MRSNZ Newsletter - Q1-2012 by Research Association NZ

The newsletter of the Market Research Society of New Zealand

InterVIEW Q1 2012

Flirtation o r engagement ? Cover story: Brief flirtation or true respondent engagement?

Not to be missed! Privacy - worry not The battle of substance & style

Future Fantastic: MR in 2062

Charts that changed history

InterVIEW | February 2012

Welcome to the first InterVIEW of 2012. I hope you had an enjoyable holiday season and found some time to relax and recharge the batteries.

A word with the President

2012 is going to be a big year for the Market Research Society of New Zealand: the Society is turning 50 years of age! We’ll kick the celebrations off with an industry networking event in Auckland the night of our 50th AGM and a matching event in Wellington a week later. The MRSNZ Research Effectiveness Awards will follow (start thinking about possible submissions because this one will be grand!). This is an exciting milestone for our industry and the next newsletter will be a 50th anniversary special to give the appropriate recognition! But back to this issue – our cover story looks at engaging research participants, how do we compete with all the other demands on busy lives? Without research participants our industry is in dire straits. Respecting privacy is also a key part of engagement, and we look at how people feel about privacy and social media in the article ‘On the record’ on page 8. In this edition, we also focus on data visualisation – with several interesting articles and interviews to explore this increasingly popular area of expertise. Is this something new or just an expression of something good researchers have been doing for years? You decide. Finally, we look at predictions for the next 50 years of MR – be sure to add your thoughts on the MRSNZ LinkedIn group. Plus there are all the usual Movers and Shakers, Book Reviews and Letters to the Editor. Thank you to everyone who contributed to the newsletter this month, and as always, we encourage members to write letters to the editor or join discussions via LinkedIn. If you have any comments you would like to share please send them to our Editor, Sue Cardwell. Look forward to seeing you at upcoming events and 50th anniversary celebrations!

Patricio Pagani, President of the MRSNZ February 2012 | InterVIEW

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InterVIEW | February 2012

Publisher: Market Research Society of New Zealand The dedicated team which produced this newsletter includes: Sue Cardwell Claire Lloyd Karin Curran Wing Zheng Robyn Moore Kris Mayo Denise Grealish Mark Lloyd Catherine Frethey-Bentham Visit us:

www.mrsnz.org.nz

Discuss with us:

www.linkedin.com/groups/MRSNZ-Network-3971139

http://twitter.com/#!/ResearchNZ

Images are copyright to their owners and should not be copied without permission. Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos InterVIEW is published four times a year by an enthusiastic sub-committee of the MRSNZ committee. The views expressed are not those of the MRSNZ. We welcome your input.

“

Words divide, pictures unite.

”

OTTO NEURATH,

INVENTOR OF ISOTYPE

Make sure you don’t miss ‘Focus on Data Visualