowledge base that our individual practitioners embody. This issue of Vue focuses on the last pillar: the role of education in our industry.

We all benefit when the quality of our product and of our practitioners are universally seen to be high.

Our educational activities are threefold: offering ongoing seminars and conferences so that our practitioners can stay ahead of the latest trends in the industry; ensuring that our members with Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) designation maintain their level of professional expertise; and qualifying new entrants to our industry through a structured series of courses leading to eventual elevation to the CMRP designation. All of these initiatives are designed to preserve a high standard of competency and excellence within our industry, and to ensure that the credibility we have earned with suppliers, government and the general public is maintained. We all benefit when the quality of our product and of our practitioners are universally seen to be high.

Our recent initiatives in the education portfolio have concentrated on our structured courses (which lead to the CMRP). Historically, these have been delivered by a panel of experienced instructors who travelled the country to give courses where numbers warranted. Unfortunately, the availability of the instructors, the need for a minimum 8

vue November 2010

Le rôle des entreprises de recherche marketing au sein de la société consiste à offrir un forum pour participer aux décisions commerciales et gouvernementales; le rôle de l'ARIM consiste à habiliter la participation efficace des entreprises et à préserver notre franchise pour poursuivre notre rôle à l’avenir. L’ensemble de la plateforme de l’Association s’appuie sur trois piliers : la publication de normes permettant de démontrer notre intégrité, les commentaires que nous offrons aux gouvernements pour assurer que nos intérêts sont adéquatement représentés, et la préservation de la base de connaissances que représentent nos praticiens individuels. Ce numéro de Vue est axé sur le dernier pilier : le rôle de la formation dans notre industrie.

Nos activités pédagogiques sont triples : la prestation constante de séminaires et de conférences pour que nos praticiens puissent demeurer à l’avant-garde des plus récentes tendances au sein de l’industrie, l’application de mesures pour assurer que nos membres PARM maintiennent leur niveau d’expertise professionnelle, et la qualification de nouveaux arrivants dans notre industrie au moyen d’une série structurée de cours menant à l’accession éventuelle à la désignation de PARM. Toutes ces initiatives sont conçues pour préserver des normes élevées de compétence et d’excellence au sein de notre industrie et pour faire en sorte que la crédibilité que nous avons développée auprès de nos fournisseurs, des gouvernements et du public en général soit maintenue. Nous en profitons tous quand la qualité de nos produits et de nos praticiens est universellement reconnue comme étant élevée.

Les initiatives récentes de notre portefeuille de formation ont été axées sur nos cours structurels (menant à la désignation de PARM). Historiquement, un panel de chargés de cours expérimentés voyageait partout au pays pour donner les cours là où le nombre le justifiait. Malheureusement, la disponibilité des chargés de cours, la nécessité d’avoir un nombre minimal d’étudiants par cours et la géographie impressionnante du Canada agissaient tous contre l’accès aux cours requis là où on en avait besoin. Le conseil d’administration a donc décidé d’investir dans le

CO M M E N TARY / COMMENTAIRE

number of students per course, and Canada’s impressive geography all militated against our courses being made available as needed and where needed. The board of directors therefore decided to invest in the development of our own online courses – courses that can be delivered to anyone, anywhere; courses whose content the association owns, so that ongoing quality can be assured. An open tender was issued to prospective suppliers and was won by McGill University, in Montreal. Some courses have already been developed and will be offered later this year; others are currently being worked on.

All this marks a significant development and a milestone for the association: we are now an educational institute, not only in organizational terms, but as an actual supplier. As such, we have to ensure that our educational offerings are always up to date; so we must also be up to date. Being at the forefront of industry thinking, being progressive, being creative – all these elements must now run through our veins, just as purity of statistics and margin of error have been our lifeblood in the past.

We will also be offering our online courses internationally through other countries’ associations, and our partnership with McGill will greatly add credibility to courses offered outside Canada. This initiative will benefit the association financially but, more importantly, the demands of other countries for specialized content will inform the association of topics that we may not have otherwise included in our online offerings.

Our education initiatives provide an opportunity to all our members to develop their skills; they ensure that we have a steady flow of qualified individuals entering our industry; and they even keep our association in a constant state of improvement and learning. And, yes, they also provide revenue – revenue that can help fund the other vital strategic initiatives that the association pursues.

Ed Gibson, CMRP CRC Research ed@crcresearch.com (604) 922-3502

développement de nos propres cours en ligne – accessibles à tous, partout, et dont le contenu appartiendrait à l’Association afin d’assurer la qualité constante du contenu.

Un appel d’offres ouvert a été émis aux fournisseurs éventuels et l’Université McGill à Montréal a été sélectionnée. Certains cours ont déjà été développés et seront offerts plus tard au cours de l’année; d’autres sont en voie de développement.

Tout cela marque un développement et un jalon significatifs pour l’Association : nous sommes maintenant un institut de formation, non seulement au niveau organisationnel, mais aussi comme fournisseur. En tant que tel, nous devons nous assurer que nos programmes de formation sont toujours à jour, ce qui nous oblige à nous tenir à jour aussi. Être à l’avant-garde des idées au sein de l’industrie, être progressifs, être créatifs – tous ces éléments doivent maintenant couler dans nos veines, tout comme la clarté des statistiques et des marges d’erreur ont été des éléments vitaux pour nous dans le passé.

Nous offrirons nos cours en ligne internationalement par l’intermédiaire d’associations dans d’autres pays et notre partenariat avec McGill augmentera considérablement la crédibilité des cours offerts à l’extérieur du Canada. Cette initiative sera avantageuse financièrement pour l’Association mais, plus important encore, les demandes de contenu spécialisé provenant d’autres pays nous renseigneront sur les sujets qui n’auraient peut-être pas autrement été inclus dans nos programmes en ligne.

Nos initiatives en formation offrent à tous nos membres la possibilité de développer leurs compétences, elles assurent qu’un flux constant de personnes qualifiées s’intègre dans notre industrie, et elles font en sorte que notre Association est dans un état constant d’amélioration et d’apprentissage. Et, oui, elles fournissent aussi des revenus – pouvant aider à financer d’autres initiatives stratégiques vitales que l’Association poursuit.

Ed Gibson, PARM CRC Recherches ed@crcresearch.com (604) 922-3502

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Message from the Executive Director Brendan Wycks

ARIA: A New Forum for International Liaison and Advancement of the Practice

ARIA : un nouveau forum de liaison international et d’amélioration de la pratique

One of MRIA’s four strategic goals is advancement of the practice, which our strategic plan defines as “facilitating the development and sharing new and innovative approaches to marketing research and market intelligence, and fostering excellence in the management of research organizations and research functions.”

Much of the information and the know-how that enables MRIA to do this come about through international liaisons with sister associations of the marketing research industry from around the world.

Un des quatre buts stratégiques de l’ARIM est l’amélioration de la pratique que notre plan stratégique définit comme devant « faciliter le développement et le partage de nouvelles approches innovatrices à la recherche et à l’intelligence marketing et favoriser l’excellence de la gestion des organismes de recherche et des fonctions de la recherche. » Une grande partie de l’information et du savoir-faire qui habilite l’ARIM à atteindre ce but est réalisée grâce aux liens que nous avons avec des associations-sœurs au sein de l’industrie mondiale de la recherche marketing.

Il me fait donc plaisir de vous informer qu’au début de l’année, avec l’accord du conseil d’administration, l’ARIM est devenue un membre fondateur d’un consortium international d’associations de l’industrie de la recherche marketing : l’Americas Research Industry Alliance (ARIA).

La mission de l’ARIA vise à appuyer et à améliorer le développement commercial et l’intégrité de la recherche marketing, sociale et d’opinion par le biais d’efforts conjoints et d’appui mutuel.

Voici les intérêts communs des associations de sociétés de recherche des Amériques : • la promotion de normes d’éthique et de la qualité en recherche, • la promotion de possibilités de formation et de développement professionnel dans le secteur industriel de la recherche, • l’établissement de mesures pour assurer la crédibilité et l’image positive de l’industrie de la recherche, distinctes du marketing direct, de la vente et de la publicité, • l’avancement des sociétés de recherche au sein des pays des Amériques et entre ces pays.

The mission of the Americas Research Industry Alliance is to support and improve the business and integrity of marketing, opinion, and social research through collaborative effort.

I’m therefore pleased to inform you that earlier this year, with national board approval, MRIA became one of the founding members of an international consortium of marketing research industry associations: the Americas Research Industry Alliance (ARIA).

The mission of ARIA is to support and improve the business and integrity of marketing, opinion, and social research through collaborative effort and mutual support.

The research business associations in the Americas share a common interest in • promoting ethical and quality standards in research • fostering educational opportunities and career development in research businesses • ensuring a credible and positive image of the research industry, distinct from direct marketing, sales and advertising • advancing the research business among and across the Americas.

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Il s’ensuit que les associations de sociétés de recherche au sein des Amériques se sont réunies pour établir l’ARIA dans le but d’appuyer plusieurs buts communs : la croissance de

CO M M E N TARY / COMMENTAIRE

Therefore, the research business associations in the Americas came together to establish ARIA to support a number of common purposes: the growth of the Americas survey research industry; client and public confidence in market, opinion, and social research; and continued industry self-regulation.

ARIA’s current membership includes the national associations for research businesses in nine countries in North and South America: Canada, Mexico, and the United States in North America; and Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Uruguay in South America.

These countries together represent about 36 per cent of the global research industry, or US$11.5 billion.

Among the major issues on which ARIA will focus are standards and guidelines, education, self-regulation, emerging technologies, business management and development, and relationships with clients and research participants.

ARIA will reach out to other countries in Central and South America to encourage their research business associations to join. ARIA has appointed Alejandro Garnica – director general of AMAI, the Mexican industry association – as our founding executive director, responsible for coordinating the new entity’s establishment and startup.

Brendan Wycks, BA, MBA, CAE Executive Director Marketing Research and Intelligence Association bwycks@mria-arim.ca (905) 602-6854 ext. 8724

l’industrie de la recherche-sondage dans les Amériques, la confiance des clients et du public à l’égard de la recherche marketing, sociale et d’opinions, et le maintien de l’autoréglementation dans l’industrie.

Les membres actuels de l’ARIA comprennent les associations nationales de sociétés de recherche de neuf pays de l’Amérique du Nord et du Sud : le Canada, le Mexique et les États-Unis en Amérique du Nord, et l’Argentine, le Brésil, le Chili, la Colombie, le Pérou et l’Uruguay en Amérique du Sud. Ces pays représentent au total environ 36 % de l’industrie mondiale de la recherche, ou 11,5 milliards de dollars américains.

Parmi les principaux enjeux sur lesquels l’ARIA se concentrera figurent les normes et les lignes directrices, la formation, l’autoréglementation, les nouvelles technologies, la gestion et le développement des affaires, et les relations avec les clients et avec les participants à la recherche.

L’ARIA rayonnera dans d’autres pays de l’Amérique centrale et du Sud pour encourager leurs associations de sociétés de recherche à devenir membre. L’ARIA a nommé Alejandro Garnica – directeur général de l’AMAI, l’association mexicaine de l’industrie – comme directeur exécutif fondateur, responsable de la coordination de l’établissement et du démarrage de la nouvelle entité.

Brendan Wycks, BA, MBA, CAE Directeur général L’ Association de la recherche et de l’intelligence marketing bwycks@mria-arim.ca (905) 602-6854 poste 8724

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INTERVIEW WITH BRAD FELD

Brad Feld, a managing director of Foundry Group and an early-stage investor in software and Internet companies, talks about rapidly evolving technologies, about their impact on online market research, and about the challenge of interpreting data in the context of their ever-increasing proliferation.

Interviewed by David Hamburg

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S P EC IAL F E AT U R E

Hello, Brad Feld. I guess just the fact that this interview is happening is a testament to the power of the Internet: connecting people and interests. Last week, I was watching you as the featured guest on my favourite podcast, This Week in Venture Capital, and that gave me the idea to interview you for Vue magazine. Fortunately, I was easily able to get your email address, so I fired off my request and within 24 hours you responded positively.

Three days later, we’re connecting.

Lucky me, lucky Vue.

I’m glad it worked.

You invest in a range of sophisticated early-stage tech companies. Some say that high-tech businesses have revenue models that are complicated and not always fully developed: think of Twitter and Facebook. So what draws you to invest in these companies? Is it the potential big valuation down the road, a lucrative exit, or simply the brilliant idea?

I challenge that premise. I think it’s actually quite easy to invest a small amount of money and then get to the point where enough revenues are generated to pay salaries. There are two approaches: One is to introduce a revenue model early in the life of the company. The other is where there are incredible traffic flows – follow that energy on click, and distribute. There is a clear understanding of where those revenues will come from, as well as an ability to realize them at some point.

I think the idea that there are a lot of investments in companies that have no potential to generate revenues is false.

It’s more a case of focusing companies’ energy on how to succeed in other ways first.

The other thing is recognizing when you get to a point where you know whether there is something interesting happening. It takes a lot less money than it did a decade ago. Consequently, a lot more companies can get started,

because the absolute amount of dollars required for each company is less.

Moving to another area that intrigues me: social gaming. You’ve got some incredibly successful investments like Zynga (the creator of FarmVille) and others in related areas, like BigDoor. Why are grownups so attracted to it? How are businesses profiting from it?

There are a number of different things going on. There are actually different categories of social gaming which have been invented, appealing to different demographics. New elements have been introduced to gaming that were not available in video games. Take FarmVille: A lot of serious gamers play it, but it also has a lot of players who never played a video game before and now are major FarmVille enthusiasts.

The phenomena of these games just appeal to a much broader audience.

If you think about it, any of the constructs of these games are nicely linked into achievement. But the metaphors are not new. For example, frequent flyer programs reward you for things that get translated into value, and over time you gain prestige and recognition, so it’s really not a new concept.

Looking at the impact on businesses, if you look at a frequent flyers program and take it up a notch, you start getting to rewards with more activity. There’s another level of rewards that gives the programs more credibility and access to the things that people might not have access to. All of a sudden, it forces a certain type of energy. You could put that construct towards virtually any type of human interaction. It’s harder to see that linkage, right out of the gate, to a B2B interaction, but that metaphor plays nicely there as well.

It seems like most of these exciting new tech start-ups are based on B2C models? Why don’t we see more

B2B models? Of course, maybe they are happening but are not generating the same visibility as B2C?

I actually think that there are a lot of B2B start-ups; they are just not as well publicized, probably just because of the dynamics of what individual consumers view. But there’s not a massive shift in service offerings. Today, we are seeing a lot of businesses moving to cloud-based computing or other types of webconnected services. I don’t think there’s less B2B; it’s just that they are competing around consumer Internet, broadband and mobile, which have really captured the attention much more than yet another business application.

We’ve seen the Internet disrupt entire industries, like music, mass media and book publishing. Now comes education, where you can get PhDs online. Is this the next target for total disruption?

Well, I’m not an expert in education, but it has become something trendy and popular over the last twelve months. I expect that there will be a lot of interesting views around that and plenty of disruption – certainly in the U.S., because that is where we invest. Many of the traditional infrastructures that we have been dealing with over the last thirty to fifty years are now going through the process of being dramatically changed by the impact of the Internet.

In 1999–2000, there was the belief but there wasn’t the network infrastructure. Broadband and mobile weren’t sophisticated. We needed another decade of evolution for underlying technologies. But I think if you turn the clock forward and look down twenty years from now, we won’t even recognize the way we interact with computers today – it will have evolved so rapidly in terms of how they blended into the infrastructure that we are dealing with. vue November 2010

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Now let’s focus on market research.

How are all these new applications, like location-based services for example, going to change how we approach market research?

I think there are huge opportunities, and huge challenges as well. The huge opportunities lie in this incredible proliferation of data at the individual activity level – location-based services linking back to individual users and looking at the amount of data being generated. We have an investment in a company called SimpleGeo, a sort of data warehouse across all geo-user data and across multiple services.

There’s just an incredible amount of new data. The challenge is how to make sense of it. With any sort of data analysis issue, when you have this geometric explosion of data in a category, figuring out how to get the signal from the noise is going to be

possible, but it’s still very hard technically.

Just as an example, social media marketing and social media research have become this huge area where everybody wants as much data as they can get, and they want to be able to do with it as much as they can. And dealing with large volumes of data or multiple data sources is actually very difficult to do technically. We have an investment in another company, Gnip.com, which provides an infrastructure layer for getting access to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube data, making it very easy for those social media marketing firms to at least get the data streams in a consistent format that they can do something with. I think the opportunity for the market research world is huge, but the challenge is going to be how to figure out the user technology in an effective fashion.

because sentiment changes very rapidly and you can pick up changes in sentiment across aggregated data. So it’s not that you need to know that Brad Feld is this person and here’s the data that he supplied; it’s that you need to get a representative sample, and the larger that sample is, the more effective it is. But that’s a hard technical problem to solve. It’s not like I’m Mr. Market Research and I’m going to do some stuff with your Twitter data.

Good luck: it’s a hard problem.

What about the issue of online panels, particularly in the U.S., where there are apparently legions of professional panellists? Are we getting genuine response from the Internet world of market research?

I think there’s some truth to that, but there is also some fiction associated with it. Frankly, I don’t think it’s any different than a live panel. It comes

There are huge opportunities, and huge challenges as well.

The huge opportunities lie in the incredible proliferation of data at the individual activity level. really challenging. I think this will be the hardest issue, because the amount of data being generated is going to continue to increase by orders of magnitude over a very short time cycle.

I think the other thing that has been a fantasy of market researchers for a long time is the shift from unit data to the extrapolation of data. You are always dealing with a subset of the total data, because it is just hard to collect.

Either you are doing surveys or you are collecting the data manually, or you have some sort of specialized process to get a segment of the data. What’s happening is that there are now so many real-time data channels that are not controlled by anything. As a result, those channels for real-time data now have the ability to get much larger sets of data. Synthesizing the data becomes

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There are still many people who are skeptical about the reliability of social media data. Consider Twitter: You often don’t know where that Tweeter is from or if, indeed, that persona is real. You also have to question Tweeters’ motivations. They could be badmouthing a company for many invalid reasons. And then there are all those legions of semipro Twitter spammers.

I think those are good examples, but the premise that the data is not valuable because you can’t tie it back to the source, or get the underlying demographic source, is an incorrect way to think, from a market research perspective. For starters, you have to deal with a broad set of data versus individual data. The way you analyse that broad set of data is important, and the real-time nature of it is important,

back down to the drivers of the panels, the incentives you are using, and the credibility of those panels. There have always been lousy market research data sources, because they were heavily biased samples for no reason.

Take political samples, for example.

Go back thirty or forty years: There are a lot of good stories about just how poor the sample dynamics were in some polling. So I think the challenge is that you have a traditional approach that intersects with the online approach. In the online approach, there will be endless perturbations that are challenging, and things evolve. If you are paying people enough money to fill out a sample, of course you will attract people who are focused on filling out the survey – to collect the money. You have to figure out how to get samples

S P EC IAL F E AT U R E

that are broadly based versus ones that are narrowly focused.

I can tell you that if you have a bunch of people from Greenpeace standing on a corner in Boulder, Colorado, they are going to get the data that they want, because the vast majority of people in Boulder are going to be positively inclined to be ecofriendly and to support Greenpeace.

But if you stick that same group of people at 55th and Madison, you will get a very different result.

So as we wind down this interview, Brad, do you have any parting thoughts, particularly if they relate to market research and business intelligence?

I think the thread of your question is this: The amount of data which is available is going to increase by I don’t know how many orders of magnitude, but by many over the next five years. I don’t think it’s a hundred times more data; it could be 10,000 times more data.

Regarding the ability to make sense of that data, it will continue to increase in complexity and difficulty. Again, it’s an opportunity for people to embrace versus being resistant. You will have a large number of companies that have historically consumed market research data or market research firms, and the ones that are very focused on how to take advantage of new real-time data sources, synthesize that data, and do productive things with it – those companies will be the most attractive five years from now.

Thank you very much for your time, Brad. You’ve given us all a lot to think about.

Brad Feld, a managing director of Foundry Group, has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. He lives in Boulder, Colorado and Homer, Alaska with his wife and two dogs. Brad is on a quest to run a marathon in every state in the U.S.

About Foundry Group Foundry Group (www.foundrygroup.com) is a venture capital firm focused on making investments in early-stage information technology, Internet and software startups. The team works alongside entrepreneurs to give birth to new technologies and to build those technologies into industry-leading companies. Located in Boulder, Colorado, Foundry Group invests in companies across North America.

The current venture fund of US$225 million was launched in late 2007 and is managed by four managing directors (see below). Collectively, with almost five decades of experience in venture capital investing, Foundry Group was involved in over 70 companies as institutional investors and over 50 companies as angel investors. Additionally, they apply over three decades of entrepreneurial experience in founding and working in senior operating roles inside technology startups.

As true early-stage investors, with small seed investments (as little as $250,000 - to $500,000), the team helps promising entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground. Equally comfortable participating in larger, more traditional Series A venture financing rounds, they continue to support their portfolio companies through entire financing life cycles.

In addition to providing the necessary venture capital to get a companies up and running, Foundry Group uses its expertise in the technology industry and its network of relationships to help great entrepreneurs turn great ideas into great companies.

Brad Feld, Managing Director Brad has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur for over twenty years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, he co-founded Mobius Venture Capital and, prior to that, founded Intensity Ventures, a company that helped launch and operate software companies. Brad is also a co-founder of TechStars.

Seth Levine, Managing Director Seth’s career spans venture capital investing as well as operational, transactional and advisory roles at both public and private companies. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, Seth began his venture capital career at Mobius Venture Capital.

Ryan McIntyre, Managing Director Ryan has been an early-stage investor and entrepreneur for eighteen years. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, Ryan started his career in venture capital at Mobius Venture Capital in January 2000.

Jason Mendelson, Managing Director Jason has over a decade of experience in the venture capital and technology industries in a multitude of investing, operational and engineering roles. Prior to co-founding Foundry Group, Jason was a managing director and general counsel for Mobius Venture Capital.

To read the complete biographies visit www.foundrygroup.com/team/

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What’s All the Buzz about Professional Development and Certification?

MRIA’s Institute for Professional Development draws on the expertise of MRIA members, offers excellent, accessible education, and encourages professional development. Why? Because we owe it to one another to ensure that quality prevails in our industry. And because we owe it to our clients to make their selection of quality research suppliers as transparent as possible.

Jeannette Bellerose, CMRP

‘Convince me that I should get a CMRP!’ A business associate confronted me with this challenge during a working lunch a few weeks ago. I had been describing the various activities that have kept me both busy and stimulated since I became the dean of the MRIA Institute for Professional Development in March of this year.

“I’ve got an advanced degree from an outstanding university,” she continued. “That degree is the only credential I need. Besides, once I finished my degree I told myself, ‘No more tests or exams.’ I think we all get enough of that in school.”

Although I was a little taken aback by my colleague’s assertiveness, I had to admit that she had every right to press the question and that I had an obligation to provide her with a coherent answer. So I told her a story.

I suspect most of us could tell a similar one.

Two years ago I won a contract with an exciting new client. The CEO was 16

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congenial, articulate and decisive, and his team was made up of enthusiastic and empowered professionals. A dream client – the kind we all hope for. They wanted me to conduct a customer survey to address some emerging issues while at the same time comparing current satisfaction levels to data collected by another firm eighteen months earlier.

I took away a copy of the report, reviewed it, and was confronted with a dilemma. I couldn’t benchmark my study against the previous one: it simply wasn’t a competent piece of work. The survey questions were unclearly worded and some were double-barrelled; the sampling strategy was haphazard; and the analytical techniques had little relation to the science of statistics. My new client had paid good money for useless information, and now I had to be the bearer of bad tidings.

Fortunately, the ability to accept and act on bad news was part of this client’s skill set – he put the past behind him, and we got on with the new study. But I had a hard time shaking off the resentment I felt over the fact that someone purporting to be a marketing researcher had, to be frank, ripped my client off – perhaps not intentionally; perhaps that consultant simply didn’t know what he didn’t know. I also couldn’t shake off my sense of shared responsibility. While this particular consultant was not an MRIA member, this kind of thing happens in our industry: good managers waste money, and useless or misleading information drives business decisions.

For me, then, the motivation for CMRP certification and maintenance is pretty simple, and very personal: I don’t want to be left holding the bag when an unqualified vendor has left an unsuspecting manager with a worthless outcome.

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What Does the MRIA Institute for Professional Development Do about This?

Known as the PMRS School of Marketing Research before the merger of the three organizations that became MRIA, the Institute for Professional Development (“the Institute” for short) will be celebrating its fifteenth anniversary in 2012. The Institute has evolved to become what it is today, thanks to the dedication, professionalism and hard work of many of our members. The Institute is still evolving and will continue to do so in spite of the fact that change sometimes worries people – at first, anyway.

MRIA’s Institute for Professional Development works on three main fronts to uphold the highest professional standards in our industry: formal education, continued professional development, and certification.

We Draw on the Expertise of MRIA Members

The Institute’s leadership used to comprise an MRIA staff member and two volunteers (currently Fania Borok, Rick Hobbs and myself ). Given the size and complexity of the education mandate, it became clear that we needed additional help. This summer, we issued a call for CMRPs interested in providing volunteer leadership by serving on MRIA’s new Certification Advisory Committee. We were pleasantly surprised by the response: seven highly qualified CMRPs came forward to fill four positions. Having to decline the offer of three members volunteering their services was one of the most difficult tasks we have had to perform.

We have a terrific committee in place now. Allow me to introduce, briefly, the four committee members who have already been hard at work reviewing Comprehensive Marketing Research Exam (CMRE) answers, the “Core Curriculum Competency Requirements” document, online course material, and the CMRE preparation guide – less than two

months into their first mandate. I’m pleased to add that all have earned their CMRP designation by successfully writing the CMRE. Margaret Brigley, executive vicepresident of CRA Inc., Atlantic chapter “CRA strongly encourages its employees to pursue the CMRP designation. Being involved with [this committee] would allow me to contribute in a meaningful way, providing the opportunity to help MRIA maintain its high standards and ensure the designation process is fair to all.”

Christian Bourque, vice-president of Research and senior partner at Léger Marketing, Quebec chapter “I know that education and certification efforts have been tougher in the Montreal market and Quebec in general. We need to find a way to raise awareness and profile of the CMRP in the province. ... If I can make a humble contribution, I am ready.”

David MacDonald, vice-president of Financial Services at Environics Research Group, Toronto chapter “I have also been a member of the Advisory Committee of the Georgian College Research Analyst Program since 2000, and am currently serving as chair. ... I have conducted several studies with designation-granting organizations looking to measure and uphold the value of the designation and the designation-granting process.”

Stephen J. Popiel, senior vicepresident of Synovate Motoresearch, Toronto chapter “If you are like me and missed out on the grandfathering by a couple of years, please consider writing the exam. ... You will be showing more recent entrants to the profession that marketing research is a real profession, and that the CMRP matters.”

We Offer Excellent, Accessible Education

At the heart of the Institute’s professional development strategy lies our core curriculum. There are currently twelve core courses, or modules, that we believe are essential to developing the competencies required of entry-level marketing researchers.

The “Core Curriculum Competency Requirements” document (previously known as the “Syllabus”) is being updated by the Professional Development and Certification portfolio leaders and will be re-issued on the MRIA website this fall. While the document is undergoing necessary tweaking to remain up to date, the majority of competencies described in it remain unchanged. They form the basis for the current in-classroom core courses and for the development of the online core modules.

We are very proud of the Institute’s partnership with McGill University for the development of the online core courses. A team of seasoned educators is working under the helm of Dr. Carmen Sicilia, director of Career and Management Studies at McGill University’s Centre for Continuing Education – to develop and deliver ten of our twelve core courses online.

Also making vital contributions to the creation of the Institute’s online core courses are two of MRIA’s own long-time instructors: David Lithwick, senior partner at Market Alert, and David Stark, VP and compliance officer at GfK Research Dynamics and MRIA’s immediate past-president.

We are confident that the availability of both online and in-classroom core courses will make certification accessible to a larger number of qualified marketing research practitioners (see “Online Core Courses … for Fairness’ Sake,” Vue magazine, September 2010).

We are very happy to announce that, after much thoughtful debate and careful consideration, we have adopted vue November 2010

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Modern Marketing Research: Step by Step, by Chuck Chakrapani and Ken Deal, as our main textbook for the core courses. The original textbook of choice for the Institute and its predecessor, the School of Marketing Research, this book was completely revised by the authors in the summer of 2010, and two chapters on advanced analysis have been added.

The textbook will undergo further updates in the coming years to keep in sync with evolving course requirements.

We’re excited by the fact that this book is authored by two MRIA fellows – the highest designation that MRIA can bestow upon its members.

The text can be accessed online completely free of charge at any time.

Alternatively, students may print each chapter for a small fee.

We Encourage and Enable Professional Development

Outside the core curriculum, the Institute regularly offers professional development courses and instructional sessions. Last year, Cam Davis, managing director at Social Data Research and the Institute’s past dean, agreed to deliver his course, “301: Online Research, Best Practices and Innovations,” in a webinar format and to share his learning from this experience with the Institute. As a result, we have made some logistical and technical adjustments that will allow us to offer a wider range of professional development courses via webinar in the months to come.

Particularly noteworthy in the 2010–2011 academic year is the offering of a branding course, in webinar format, by none other than branding research guru Dr. Alan C. Middleton, assistant executive director of the Schulich Executive Education Centre.

We will also continue to provide free instructional webinars on a range of issues. Needless to say, the always informative and very popular webinars 18

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managed by the B2B Division will continue through 2010–2011. Stay tuned for more announcements on professional development courses and webinars as the academic year progresses.

There is more to professional development than formal training.

This is why MRIA has instituted a three-pronged maintenance of certification point system. It is based on learning, leadership skills, and knowledge sharing. (Read more on this in this issue’s column by Fania Borok, manager of Professional Development and Certification.)

We Oversee the Certification Process

One of the Institute’s mandates is to oversee the certification requirements and process. We have made a slight revision to the requirements, allowing non-degree holders to challenge the CMRE if they have had at least twelve years of relevant experience in the marketing research industry. The Institute’s leaders are hard at work making sure that the certification process is fair, while maintaining the integrity and quality of the designation.

The Number Game

Obtaining the CMRP designation requires substantial effort, but those who have written the CMRE have told me that they’ve learned from the experience. Every year, some CMRE writers are disappointed to learn that they have failed, but most persist and build on the experience. Fania Borok tells me that, in the years she’s been manager, all of those who have written the exam a second time have passed.

The question of what proportion of our membership should hold the CMRP designation has often come up.

At some point, the magical number of 50 per cent has been suggested. I’m not sure that there is a magical number, but I do believe that more of

our members could strive for their CMRP. (Take our trivia quiz below.)

Why You?

Why should the MRIA certification and education programs matter to my sceptical lunch-mate? Why should they matter to you? They should because this is our industry: we’re in it together, and we owe it to one another to ensure that quality prevails. Just as important, we need to make the selection of a quality research supplier as transparent as possible for our clients.

Jeannette Bellerose, PhD, CMRP, is dean of MRIA’s Institute for Professional Development. She is a co-founder of Arcturus Solutions, a research consulting firm based in Ottawa. With over twenty years of experience in applied social and marketing research, Jeannette has worked on both the client and research supplier sides. She can be reached at deanmriainstitute@mria-arim.ca.

The Institute for Professional Development Trivia Quiz 1. What percentage of our membership are CMRPs? 2. Which chapter has the highest percentage of CMRPs, and which has the lowest?

3. Which chapter has the highest percentage of members who could potentially obtain the CMRP designation but have not yet done so?

That is, what percentage have the required industry experience to write the exam with or without taking the core courses?

Could you guess the top three?

Find the answers here: www.mria-arim.ca/EDUCATION/ CMRPRecipients.asp

F E AT U R E

Handling Small Survey Sample Sizes and Skewed Data Sets with Partial Least Square Path Modelling An emerging multivariate analysis approach called “partial least squares” seems to be a good alternative to existing covariance-based SEM approaches when applications have little available theory, when correct model specification cannot be ensured, and when predictive accuracy is paramount.

Ken Kwong-Kay Wong

Vue readers probably know that, in any marketing research project, an ideal data set should have a large sample size and be normally distributed. Unfortunately, the reality is that many applied research projects have limited participants because of the nature of the project. Insufficient resources and tight project timelines further prevent researchers from obtaining a decent data set for proper statistical analysis, particularly in the structural equation modelling (SEM) of latent variables where LISREL (linear structural relations) and AMOS (analysis of moment structures) have strict data assumptions.

Some researchers have taken the risk of drawing incorrect or limited inferences by ignoring the data set requirements, while others have resorted to testing simplified versions of complex hypotheses. This article introduces an emerging multivariate analysis approach called “partial least squares” (PLS), which seems to be a good solution to these problems, if it is used properly.

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Understanding Customer Satisfaction Using SEM

Companies strive to increase their bottom-line performance through increasing customer satisfaction levels. However, a single question (e.g., Are you satisfied with our product?) may provide marketers with little value, because customer satisfaction is multidimensional and this latent variable is not directly observable.

A better way to measure satisfaction is to consider survey responses to several manifest variables on a continuous (multi-point) scale. Marketers are often interested in identifying the key operational processes and product attributes that drive customer satisfaction so that they can prioritize resources to improve these areas. SEM is designed for testing theoretically supported linear and additive causal models. It is ideal for examining the relationship between customer satisfaction and other variables.

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Why Not LISREL or Amos?

Growing Acceptance of PLS

Since the 1970s, marketers have used Scientific Software International’s LISREL and SmallWaters/SPSS’s Amos statistical software packages to build causal models.

Although these covariance-based SEM software packages are great for estimating and testing model parameters using maximum likelihood, they have some disadvantages from a user’s perspective. For example, a large sample size of 500 or more participants is usually required to generate stable estimation of the parameters. The data set has to be normally distributed, or else standard errors must be used with care when the assumptions of multivariate normality are not met. The researcher also needs at least three manifest variables per latent variable to avoid identification problems.

Although PLS was developed more than three decades ago, it did not gain the attention of the academic community until the late 1990s, because of a lack of PLS software and documentation. In the last decade, the situation has improved significantly with the launch of graphical PLS software such as PLS-Graph, VisualPLS, SmartPLS, and WarpPLS. The first PLS handbook was just published by Springer earlier this year, after four years of delay and an international PLS conference conducted successfully in 2009. With increased use of the PLS method in top-tier, peer-reviewed journal papers (particularly in the Journal of Management Information Systems) and in the marketing and behavioural science fields, it is a good time to give this

Partial least squares is well known for its soft modelling approach, using ordinary least squares multiple regression, which makes no distributional assumptions in computation of the model parameters.

Introduction to PLS

In the mid-1960s, the renowned econometrician and statistician Herman Wold developed the concept of a predictive causal system called “partial least squares.” This new variance-based SEM approach extended the principal component and canonical correlation analysis to the next level. Unlike LISREL or AMOS, it is designed to provide flexibility for exploratory modelling. PLS is well known for its soft modelling approach, using ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression, which makes no distributional assumptions in computation of the model parameters.

Because PLS fits each part of the model separately, it reduces the number of cases required. However, please note that a larger sample size always helps to improve parameter estimation and reduce average absolute error rates.

PLS favours the outer measurement model that deals with the relations between latent variables and their manifest variables. Statistically speaking, the objective of PLS is to get score values of latent variables for prediction purposes. It is a component-based technique in which latent variables are calculated as exact weighted linear combinations of the manifest variables. This methodology is called “partial” least squares because its iterative procedure involves separating the parameters instead of estimating them simultaneously. Key resampling procedures include bootstrapping, jackknifing and blindfolding.

innovative approach serious consideration. As PLS has been utilized by researchers in many studies based on the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), having a good understanding of PLS methodology helps researchers to compare their research results with those of prior studies.

Strengths of PLS

A substantial amount of research on the benefits of the PLS path modelling approach has been published. Among these benefits are the following: • small sample size requirement • hypotheses that are less probabilistic • no assumptions about the distribution of the variables • insensitivity to non-normality, heteroscedasticity, and autocorrelation of the error terms • no parameter identification problem • no need for observations to be independent • ability to explore the relationship between a latent variable and its manifest variables in both formative and reflective ways • effectiveness in analysing moderation effects and identification of potential moderators • production of scores both for overall and for individual cases • ability to handle large model complexity (up to 100 latent and 1,000 manifest variables) • suitability for research when improper or non-convergent results are likely. vue November 2010

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Recommended PLS Resources CATEGORY

INFORMATION

NOTES

Book

Handbook of Partial Least Squares (PLS) and Marketing: Concepts, Methods and Applications Editors: Vincenzo Esposito Vinzi, Wynne W. Chin, Jörg Henseler, & Huiwen Wang Publisher: Springer, February 2010 Price: US$350

A free e-book version is also available at Google Books.

Conference

Partial Least Squares International Conference 2009 (http://www.pls09.org/)

Many useful PowerPoint slide presentations can be downloaded from the site.

Training workshop

PLS School (http://www.pls-school.com/) Contact: Dr. Jörg Henseler (University of Cologne)

Seminars are mainly conducted in Germany and the U.S.A. Online seminars are also run several times a year.

PLS-SEMINARS (http://pls-sem.com/) Contact: Dr. Geoffrey Hubona (Georgia State University)

Reference e-papers

Bacon, L.D. (1999, Feb.). “Using LISREL and PLS to Measure Customer Satisfaction.” Seventh Annual Sawtooth Software Conference. La Jolla, CA. Chin, W.W. (1998). “The Partial Least Squares Approach to Structural Equation Modeling.” In G.A. Marcoulides (Ed.), Modern Methods for Business Research (pp. 295–33). Mahwah, NJJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Fornell, C. (1996). “Customer Satisfaction Methodology: A Summary of Key Issues.” Claes Fornell International.

Available at http://www.cfigroup.com/resources/articles/WPAPER1.pdf

For PLS beginners, start with the paper by Sánchez (2009) followed by the paper by Henseler et al.

(2009).

Henseler, J. (2010). “On the Convergence of the Partial Least Squares Path Modeling Algorithm.” Computational Statistics, 25(1): 107–120. DOI 10.1007/s00180-009-0164-x Henseler, J., Ringle, C., & Sinkowics, R. (2009). “The Use of Partial Least Squares Path Modeling in International Marketing.”

Advances in International Marketing, 20: 277–319.

Available at http://php.portals.mbs.ac.uk/Portals/49/docs/rsinkovics/pubs/2009-AIM-Henseler-Ringle-Sinkovics-PLS.pdf Hwang, H., Malhotra, N.K., Kim, Y., Tomiuk, M. A., & Hong, S. (2010). “A Comparative Study on Parameter Recovery of Three Approaches to Structural Equation Modeling.” Journal of Marketing Research, 47: 699–712.

Marcoulides G.A. & Saunders, C. (2006). “PLS: A Silver Bullet?” MIS Quarterly. 30(2): iii–i.x Available at http://www.misq.org/archivist/vol/no30/issue2/EdCommentsV30N2.pdf Marcoulides, G.A., Chin, W.W., & Saunders, C. (2009). “A Critical Look at Partial Least Squares Modeling.” MIS Quarterly, 33(1): 171–175.

Available at http://www.misq.org/archivist/vol/no33/issue1/ForewordPLS.pdf Sánchez, G. (2009). “Understanding Partial Least Squares Path Modeling (An introduction with R).” Unpublished manuscript. Department of Statistics and Operations Research, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.

Available at http://upc.academia.edu/documents/0038/9027/Understanding_PLSPM.pdf/ Stan, V. & Saporta, G. (2005, May). “Customer Satisfaction and PLS Structural Equation Modeling: An Application to Automobile Market.” In P. Bertrand (Chair), Applied Stochastic Models and Data Analysis (ASMDA 2005). The meeting of International Symposium on Applied Stochastic Models and Data Analysis Conference, held at Brest, France.

Available at http://conferences.telecom-bretagne.eu/asmda2005/IMG/pdf/proceedings/756.pdf Wold, H. (1980). “Soft-Modeling: Intermediate between Traditional Model Building and Data Analysis.” Mathematical Statistics, 6: 333–346.

Software

PLS-Graph Platform: Windows Web: http://www.plsgraph.com/ Download: Not publicly available. A beta tester application form has to be manually signed and submitted (http://disc-nt.cba.uh.edu/plsgraph/).

Price: Free, subject to author's approval plspm Platform: Windows and MacOSX Base Software Requirement: “R” Statistical Software (http://cran.r-project.org/) Download: http://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/plspm/index.html Price: Free SmartPLS 2.0 M3 Platform: Windows, Linux, Mac OSX Web: http://www.smartpls.de Price: Free VisualPLS 1.04b1 Platform: Windows Web: http://www2.kuas.edu.tw/prof/fred/vpls/index.html Download: http://fs.mis.kuas.edu.tw/~fred/vpls/download.htm Price: Free WarpPLS Platform: Windows Web: http://www.scriptwarp.com/warppls Download: http://download.cnet.com/WarpPLS/3000-20411_4-75042779.html Price: Free fully functional trial for 3 months; US$65 per year (personal); US$1100 per year (company) XLSTAT-PLSPM Platform: Windows and Mac OSX Base Software Requirement: Microsoft Excel Web: http://www.xlstat.com/en/products/xlstat-plspm/ Price: US$100 per year (student); US$264 per year (faculty); US$430 per year (company) Others Older software packages include LVPLS 1.8 and PLS-GUI 2.01, but they are no longer available from their original websites.

PLS procedure/module is available for SAS and Coheris SPAD. IBM’s SPSS 17, 18 and 19 also support limited PLS function (regression but not path modelling) using a free third party plug-in that can be downloaded from from the SPSS Developer Central site (www.spss.com/devcentral).

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SmartPLS’s Mac version is not compatible with Leopard or Snow Leopard.

Free registration is required for download, and software has to be reactivated every three months.

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Weaknesses of PLS

Vue readers are urged to evaluate PLS’s strengths and weaknesses carefully before adopting the approach. As experts would probably agree, there is no magic bullet in any particular statistical procedure. Among the weaknesses of PLS are the following: • requirement for high-valued structural path coefficients when using small sample sizes • inability to handle the multicollinearity problem well • inability to provide ways of modelling undirected correlation • possibility of resulting in biased estimates of component loadings and path coefficients, due to a lack of complete consistency in scores on latent variables • possible generation of large mean square errors of loading estimates and large mean square errors of path coefficient estimates.

Guidelines for Correct PLS Application

In relation to other path modelling approaches, PLS is still relatively new to many researchers. Through extensive critical reviews of this methodology in the last several years, the academic community has developed some guidelines for correct PLS application.

First of all, research should develop a model that is consistent with the theoretical knowledge currently available. As in other research projects, proper data screening should be performed to ensure accuracy of input.

In order to determine the sample size necessary for adequate power (e.g., 0.8), the distributional characteristics of the data, the psychometric properties of variables, and the magnitude of the relationships between the variables have to be examined carefully.

Although PLS is well known for its ability to handle small sample sizes, that is not the case when moderately non-normal data are used, even if the model includes highly reliable indicators. As a result, researchers are strongly advised to check the magnitude of the standard errors in the estimates and calculate the confidence intervals for the population parameters of interest. If large standard errors and wide confidence intervals are observed, they are good indications that the sample size is not large enough for proper analysis. Prior research has indicated that a sample size of 100 to 200 is a good start in carrying out PLS procedures. The required sample size will further increase if you are examining low-value-factor intercorrelations with poor quality indicators.

Life after PLS?

The proliferation of PLS has inspired many academics to explore innovative ways of analysing data. PLS has laid the

foundation for the development of newer statistical procedures, such as generalized structured component analysis (GSCA), championed by Dr. Heungsun Hwang of McGill University (www.sem-gesca.org). Originally developed as a stand-alone Windows application called VisualGSCA, GeSCA is now available as a free web-based tool. It is well known for its ability to deal with missing observations, handle second-order latent variables, and generate overall measures of model fit.

Another new development is universal structural modelling (USM), developed by Dr. Frank Buckler of NEUSREL Causal Analytics (www.neusrel.com). USM is implemented through the NEUSREL software, which is based on MathWorks’ MATLAB and Microsoft’s Excel software. It is well known for its ability to model nonlinearities, interactions and paths.

Since GSCA and USM are still at the infant stage, readers are advised to exercise caution in their use of these approaches and tools. As the case of PLS has demonstrated, any new statistical technique has its limitations; hence, it must go through extensive critical reviews and examinations prior to gaining acceptance in the research community.

Recommendations

Partial least squares is a new approach in path modelling. It is recommended when applications have little available theory, when correct model specification cannot be ensured, and when predictive accuracy is paramount. Marketers can use PLS to build models that measure latent variables such as socioeconomic status, perceived quality, satisfaction, brand attitude, buying intention, and customer loyalty. PLS should serve as a good alternative to existing covariancebased SEM approaches when applied correctly.

I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to Dr. Jörg Henseler (University of Cologne, Germany), whose comments resulted in a notable improvement of this article.

Dr. Ken Kwong-Kay Wong is an assistant professor and subject area coordinator of marketing at U21Global, the online graduate school, from which he is a recipient of the Faculty Excellence Award for 2008–2010. He has been lecturing in marketing courses at the University of Toronto since 2003. His articles have appeared in Telecommunications Policy, in the Service Industries Journal, and in the Journal of Database Marketing and Customer Strategy Management. Ken is also the author of Avoiding Plagiarism and Approved Marketing Plans as well as CRM in Action. He can be reached at kwong@u21global.edu.sg.

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A Conversation about MRIA’s Online Courses, with Dr. Carmen Sicilia of McGill University

From left to right: Ms. Oksana Maibroda Dr. Carmen Sicilia Mr. Alain J. Cusson Mr. Steve Letovsky Ms. Elizabeth J. Hirst

The director of Career and Management Studies at McGill University’s Centre for Continuing Education talks about professional development, about McGill’s partnership with MRIA in the creation of online courses for our association, and about the role of social media in the future of education.

Interviewed by Anne Marie Gabriel

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Why was McGill interested in partnering with MRIA to work on developing our online courses?

There were several reasons: We are no strangers to working with associations, as we have a long history of partnerships with professional associations and professional orders.

The fit was just perfect with MRIA, as was the timing; we were looking to partner with an association involved in marketing research – driven mostly by expressed interest from our students.

We were also impressed with MRIA’s insistence on members’ adherence to standards and a code of ethics. At the McGill Centre for Continuing

or deliver them off-site to industry partners. With MRIA, we are preparing the content for MRIA members, who are practitioners with very specific needs and who will be taking these courses online.

Tell us more about blogging as an important part of McGill education.

Actually, this has become a very important part of educating and learning. Blogging is another form of communication, the difference being that the technology is used to support teaching and learning. In other words, technology does not teach. Our instructors appreciate that it facilitates

for MRIA to administer and deliver the modules. The second challenge was timing: it typically takes 18 to 24 months to put an online program together. We definitely did not have the luxury of many months, as we started in June and delivery was due in five months – this really is short. There were a lot of things we wanted to do but simply did not have the time with the project. What we mostly focused on was quality of content, knowing that people would be working towards accreditation. We were fortunate to work with a talented and resourceful team to make it happen, and we can be proud of the outcome.

One thing is for certain: Online learning is not going away and will continue to play a role alongside face-to-face learning. It may not be for everyone, but it is another option for developing skills and acquiring knowledge.

Education, workplace standards, and a code of ethics are very important to us; we very much appreciated this similarity.

How did you first become aware of our search for an online course developer?

We have over 270 instructors in continuing education, most of whom actually work in the respective fields in which they teach. One such instructor works in marketing research and alerted us to MRIA and the upcoming project.

How does the MRIA project compare with others you have worked on?

No two projects are the same, and this one was different because we typically prepare the content and deliver the courses at McGill for McGill students,

the process and encourages dialogue.

We were glad to see that it was in line with MRIA's learning platform’s whiteboard area, where questions could be posted to encourage student dialogue and interaction.

How many people will be involved in this curriculum development?

About ten: project leader, educational technologist, marketing program coordinator, and several instructors.

What were some of the challenges?

Firstly, working on a platform that does not belong to McGill was somewhat difficult, because we were unfamiliar with the platform’s capabilities. Upon closer inspection, the platform makes it relatively easy

What is in this partnership for McGill?

MRIA’s online courses are an excellent opportunity for McGill University to continue to educate learners from local, national and international communities, but in a different format.

Where do you see professional development education and online learning going in the future?

A lot of people have many different opinions, but one thing is for certain: online learning is not going away and will continue to play a role alongside face-to-face learning. It may not be for everyone, but it is another option for developing skills and acquiring knowledge.

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F E AT U R E

What do you think of MRIA’s initiative to introduce mandatory continuing education for its CMRP-designated members via a maintenance of certification program?

It’s a great decision, and it’s definitely in line with what is going on with other professional bodies. Professional development is mandatory to maintain designations in the province of Quebec.

It is an excellent way for MRIA to maintain its standards and, again, something that drew us to working with MRIA right from the start.

What are your views on education, designations and awards?

It’s an interesting question and actually no different than the questions we get from our learners. Education awards are an excellent opportunity for us to work with professional bodies.

Education and designation actually complement each other. Learners often ask what else they can attain outside of the university to complement their formal education – which is why we were looking to add a marketing research association to our mix. We do this with our human resources, public

Dr. Carmen Sicilia earned a bachelor degree in psychology and another in applied social science from Concordia University. She later received her MA and PhD in education psychology from McGill University. Her interest is in exploring what role learning plays in change management initiatives, particularly in large, complex social organizations such as educational institutions.

With over seventeen years' experience, Dr. Sicilia’s career includes work as college director, instructor, admission counsellor, career management

We don’t realize it, but social media constitute a form of informal education.

Do you foresee the growing prevalence of social media having any impact on professional development and online learning?

Absolutely. I attended a presentation this week at McGill, and the keynote speaker was Mitch Joel, author of Six Degrees of Separation. I am paraphrasing a line from him: Accept it because it is harder to find someone not on social networks than someone who is on them. We don’t realize it, but social media constitute a form of informal education. For example, many instructors are incorporating YouTube into their courses, provided that the information is accurate. Did you know that nearly half of the YouTube users are 34-year-olds? And the average age at McGill Continuing Education is about 33 to 34. So we are exploring how to use social media as part of the education process.

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relations, and accounting programs.

Learners are not replacing the formal but simply adding on to it.

Was education your career goal?

It was; education with the psychology of learning was definitely my career goal. My doctorate is in education psychology, with a focus on learning sciences. It’s not only about what we teach or how we deliver the educational training, but also about the impact we’re having on the ability to learn.

What has been the highlight of your career?

This is a difficult question. I’ve had many highlights, and I think there are so many more to come – I’m not done yet. My highlights are all those moments when people come up to me and say they’ll never forget how I have helped them move towards their career path. If I can make a difference in someone’s educational path, then that’s the ultimate reward for being in the business of education.

consultant, and corporate recruiter. Her reputation for assisting individuals, businesses, and community organizations to better manage a wide range of human resources and educational needs has prepared her well for the field of adult education.

In 2009, Dr. Sicilia returned to her passion of working for an educational institution. In September 2009, Dr. Sicilia joined McGill’s Centre for Continuing Education as director of Career and Management Studies.

Currently, she oversees over 400 courses offered through undergraduate and graduate programs and a roster of professional development courses for individuals seeking to acquire skills in order to enhance their career.

Apart from her professional career, Dr. Sicilia also plays an active role in community-based organizations.

F E AT U R E

2011 and MCP Are around the Corner. Are You Ready?

MRIA’s manager of Professional Development and Certification tells us how the new maintenance of certification program will work. Aimed at upholding the credibility of the CMRP designation, the program awards points for professional activities relevant to your particular career path, meeting your needs, and reflecting your interests.

Fania Borok

With the Maintenance of Certification Program (MCP) coming into effect in January 2011, I was asked to write on the subject. Thinking about this initiative, I searched the Internet to see how other associations fared with the start of their maintenance of certification programs. One headline that stuck with me was “Maintenance of Certification: A Rocky Start to an Important Initiative.”

While I hope for smooth sailing with the introduction of MRIA’s Maintenance of Certification Program, one must be realistic; many new initiatives go through a rocky start.

Why is that?

The answer is simple: We prefer our own comfort zones and often see change in a negative light. The familiar status quo brings people comfort, while the unknown that surrounds change and the pushing of boundaries can be perceived as uncomfortable. However, as my mother used to say (and I know you’re cringing as I repeat it), the things we don’t like or find most challenging tend to be good for us.

Judging by the latest member satisfaction survey, many CMRPs approve of the MCP. Still, maintenance of certification tends not to be on most people’s list of top-ten fun activities.

The concept of maintenance of certification is critical to the credibility and value of the Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) designation. And the only way to achieve the credibility of the certification is through a proven commitment to continued learning, hence ensuring that practitioners remain current in their field. The only way we, as an association, can ensure that our CMRPs are armed to remain at the forefront of change in our area of expertise is by formalizing the need to demonstrate that ongoing learning process.

Will MRIA experience a bit of a rocky start? Again, based on comments from the membership survey, it is possible.

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While some members welcome the MCP and are firm believers that it is a necessary step to enhancing the credibility of the industry as a whole, others may, while recognizing the program’s creditability, be concerned about the time and cost involved in achieving 50 MCP points over a two-year period. At the other end of the spectrum, some members may see no value for themselves, their business or the industry as a whole, and will choose to forfeit the CMRP designation by not maintaining the certification. One thing is clear: If the CMRP designation is going to succeed, then the Maintenance of Certification Program needs to be successful as well.

So, as we start together towards the success of the MCP and an increased level of credibility for our industry, take comfort in the fact that we at MRIA are there to support you along the way. We have developed a program that benefits from insight into the success of similar programs at other associations. The MCP has been designed to be fluid and flexible, so that it can adapt and change as our industry evolves.

A number of principles were followed in developing a framework and a process that would enable CMRP maintenance of certification to be implemented. For the full list, visit www.mria-arim.ca/EDUCATION/ CMRPPoints.asp The MCP Points System: How Does It Work?

Professional development will be measured by a point system. This point system is simple: You must accumulate 50 points within a two-year period, January to December.

You can obtain zero points in year one and 50 in year two, or vice versa. You can also transfer up to 25 points (once you are over 50 points) into the next two-year period.

F E AT U R E

Many CMRP holders are already currently pursuing professional development activities, and they will easily be able to fulfill the minimum requirement of 50 MCP points every two years. The system is flexible and, above all, depends upon CMRP holders to chart a course of action for their own professional development, whether they are recent CMRPs or established industry leaders.

In allocating points, MRIA tries to make events equal, no matter where they are held. So an international conference receives the same number of points as a national conference.

A seminar in the U.S. receives the same number of points as a seminar held in your hometown. CMRP holders make the decision on relevance, based on their own career path.

CMRP holders should keep complete documentation of their professional development activities, in case of a random MRIA audit. Paid receipts and attendance certificates are sufficient.

Points can be accumulated under any or all three of the following areas: learning, leadership skills, and knowledge sharing. It is felt that these areas reinforce continuing professional development and are similar to those mandated by other professional bodies.

There are points for participating in MRIA’s and other associations’ events. There are points for sharing knowledge.

There are points for improving your own skills, be it core marketing research (qual or quant), business management, or a new and developing area of interest such as social media. You be the judge; it’s your career.

For an example of how 50 points might be obtained over a two-year period, see the chart on this page. As you can see from the chart, there are different ways of obtaining the required 50 points over a two-year period.

The leadership of the education portfolio will make an effort to provide more professional development courses in webinar format so they will be more accessible and affordable to CMRPs across Canada.

In order to fulfill your needs and interest, please feel free to email me at fborok@mria-arim.ca either with your expression of interest to teach a webinar (and earn MCP points) or with your ideas regarding what hot subjects should be addressed.

A webinar will be scheduled to explain the program in more detail and to provide a demo on how, when registering for an event or course in the portal, the points will automatically be assigned and tracked on your behalf.

Next year will see the launch of a web-based application that will allow members to enter points for activities undertaken outside of MRIA – points that will be integrated with the points from the portal. In this way, members will be able to follow and view their activities and track the progress of points acquired towards their maintenance of certification. In the meantime, CMRPs

Examples of Obtaining 50 Points over a Two-Year Period

2011 ✓ Attend the MRIA national conference (one full day: 20 pts) ✓ Attend one local MRIA event (5 pts) OR ✓ Do pro bono work (e.g., offering your own personal professional marketing research skills and services to a non-profit organization at no cost) – in essence, donation of professional services (10 pts for 50 hours of work, up to a maximum of 20 pts over a two-year period) ✓ Attend a one-hour free webinar offered by MRIA (5 pts) ✓ Serve as a director on a corporate or non-profit organization board other than MRIA, without monetary compensation (10 pts)

2012 ✓ Participate on an MRIA conference committee – e.g., national conference, Net Gain, QRD (15 pts) ✓ Write an article for Quirks (10 pts) OR ✓ Write a Vue article (10 pts) and attend three local MRIA events (15 pts).

For a more detailed maintenance of certification points chart, please go to www.mria-arim.ca/ EDUCATION/ CMRPPointsChart.asp

should keep track of their professional development activities by maintaining records and keeping receipts.

Sporadic audits may be conducted to verify such activities.

Is the program perfect? Maybe not yet. It will evolve, undergo changes and adjustments as time goes by.

I would like to appeal to those veteran industry leaders who achieved their CMRP designation through the grandparenting process. Please help make for smooth sailing and once again set a new industry standard, leading by example with the Maintenance of Certification Program.

As the proverb says, “Bitter pills may have blessed effects.” I am positive that the Maintenance of Certification Program will indeed have blessed effects for the future of MRIA. vue November 2010

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PEOPLE AND COMPANIES IN THE NEWS GfK Research: The smartphone is rapidly evolving beyond a simple communications device into an extension of consumers’ daily activities and creating a new breed of digital shopper. This is based on the results of new research from GfK Business & Technology which was presented at the CTIA Enterprise & Applications show in San Francisco. GfK’s research into the new consumer mindset shows that expectations for the next generation of mobile applications will continue to drive users’ purchases and dramatically influence how retailers respond to the needs of their customers. To read more, go to: www.gfkinsights4u.com

The appointment of Piero Coppola, Senior Manager, Retail and Consumer Research to the National Research and Marketing Department at Cadillac Fairview Corporation Limited took effect September 27, 2010. A seasoned researcher, Piero has fifteen years of consumer and retail analysis experience gained through positions in government (OLG), Retail (Bell, Staples), and Marketing (Vickers and Benson Advertising). In addition to being a Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP), Piero is also fluently trilingual (Italian and French) and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Concordia University as well as a General Commerce Diploma from Vanier College.

Email: piero.coppola@cadillacfairview.com

Ed Gibson, CMRP and President of MRIA is pleased to announce the birth of his granddaughter Chloe on October 15, 2010. Proud parents are Ed’s daughter Jessica and her husband, Sebastien. Congratulations!

Global research and technology firm Vision Critical® unveils its latest innovation, which delivers a uniquely collaborative way for researchers to build enterprise-class, ad hoc surveys.

Designed by researchers for researchers, Firefly Surveys (www.fireflysurveys.com) introduces a game-changing concept to the world of marketing research. The web-based tool allows researchers and their internal clients to work together on a single copy of their online survey— collaboratively editing at the same time, or leaving comments and edits asynchronously on their own time.

Firefly’s collaborative survey tool facilitates creating, editing and deploying surveys with multiple parties and can shave days, or even weeks, off the survey development process. www.visioncritical.com

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• In this section of Vue, preference is given to newsworthy items including appointments, promotions and personal news (births, deaths) over product and industry developments.

• To read more news online, or to submit your news, simply fill out our online form at mria-arim.ca/PEOPLE/People.asp.

• The Vue editorial team reserves the right to select and edit your submission for appearance in Vue. • MRIA is neither responsible for the accuracy of this information nor liable for any false information.

Western Wats, a leading provider of survey research data collection, announced its new company name: Opinionology.

The firm is changing its name from Western Wats to Opinionology to better reflect the company’s global presence and expanding service offering. More than 2,000 customers worldwide utilize the firm’s online panels, mobile surveys, and telephone interviewing solutions to gather answers to their questions. The company launched its new website recently, Opinionology.com. All future business activity will be conducted using the new name. There has been no change in the company’s management or ownership. www.opinionology.com

In the U.S., the ARF (Advertising Research Foundation) has established the Research Quality Super Council (RQSC), to oversee online research quality initiatives, and provide leadership for the recently launched NeuroStandards Collaboration and other quality initiatives.

RQSC is led by ARF’s EVP, Research and Standards Dr. Bill Cook (pictured), with support from comScore co-founder Gian Fulgoni and Procter & Gamble research veteran Donald Gloeckler, acting as co-chairs. The first meeting will take place on November 15 at the ARF offices in New York, and is open to ARF members. Website: www.thearf.org

Techneos Expands Support for Android, Giving Researchers Unprecedented Access to Mobile Audiences Vancouver, B.C. – Dave King, CEO & Director of Techneos is pleased to announce the expanded support for Android to include new multimedia capabilities such as photo capture and location based services. Android is poised for dominance, rapidly gaining ground among consumers, and being on multiple carriers is helping the platform to surge ahead. www.techneos.com

NADbank Inc. (Newspaper Audience Databank) announces the release of the 2009/10 NADbank Readership Study. This release includes readership data from the fall of 2009 and the spring of 2010 for the million plus markets; Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary, Edmonton, as well as Halifax. In Toronto 76% of adults 18+ read either a printed or online edition of a daily newspaper each week.

I N D U ST RY N E W S

Enjoy this issue of Vue? You can enjoy it even more by visiting our online library and archived database, with over 2,000 articles searchable by key word, author or date. Visit www.mria-arim.ca/PUBLICATIONS/LibraryIntro.asp

Readership results for other markets are 77% in Montréal, 79% in Vancouver, 79% in Ottawa-Gatineau, 78% in Calgary, and 78% in Edmonton. Online readership is highest in Ottawa-Gatineau (30%) followed by Toronto (25%) and Calgary (25%). Website: www.nadbank.com

Carla Gail Tibbo is pleased to announce the birth of her twin grandsons. More details to follow.

Sun Life Financial launches online tools and an ad campaign to help Canadians create a plan that's right for them. If you could give your loved ones one piece of financial advice, what would it be? According to a Leger Marketing study, conducted on behalf of Sun Life Financial, one in five Canadians would advise loved ones to rely less on credit cards. Rounding out the top choices were: developing a financial plan (19 per cent), saving for retirement sooner (17 per cent) and paying down debt (15 per cent). To read the entire Press Release, visit www.sunlife.com

In the U.S., GfK MRI is implementing a change in its in-person, in-home consumer surveys to augment its data on readership of printed magazines with readership on every type of digital platform. Founded in 1979 as Mediamark Research & Intelligence, GfK MRI provides magazine audience ratings, multimedia research data and insights into consumers’ behaviour and motivations.

Website: www.gfkmri.com (photo) Dr. Julian Baim, EVP/Chief Research Officer of GfK MRI

e-Rewards, Inc. announces it has reached an agreement to acquire Peanut Labs, Inc. Under the terms of the agreement, Peanut Labs will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of e-Rewards with completion of the acquisition expected in October 2010, subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions. Founded in 2007, Peanut Labs has thirty-five full-time employees and is headquartered in San Francisco www.peanutlabs.com. www.e-rewards.com

sponsored by

Uthink Online and Studentawards Inc. congratulates the MRIA on 50 years!

In Canada, emotional measurement specialist Hotspex has appointed former Maritz exec Chris Thorne as Vice President of Research.

Thorne started his research career in 1989 with Deloitte before moving to International Data Corporation (IDC). He then spent ten years in CRM consulting with Ernst & Young and Unleash Corporation, before returning to research at Maritz in 2007 as VP responsible for accounts including clients in the telecoms and financial services industries. Website: www.hotspex.com

Grant Miller has joined CINT AB as Director, Client Development. CINT is going through a period of growth and with $13 million raised recently in new venture capital.

Expectations are that their technology, panel community and service levels will lead the industry. Just over the last couple of months over 1 million new members were added to the CINT marketplace. Grant's sales territory is Canada, New England, Michigan and New York. grant.miller@cint.com

Toluna, one of the world’s leading online research panel and survey technology providers, announces the launch of key improvements to its Branded Online Community (MROC) product, PanelPortalTM, specifically the integration of Social Media features. PanelPortal leverages Web 2.0 to provide respondents with a more engaging, more socially-inspired user experience than a typical custom panel. To view a demonstration of PanelPortal, contact Neil Dixit, Director, Product Technology, North America at 1-416-227-5503 or visit www.toluna.com

MARK YOUR CALENDARS November 22, 2010 Special AGM Toronto Marriott Bloor Yorkville Hotel January 26, 2011 Net Gain 5.0 www.mria-arim.ca/NetGain5/NEWS/default.asp May 29–31, 2011 MRIA National Conference www.mria-arim.ca/conference2011

Studentawards Inc. 18-24 Weekly Omnibus 800,000 member online community: 16-64 years www.uthinkonline.com / Richard Choi: 416.322.3210 x250

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Basic Education The Field Management Group

by Dawn Smith, CMRP

The fundamental quality of data collection interviewers and supervisors is paramount to the data collection process.

Their skills and knowledge can make or break a project, no matter how clever the design at the outset. The actual collection of the data is the bottom line, and this can be enhanced with well-trained staff or easily confused when left in the hands of untrained supervisors or interviewers.

The Field Management Group is committed to the basic education of all interviewers at all levels.

MRIA does not at this time have an official manual that can reflect the MRIA rules and guidelines for data collection and be used for the training of supervisors and interviewers. The quality and integrity of interviewers is the most important aspect of data collection, yet we have not addressed this need. Incorrectly administered surveys can lead to incorrect data and therefore incorrect conclusions.

This situation must be addressed!

This year, the Field Management Group is undertaking to prepare a comprehensive interviewer training manual.

We are reviewing the currently existing manuals from MRA, ESOMAR, AMSRS, MRS and other organizations.

We will also be working with the Standards Committee to ensure that we meet all of the MRIA criteria and that this manual represents current MRIA standards.

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We plan to cover such topics as the key role of the interviewer, the importance of proper briefings, getting the interview, dealing with refusals, and privacy. We plan to cover all types of interviewing venues, including telephone, central locations, business-to-business, and intercepts.

Through our research so far, it would seem that many companies have put together interviewer training manuals of their own. We would appreciate it if we could use some of these existing manuals as a framework for the MRIA manual. If your company has an existing interviewer training manual, please forward it to the Field Management Group – either to Nancy Gulland, chair, at Nancy@maverickresearch.com, or Dawn Smith at dawn@signature-research.net. If there is any proprietary information, please delete it or call to discuss what would be possible. Nancy can be reached at (416) 960-4903, Dawn at (416) 696-8400 ext. 1.

Dawn Smith, CMRP, is the president of Dawn Smith Field Management Service and a Member of the Field Management Group. She can be contacted at (416) 696-8400 x1 or at dawn@signtaure-research.net.

Membership Promotion

NOW is the time to enroll new staff members and receive 14 months

New features in the MRIA Portal

for the price of 12.

Visit the Portal to: - select to receive Vue magazine electronically - modify your Portal password - access a summary of your transactions and of your Maintenance of Certification Program (MCP) points

In November and December, new members paying MRIA annual dues and fees will receive free additional month(s) as membership will be valid until December 31, 2011.

New practitioners with less than two years of experience in the industry can now join or renew at a reduced price.

Mark your Calendar 2011 Membership Dues and Renewal Process The 2011 Membership dues and fees are now available through the MRIA Portal.

The deadline to renew your MRIA membership, both Individual and Corporate is: January 31, 2011 Please note that until January 31, 2011, Individual members working for a Corporate member of MRIA can benefit from a Group Discount on their Individual membership dues.

Visit www.mria-arim.ca/MEMBERSHIP/CorporateDuesandFees.asp

To join MRIA go to the MRIA Portal at www.mriaportal-arimportail.ca, where you will be able to join the Association or renew your membership online, simply and efficiently.

For more information, contact us at membership@mria-arim.ca

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From the MRIA Institute for Professional Development Julia Savitch, Professional Development and Certification Coordinator

As a professional development and certification coordinator for MRIA’s Institute for Professional Development, I often receive questions from our current and potential students. We thought that addressing the frequently asked questions and providing helpful tips would be of use to our students, CMRP candidates, and designation holders interested in the new Maintenance of Certification Program.

How do I find the venue of a given course?

Course venues are included on the registration receipt that is emailed to you following registration. If you choose to pay by cheque, the receipt will be emailed to you once the MRIA office has received the payment.

Tip. Please note that MRIA requires the receipt of your cheque payment by the registration deadline of the course for which you have registered (usually two weeks before the course start date). Therefore, be sure to mail your cheque early in order to avoid disappointment.

I cannot find a professional development webinar in the MRIA portal. Where is it posted?

The webinars offered by the Institute for Professional Development are listed in the registration portal under “Courses.” Please look for them there, listed in alphabetic order. For the catalogue of our professional development webinars, please visit www.mria-arim.ca/EDUCATION/Webinars.asp How important is the CMRE prep workshop? How long does it take, and what does it cost? Can I get the same results from the study guide you provide?

The prep workshop for the Comprehensive Marketing Research Exam (CMRE) was first introduced in 2008, in order to help the exam writers brush up on material and exam techniques. It takes two full days and costs the same as any other two-day MRIA course. So far, the feedback received from prep workshop participants has been very positive. Some claim they “could not have done the exam without it”! As well, our statistics show that CMRE prep attendees have a higher exam pass rate than those who have not taken the workshop.

While the CMRE study guide is also a very helpful tool in preparing for the exam, the prep workshop gives you the opportunity for live interaction with the instructor and fellow exam writers, as well as a chance to ask questions.

More information on the CMRE prep workshop can be found at www.mria-arim.ca/EDUCATION/CMREPrep.asp 34

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What is MCP? MCP stands for Maintenance of Certification Program, the program that will come into effect in January 2011, with the goal of increasing the credibility and value of the Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) designation. This will be done by formalizing the demonstration of ongoing learning by CMRP designation holders.

How will MCP affect me?

If you are a a CMRP, you will need to accumulate 50 MCP points over each two-year period. There are three major areas under which the points can be accumulated: learning, leadership skills, and knowledge sharing. The ways to collect points are multiple: from attending professional development courses and webinars at MRIA, or elsewhere, to attending local, national or international events, to writing articles and volunteering your time on committees.

How do I track my points?

For the courses and events purchased through the MRIA portal, the MCP points will automatically be assigned and tracked for you. Next year will see the launch of a web-based application that will allow members to enter the MCP points they have earned for activities completed outside of MRIA; the application will also integrate the points assigned in the MRIA portal. Until that time, please keep track of all your professional development activities by keeping the receipts and certificates of attendance.

Tip: Look for this symbol

MCP 20

at www.mria-arim.ca/EDUCATION/IntroToMR.asp, next to the course/webinar name on the MRIA website, to see how many MCP points it will earn you.

Please feel free to address your questions, requests and comments on professional development and certification to Julia Savitch at jsavitch@mria-arim.ca or (905) 602-6854 ext.

8729.

For more details on the MCP, please read the article by Fania Borok on page 28 or refer to the Institute for Professional Development section of the MRIA website.

Social Media: A Game Changer?

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 St. Andrew’s Club and Conference Centre

Jan. 26.11

www.mria-arim.ca/netgain5

Join in on our discussion of the current and future state of social media.

The Internet has become the powerful engine of market research. The old qual/quant world is now multidimensional. In the past few years, we have transitioned from simple HTML internet surveys to online panels and then to MROCS and now social media. New opportunities to collect, synthesize and report data are unfolding daily. We have become story tellers, voyeurs, videographers, podcasters, tweeters, flickers, crowd “sourcerers”, ethnographers, bloggers, co-creators and screen scrapers.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers Tom Anderson Founder, Anderson Analytics – he is named one of the industry’s “Four under 40” market research leaders by the American Marketing Association in 2010.

Will Goodhead Brainjuicer – and he was named “Research Superstar” at the 2010 ESOMAR Congress in Athens.

Wired magazine states that ten sites account for 75% of all internet traffic. Apps rule on any platform. Mobility is becoming ubiquitous. Everyone is linking into the cloud.

Brian Levine Founder, Innerscope – his highest profile work came from leading all front-end development and customer research for the creation of Major League Baseball’s highly successful network of 33 websites.

To ensure competitive advantage, you need to stay ahead of rapidly evolving trends in research technologies, best practices and business strategies in this growing area. Net Gain 5.0 addresses this need by asking presenters the following questions.

Monique Morden President, Global Partner Program and Chief Operating Officer for National Panels at Vision Critical. Most recently, she has focused on online quant and qual research methodologies.

• Are standards keeping up to new online practices?

• Is a MROC proving to be a corporate necessity?

• Is social media more buzz than substance?

• How do we mine the infinite morass of buzz?

• Is social media really taking engagement to a higher level?

• Is neuroscience the new science of market research?

• What can be learned from social media case studies?

• Is mobility the new untapped frontier for market researchers?

• Is the cloud obscuring core fundamental scientific rules?

• Can everything be reduced to the number 42 and 140 characters?

Ray Poynter Managing Director, The Future Place – Ray has spent the last 30 years at the interface between technology, research, and consumers, most recently engaging with social media and writing the recently published Handbook of Online and Social Media Research.

Net Gain 5.0 co-chairs Sandy Janzen – sandy.janzen@ipsos.com Cam Davis – camdavis@sdrsurvey.com Marketing and Communications: Anne Marie Gabriel – amgabriel@mria-arim.ca Registration: Erica Klie – eklie@mria-arim.ca

Call for Sponsors All sponsors will be acknowledged on the MRIA website, in Vue Magazine, in eblasts and Pulse, in recognition of their support - for more info go to www.mria-arim.ca/NetGain5/SPONSORSHIP/PDF/

Registration Now Open!

Seating limited to 150 and has SOLD OUT in the last two years. Register early, at discounted rates. www.mria-arim.ca/NetGain5/REGISTRATION/

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QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY (QRR) In accordance with federal privacy laws, MRIA’s Qualitative Research Registry (QRR), or Registre de la recherche qualitative (RRQ) in French, was created to provide an ongoing, user-friendly vehicle for tracking those who do not want to be contacted or should not be contacted for qualitative research studies.

QRR is a comprehensive do not call list of those who have recently participated in qualitative research studies, those who have asked not to be contacted further, and those felt by recruiters and moderators to be best served by not being contacted. These respondents are marked as “do not call” in accordance with established MRIA Standards.

All field and full-service companies are encouraged to submit a list of their qualitative respondents for entry into the QRR system each month, including those who do not wish to be contacted.

THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES HAVE SUBMITTED NAMES TO QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY FOR JULY / AUGUST 2010: ONTARIO BARBARA C. CAMPBELL RECRUITING INC. CONSUMER VISION LTD. DAWN SMITH FIELD MANAGEMENT SERVICES INC. NEXUS MARKET RESEARCH INC. OPINION SEARCH INC.

Participating firms will receive monthly updates of respondents to be screened from qualitative recruitment samples. QRR works effectively to increase the quality and integrity of the qualitative research process, by serving as a control to ensure respondents are not contacted more frequently than is necessary.

QUALITY RESPONSE INC.

However, the ability of the system to function effectively is directly related to the co-operation received from firms who provide recruitment services. If you are a full service research firm or field supplier that is currently participating in the Qualitative Research Registry program – thank you very much and keep up the good work!

QUEBEC

If you are not currently participating, please get involved! If you are interested in submitting to QRR, please visit the MRIA website at

OPINION SEARCH INC.

mria-arim.ca/QRD/QualResearchRegistry.asp

for further explanation and guidance on how to submit qualitative research participants’ names, along with the required electronic forms.

RESEARCH HOUSE INC. RESEARCH PROFESSIONALS TANN RESEARCH SERVICES INC. VALYRA RESEARCH SERVICES INC.

CRC RESEARCH (QUEBEC) MAYER, BOURBONNAIS & AUBE OPINION SEARCH INC.

WEST & NORTH RESEARCH HOUSE INC. SMARTPOINT RESEARCH INC. SYNOVATE TREND RESEARCH INC.

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH REGISTRY SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE SENT TO: QRRQ@mria-arim.ca Submission templates and payment forms can be found at mria-arim.ca/QRD/QualResearchRegistryForms.asp

Rules of Conduct and Good Practice For Members of the Marketing Research and Intelligence Association (2007), Section C Rules Specific to the Conduct of Qualitative Research: 20. Recruiters should provide accurate data to the Qualitative Research Registry, where such exists, on a consistent basis and check all respondents against the Registry.

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21. Moderators buying recruiting services should give primary consideration to recruiting agencies which submit to the Qualitative Research Registry, where such a service exists, on a regular and ongoing basis.

P RO F E SS I O NAL D E VE LO P M E N T

2010-2011 EDUCATIONAL PROGRAM

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Professional Development

CANADA’S LEADING PROVIDER OF MARKETING RESEARCH EDUCATION FOR PROFESSIONALS

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102-Ethical Issues and Privacy in Marketing Research

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November 17

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401-Online Research, Best Practices and Innovations

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November 30, 1:00–2:00 PM

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202-Questionnaire Design

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December 16

January 13–14

CMRE Prep Workshop 204-Qualitative Marketing Research

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December 30

January 27

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For more details or to review the complete 2010-2011 Educational Program and to register online at the MRIA Portal, visit our website at www.mria-arim.ca

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P RO F E SS I O NAL D E VE LO P M E N T

MRIA INSTITUTE FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT INSTITUT DE DÉVELOPPEMENT PROFESSIONNEL DE L’ARIM

Congratulations to the New CMRPs of 2010!

Félicitations aux nouveaux PARM de 2010!

MRIA extends hearty congratulations to the following members who have earned the coveted Certified Marketing Research Professional (CMRP) designation by writing and passing this year’s Certified Marketing Research Exam (CMRE) / L’ARIM félicite chaleureusement les membres suivants qui ont reçu la désignation convoitée de professionnel agréé en recherche marketing (PARM) après avoir réussi l’examen écrit d’accréditation en recherche marketing (EARM) cette année : Greg Ambrose* Catharine Bauer* Claire Bazley Christian Bourque Lisa Deschamps Iain Gledhill Mike McEleny Carolyn O’Keefe Stephen Popiel Amanda Tate Margaret Wicken*

Customer Insights Market Insight Manager Research Analyst Vice President, Research Market Research Consultant Director, Market Research Professor General Manager Senior Vice President Research Associate President

Indigo Books & Music Inc. Leo Pharma Inc. Hotspex Inc. Leger Marketing Deschamps Market Research Telus Communications - Market Research Sheridan College Market Quest Research Group Inc. Synovate Motoresearch Corporate Research Associates Orion Marketing Research

Toronto Thornhill Toronto Montreal Pointe-Claire Burnaby Toronto St. John’s Toronto Halifax Fredericton

* Please note: names with an asterisk indicate that the candidate still needs to complete the 102- Ethical Issues and Privacy in Marketing Research course. * Note : l’astérisque près d’un nom signifie qu’il faut que le candidat ou la candidate complète le cours 102-Questions d'éthique et protection des renseignements personnels s’appliquant à la recherche marketing.

The next CMRE will be held on February 4, 2011.

CMRE Prep Workshops will be offered on January 13-14, 2011 in Toronto; May 25-26, 2011 in Ottawa and on June 9-10, 2011 in Toronto MRIA’s CMRP or PARM (Professionnel agréé en recherche marketing) certifies the designation holder’s high level of knowledge and capability in marketing research theory and practice, and adherence to the rigorous ethical standards set out in MRIA’s Code of Conduct and Good Practice.

Le prochain examen aura lieu le 4 février 2011.

Les ateliers de préparation à l’examen seront offerts les 13-14 janvier 2011 à Toronto, les 25-26 mai 2011 à Ottawa, et les 9-10 juin 2011 à Toronto La désignation de PARM (Professionnel agréé en recherche marketing) de l’ARIM certifie que son détenteur possède un haut niveau de connaissances et de compétences en matière de théorie et de pratique de la recherche marketing et que ce détenteur respecte les normes d’éthique rigoureuses établies dans le Code de déontologie et les règles de pratique de l’ARIM.

For more information on attaining the CMRP designation and for a complete list of all MRIA CMRPs, visit www.mria-arim.ca/AWARDS/CMRPDefinition.asp Pour obtenir plus de renseignements sur la désignation de PARM et pour obtenir une liste complète de tous les PARM de l’ARIM, visitez le site www.mria-arim.ca/AWARDSFRE/CMRPDefinition.asp

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P RO F E SS I O NAL D E VE LO P M E N T

GET YOUR CMRP Designation!

The CMRP (Certified Marketing Research Professional) designation signifies a high level of knowledge and capability in marketing research theory and practice, and adherence to rigorous ethical standards set out in MRIA’s Code of Conduct and Good Practice.

By achieving a CMRP designation you: • Confirm your broad competency and mastery of theoretical and practical knowledge required to maximize value to your organization and clients; • Better position yourself for career advancement and greater earning power; • Demonstrate your commitment to continued professional development and to upholding the highest level of professional ethical standards.

The CMRP can be obtained by writing the Comprehensive Marketing Research Exam (CMRE).

The next CMRE will be held on February 4, 2011. Application deadline is January 7, 2011. Apply now!

There are two ways to qualify to write the CMRE: • You have completed MRIA’s Institute for Professional Development program of twelve Core courses (or equivalent courses from another academic institution) and have at least two years of professional marketing research experience; or • You select to “Challenge” the CMRE, if you have at least eight years of marketing research experience, are confident you meet the knowledge requirements set out by the Competency Requirements document and have successfully completed the Core course “102-Ethical Issues and Privacy in Marketing Research”

CMRE Prep Workshop: Prepare for the Exam!

A Prep Workshop is available for those who want to brush up on material and on exam techniques, to prepare for the CMRE. This two-day CMRE Prep Workshop will be offered on January 13-14 in Toronto.

The enrollment to this unique Workshop is limited to 15 registrants, so don’t delay and reserve your seat TODAY. All CMRE applicants will also be sent a very detailed, comprehensive CMRE Study Guide to assist exam writers in preparing for the CMRE. The Guide is sent automatically once registration has been completed and is FREE OF CHARGE. The Study Guide is also available FREE OF CHARGE to MRIA members in good standing who are considering writing the CMRE exam in the future on a request only basis. Send your request to: education@mria-arim.ca

MRIA Institute for Professional Development

For more information on the CMRE, please visit: www.mria-arim.ca/EDUCATION/CMRE.asp or contact us at education@mria-arim.ca

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B2B Reporter a monthly update for business-to-business market researchers Ruth Lukaweski, CMRP

The Incredible World of B2B Social Media “Social media are not so much a collection of sites and technologies as the symptoms of an enormous shift in buyer behaviour. … The old order has been dismantled.” – Matt Ridley

better access to business information, which has traditionally been sourced from vendors or the business press. The advent of the Internet (and now the Buyersphere) means that vendors and publishers have lost control of this It has become fairly easy to find lots information. B2B buyers can now of examples of how B2B marketers are exchange information, opinions, etc., using social media. After I reviewed four etc. very readily, and there is now no presentations on this topic, it became central authority controlling access. clear that some B2B thought leaders are Ridley also predicts more pressure on banking heavily on this media business brands to acknowledge the phenomenon and expecting an almost human element in motivations for earth-shattering impact. The rhetoric is acquiring business brands, and to turn a bit exaggerated; nevertheless, the cold-hearted business-brand November and December columns of personalities into warmer versions of “B2B Reporter” will review four B2B brands. Will it be the “survival of credible papers and webinars focused on the friendliest”? the potential of B2B social media – and Ken Sickles try to understand why B2B social media seem to have captured the imagination This past June, Ken Sickles (global director of Solution Strategy, Dow of so many.

Jones) gave a presentation entitled “Social Media for Business Research” at Matt Ridley the American Marketing Association’s Last year, science writer, journalist, virtual event “Unveiling Marketing banker and businessman Matt Ridley wrote a white paper on social media for Research’s Future Online.”

Sickles pointed out that the growth of Base One Integrated Marketing. Titled social networks has been nothing less “Business-to-Business in a Person-tothan astounding: 105+ million Twitter Person World: How Does B2B subscribers; 500+ million for Facebook; Marketing Fit with the Personal Nature 70+ million for LinkedIn. Mainstream of Social Media?” the paper focuses on media sites (USA Today, People, CNN) the contradiction between the essence acknowledge that social networks are a of social media and the commercial bigger source of referrals than Google. world. At the same time, the paper asks For example, USA Today is more likely to what role media like blogs and social be accessed via social networks (35%) networks can play in our hard, than via Google (6%). Recent data show impersonal commercial world. that there are now almost 65 million tweets per day!

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The essence of the presentation, however, focused on the benefits of utilizing social media for business research on several fronts:

• Company information – specifically, monitoring competitors’ public conversations to find out what the competitors are doing.

• Products – reaching out to customers and gaining valuable insight into how to improve your products. According to Sickles, one out of five tweets refer to a brand or product.

• People – providing unfiltered access to specific experts or influencers who are happy to share content and information about a specific area or topic. Access to this type of information sharing is apparently unique to social networks.

• Special topical coverage – monitoring social media as sources of rich information about specific topics that are apparently not available elsewhere.

Ridley and Sickles both examine the uses (but not the abuses) of B2B social media. Ridley draws some strong conclusions, but doesn’t really explain how he gets there. Sickles is more practical and actually focuses on examples of how social media can be of use to B2B marketers.

The “B2B Reporter” is prepared by Ruth Lukaweski, CMRP, of RML Research Inc. She can be reached at rlukaweski@rmlresearch.com or (416) 782-9377.

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The Court of Public Opinion report from the MRIA Litigation and Regulatory Resource Committee Ruth M. Corbin, CMRP1

It May Be Popcorn, but It’s Not Peanuts: Survey Evidence and the Public School Copyright Tariff The Copyright Board of Canada needs and loves data, to assist with its decisions on tariffs to be paid by users of copyrighted materials.

There are many thousands of copyright owners in Canada – authors, performers, producers and broadcasters – who earn money through tariff payments. Most of them belong to collective societies that negotiate and administer their tariff payments. Collective societies file proposed tariffs with the Copyright Board of Canada on behalf of their members, payor groups present their points of view on what fair payments should be, and the Copyright Board arbitrates and sets the final amounts.

Access Copyright is one such collective society2, representing writers and publishers outside Quebec. It facilitates licences for reproduction of copyrighted published works.

A recent high-profile decision of the Copyright Board3 dealt with an Access Copyright tariff, that applied to the photocopying of copyrighted works for use in the primary and secondary school system outside Quebec.4 The copyrighted works at issue were those copied from books, magazines, newspapers and journals, used throughout the educational system. As part of its evidence before the Copyright Board, Access Copyright conducted a survey to estimate the volume and nature of photocopying being done in the schools, the school boards, and in the Ministries of Education. The survey was based on a stratified sample of 894 schools, 31 school boards and 17 offices of Ministries of Education. It involved documenting the nature and purpose of copies made at 2651 different photocopiers by many thousands of individuals, and produced records for 366,344 photocopying transactions.

Particularly noteworthy was the magnitude of the survey. The Copyright Board has indicated its willingness to

continue to rely on such large-scale surveys for other types of tariffs. MRIA members may wish to acquaint themselves with opportunities to serve this forum of copyright users and owners, with high quality survey services.

The survey was also noteworthy because of the hot-tubbing agreements which led to its final design. An earlier column in Vue described the trend towards expert hottubbing, whereby experts representing opposing parties in a court dispute meet and agree in advance on as many issues as they find possible to agree on, and thereby reduce the number of disputes that are brought before the judge. In the present context, both collectors and payors of the Access Copyright tariff cooperated in designing the survey, and agreed to the Board’s treating the survey output as “facts.”

The interpretation of those facts was, nonetheless a topic of hot debate, particularly with respect to which types of copies were subject to a tariff payment. The Copyright Act allows exceptions for certain types of so-called fair dealing, including use of photocopied material for research and private study. At issue among the parties to the tariff was identifying the teaching materials that should be classified as “fair dealing” uses of copyright, and therefore not subject to tariff payments.

The survey evidence contributed to a decision by the Copyright Board to levy a tariff of $5.12 per student in respect of photocopying done within the system. The tariff was to be paid not by the students, but by the provincial Ministries of Education or school boards on their behalf. It covered, among other things, the materials distributed to students to support their classroom lessons. The Ministers of Education appealed the decision on the grounds that the exceptions for “fair dealing” had been too narrowly defined. The Federal Court of Appeal disagreed and upheld the decision of the Copyright Board.

In supporting the reasonableness of the tariff, Access Copyright pointed out that the license fee per student was “about the cost of a bag of popcorn” per student per year.5 The Ministers of Education regard the tariff as more than trivial. Shortly before this issue of Vue went to press, the Council of Ministers of Education sought leave to take their position on fair dealing all the way to the Supreme Court.6 It will likely be well into 2011 before we know what happens next.

Endnotes 1 The author acknowledges with thanks the input of Professor Paul Whitehead, and M. Benoit Gauthier, both of whom were directly involved with the proceedings described in this month’s column.

2 A complete list is available through the Copyright Board of Canada at www.cb-cda.gc.ca/societiessocietes/index-e.html 3 Decision reproduced at www.accesscopyright.ca/docs/ K-12/Decision%20%20Access%20Copyright%20 Elementary%20and%20Secondary%20School%20Tarif f,%202005-2009.pdf 4 Quebec’s tariff had been established through a separate negotiation.

5 www.accesscopyright.ca/docs/FiveFastFactsonK-12.pdf 6 www.cmec.ca/Press/2010/Pages/2010-09-29.aspx

Dr. Ruth M. Corbin is the current chair of the Litigation and Regulatory Resource Committee, a member of the board of the Research Agency Council, and a member of the board of directors of MRIA. Ruth is managing partner of CorbinPartners Inc., a Gold Seal member of MRIA, and also an adjunct professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, teaching courses in intellectual property and cognitive science evidence.

She is co-author of two books on survey evidence in the Canadian court system: Trial by Survey and Survey Evidence and the Law Worldwide. vue November 2010

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New Standards updates on MRIA’s code of conduct and other standards issues Donald Williams

Frequently Asked Questions In this month’s column, I provide answers to several frequently asked questions submitted to the MRIA Adviceline.

Limitations of Consent to Research I am currently conducting a customer satisfaction survey on behalf of a client who has requested that the survey include an invitation to sign up to receive a newsletter from the client. Is this practice a breach of the MRIA Code of Conduct with regard to limitations of consent to research?

As outlined in the Code of Conduct and Good Practice under “Responsibilities to the Public: Limitations of Consent to Research,” item 19, it is the responsibility of the researcher to prevent direct marketing or non-marketing research activities. Section 19(c) covers nonresearch activities: “Any such nonresearch activities must always, in the way they are organized and carried out, be clearly differentiated from marketing research activities.” To satisfy this condition in this case, the following steps/protocols should be satisfied: 1. Keep the online survey separate from the newsletter subscription. This provides a clear separation of the marketing research process and the client’s customer relationship management process. a. For example, at the end of the online survey, if respondents decide to subscribe to your client’s newsletter, they would be directed to your client’s website or portal, where an email address would be collected. Ensure that the client has a privacy policy in place. b. Your online survey process would function as per normal protocols, except for a redirect to (a), above.

2. A link to your privacy policy should be easily accessible to the respondent (standard protocol).

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Covering both (1) and (2) should negate potential issues and satisfy the MRIA Code of Conduct.

that is not directly related to the overall research study).

Interviewing on Cellphones

Handling Multi-Stage Recruitment How do I handle a project that entails multi-stage recruitment of participants?

MRIA’s current Code of Conduct covering data collection and recruitment techniques, under “Rules Specific to Conducting Market Research Using the Internet,” item 4.4, stipulates the following: “Researchers must not make use of surreptitious, misleading or unsolicited data collection or recruitment techniques – including using agents that collect personal information without the respondent’s explicit awareness, spamming, scamming or baiting respondents.”

At each stage of the recruitment process, the researcher should inform the participant of the nature of the research for that particular recruitment phase. At the first stage (and each consecutive stage thereafter), the participant should consent to being re-contacted. Best practices recommend including statements regarding the possibility of follow-up studies based on participation.

It is not necessary to inform the potential participant of the nature of the next stage, as this must be included in the consent form relating to that particular phase.

The best way to handle this situation is to provide a consent form for each stage of the recruitment process, thereby preventing the potential for misleading recruitment practice ( e.g., baiting or including a study/recruitment protocol

What marketing research standards apply to conducting surveys on cellphones?

The current MRIA Code of Conduct does not offer any specific details on cellphone interviews. In 2007, however, the committee of the Field Management Group reviewed these issues and presented their findings (available at www.mria-arim.ca/COMMITTEES/ PDF/cellphones.pdf ).

Here are some basic guidelines advocated by the Field Management Group: Avoid using autodialers (including self-dialing modems and predictive dialers) to place calls, unless the cellphone owner grants permission.

Avoid using text messages to make advanced contact with opt-in permission, as this may be in breach of privacy laws.

From an ethical standpoint, review fieldwork protocols, including time of day for calling, maximum number of callbacks, and the frequency of callbacks.

In several provinces across Canada, the laws regarding the use of cellphones while driving will also require changes in existing protocols.

Donald Williams is vice-president and research director at NADbank, the principal research arm of the Canadian newspaper industry. He has worked in market research, telecom pricing strategy, and business forecasting. He can be reached at dwilliams@nadbank.com.

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CI Corner a monthly column that answers questions related to competitive intelligence David Lithwick & Enrico Codogno

Taking Advantage of Social Media to Capture CI Dear CI Corner: I recently started my career in competitive intelligence, having taken courses and read all the books on the subject. Yet I feel that there is more to this profession than what I’ve been taught and have read.

What exactly does CI encompass, and how is actionable CI put together?

New Kid on the Block Dear New Kid on the Block: What makes CI such a powerful, and sometimes frustrating, tool is that it can encompass a wide range of research methods that are then brought together through analysis to create a detailed and evolving picture of the competitive environment.

Here are some of the elements that come into play.

HUMINT. Human intelligence is information derived from simply talking to people. Examples include mystery shopping, exchanging information with people in your own organization, or speaking with industry experts and journalists to get their ideas on industry issues.

Market Research. Yes, traditional market research can be part of the CI professional’s arsenal. Whether it is a customer satisfaction study, a focus group study, a study of general market conditions, or even the results of a business intelligence analysis of your client base, market research can help

provide a starting point for an understanding of existing or potential market conditions, as well as developing trends in attitudes and ideas.

Public information and social media.

There is much publicly available information that can be used for competitive intelligence. This does not mean aimlessly surfing the web. It means looking at such things as the following.

• Want ads by competitors. Are they expanding? replacing workers who left?

• CEO biographies. What are their backgrounds, and how will past experiences influence future decisions?

• Strategic alliances. What subcontractors have been brought in, and how do they enhance or hamper a competitor’s ability to compete?

• New technologies and new patents.

Can new technologies developed in other industries be used in your industry? What would be the impact?

Has a competitor patented a new product? Can it be a game-changer?

Legislation. Will proposed legislation help or hinder your company or industry?

Financial information. This can be tricky, as financial statements can be dodgy. If you’re comfortable with such information and know how to analyse it, then it can certainly be a useful tool for the CI professional.

It is analysis, along with the experiential knowledge of your business sector that brings all of the above-mentioned items together to create a complete picture of your company’s competitive environment.

Keep in mind that this picture is in constant flux.

I hope we have helped by briefly showing how different research forms and sources of information can be brought together through analysis to help key decision-makers arrive at the best possible decisions for their company – today and into the future.

THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT Analysis, combined with experience and imagination, is the one essential that a CI professional needs to attain success.

“CI Corner” is written by David Lithwick and Enrico Codogno. David is a senior partner at Market Alert and can be reached at david@marketalert.ca or (416) 932-9820. Enrico is with the Customer Foresight Group Limited; he can be reached at enrico@customerforesight.com or (416) 651-0143.

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The Innovation Accelerator monthly perspectives on innovation and creativity Margaret Imai-Compton, CMRP

Instead of Brainstorming, Try Brainwriting Over the years, brainstorming has come to be an accepted and normal part of business problem-solving, bringing together a team to solve a problem or generate new ideas and directions.

Typical brainstorming utilizes a facilitator who directs the session, and it asks participants to call out ideas, contribute builds, and express their solutions. Brainstorming requires a strong element of verbal participation and verbal idea-building.

What happens, then, when key players (often the most senior persons in attendance) speak up with their initial ideas at the outset of the session? There is a tendency to stay with those first ideas without considering the contributions of more conservative or reticent participants. As well, stronger personality types tend to champion and verbally defend their contributions, without listening to quiet or shy team members.

The challenge, then, is how to encourage lateral thinking in a group environment where there are different personality types, some of whom are quick to make a contribution while others need reflection or confidence to voice theirs.

Introduce brainwriting ! This technique involves everyone in the session and uses the same principles of brainstorming. The genius of brainwriting, however, is that it harnesses everyone’s contributions by

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providing each participant an equal voice in the process. Here’s how it works.

1. Use no names. Have the participants sit around a table, each with a sheet of paper, and instruct them not to write their names. Anonymity is one of the key success factors in brainwriting. At the top of the page, participants write down the task to be brainstormed.

4. Share the collective output. At this point, the facilitator will record all the ideas on a flip chart so participants can view the output. Only then are participants given back their voice, and discussion can begin on where to start the ideation.

Why does brainwriting work? First, there’s no discussion during the initial rounds, so it yields a lot of ideas in a short period of time.

Second, all the participants, even the 2. Use timed and free form. The facilitator gives a timed session (typically quiet and reticent ones, get a voice and contribute their ideas. two to three minutes) to list as many Third, it’s anonymous, so there’s ideas as possible. Participants are freedom to be creative. instructed not to edit or finesse the Lastly, by exchanging sheets, team ideas. In brainwriting, I often direct my workshop participants to write from the members build and evaluate ideas in a heart, not the head, and to write in free concentrated, creative way. form.

This is a useful, snappy technique that involves everyone’s participation 3. Mix it up. When time is called, all the and ensures that both introverts and extroverts contribute in a creative and participants hand their sheets to the meaningful way. facilitator, who shuffles and randomly redistributes them. Now, the participants have new sheets with someone else’s ideas, so they add to the Margaret Imai-Compton, MLIS, CMRP, CUG, is principal of Imai-Compton list by either building on the existing Consulting Inc. She has been a focus ideas or taking a new direction. At the end of the next timed session, the sheets group moderator and innovation facilitator in Canada and the U.S. for will have grown in quantity and over 25 years. Contact Margaret at content. Continue until the facilitator margaret@imaicompton.com decides that ideas are exhausted or (416) 221-7661. (typically three to five rounds, depending on the task).

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Client-Side Insights an update from the Client-Side Researcher Council Ron Silverton, CMRP

Introducing the 2010–2011 Client-Side Researcher Council Education. Having forgotten just about everything I learned in statistics and marketing research from my MBA classes, I could either dust off some very old textbooks or turn to MRIA for the education I needed to quickly build my skills. I’ve received tremendous benefit from MRIA’s professional education program and consider it to be one of the hallmarks of membership. As a recipient of these benefits, I wanted to give back through the board of the Client-Side Researcher Council (CSRC).

There are nine other CSRC board members, all with their own stories and experiences to share. You’ll hear from them in this column over the coming issues of Vue. Keep an eye out for what they have to say. Meanwhile, I would like to take this opportunity to highlight the CSRC (drawing from the words of prior councils and chairs) and to identify the current board members.

planners, consultants, and others whose main relationship with marketing research, competitive intelligence, and data and business is in using marketing research rather than producing it.

A ten-member board leads the CSRC, with two members sitting on the overall board of MRIA. The board members are Anne-Marie David, CMRP, Merck Consumer Care Canada John Tabone, Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants Joseph Chen, Unilever Canada Kenneth Brinston, Canada Mortgage & Housing Corporation Kira Murdock, Teletoon Canada Kristian Gravelle, Kraft Canada Ron Silverton, CMRP, CSRC Chair, Invesco Trimark Susan Innes, BMO Financial Group Tracy Bowman, CMRP, Parks Canada

Why Are We Here?

Our mandate is to represent the views and issues of people who work with marketing research, both primary and secondary, and those who work with analysis of customer databases, marketing analysis and related information areas.

Who Are We? Client-Side Researcher Council members are client-side marketing researchers, data analysts, people in marketing, brand management and advertising, public relations agency

Vinu George, Kellogg Canada Contact any of us; you’ll find our coordinates on MRIA’s website.

What Do We Do? The CSRC ensures that the community of client-side researchers has input into and draws benefits from strategies and activities in all areas of MRIA operations, including education, publications, standards, conferences, external communications, advocacy, and government relations.

CSRC Principles We are guided by five key principles.

1. Be inclusive. Client-side researchers will have the opportunity to actively participate, regardless of geography, organization type, and size or level of experience.

2. Be vocal. According to the MRIA policies and bylaws, our purpose is to “consider issues, formulate policy and actions common to client-side researchers in Canada, and to provide a client-side voice on the association’s board.” We will also be vocal ambassadors outside the association – for MRIA, its values, its practices, and its standards. Make no mistake: MRIA elevates the quality of marketing research in this country, and CSRC members are active participants and supporters.

3. Foster a spirit of continuous improvement with respect to the value client-side researchers add to their organizations and clients. Every clientside researcher can be best in class.

4. Focus on positive and mutually rewarding relationships with research agencies. Our budgets pay their salaries, and their work enables us to do our jobs.

5. Have some fun. Life’s too short to do otherwise.

Ron Silverton is the chair of the ClientSide Researcher Council and AVP, Customer Research and Insights, for Invesco Trimark. You can reach him at ron.silverton@invescotrimark.com. vue November 2010

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Qual Col directional, not definitive – but critical nonetheless Ken LeClair

Education and research have been very much intertwined in my life. While in school, I often thought that I would end up as either a teacher or a researcher. And while I have spent most of my professional life in the research industry, about ten years ago I did go back to school, for a teaching degree, and then taught high school for a couple of years.

Since coming back to the research community, I’ve had the opportunity to do some qualitative work in the area of education policy and communications. And when I agreed to write this piece, I thought that I would wow the reader with insights from my multi-faceted view (as student, teacher and researcher) into the complexities of qualitative research in the area of education. And a complex space it is! But I’m not sure that this observation in itself is all that surprising.

What have struck me as more interesting are the parallels between teaching and a lot of what we do in qualitative research. I practised qualitative research before I undertook my short-lived teaching career, but the way I practise it now has been very much informed and enriched by what I experienced both in learning to teach and as a practising teacher in the high school setting.

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While the goals are different, many of the skills that make a good teacher also lead to effective group moderation. Tips on classroom control and management definitely apply – but so do techniques in the use of metaphor and bridging between ideas, which help others articulate thoughts and relationships that they wouldn’t otherwise express. In the case of the classroom, the endgame is in helping students explore and understand phenomena around them in ways that they couldn’t (or at least wouldn’t) do on their own.

In the research setting, we’re doing much the same thing with respondents – only in that case, we are doing so to help clients understand themselves and their relationships to brands, products and communications. While the endgame is different, the techniques and experience have very marked similarities.

What I find particularly rewarding in each case is bringing others to an “aha” moment, when they discover patterns or linkages that they wouldn’t have otherwise. In the case of students, it may be linking theory with practice or relating something in the broader world to their own lives. In focus groups, it is sometimes just observing people – those who aren’t often called on to reflect about themselves and their opinions – enjoy the experience and learn something about themselves in the process. It doesn’t happen with every class or student, and it doesn’t

happen in every group or with every respondent; but when it does, it is kind of cool and gratifying.

Prospective clients out there shouldn’t get the wrong impression: I’m doing groups mostly to get you the answers you need. And yes, that in itself is gratifying. But every once in a while, the teacher in me also enjoys the ability to get people to think in ways they wouldn’t normally think, to see them express themselves in novel ways, and to discover things about themselves that they otherwise wouldn’t.

Plus with focus groups, you very rarely have spitballs projected at you!

Ken LeClair is a VP at Ipsos Camelford Graham. He has had extensive experience on both the supplier and client side of market research since starting his career in the mid-1980s.

Ken’s areas of particular strength include media/technology/web usability, advertising and communications strategy, audience research, and public affairs.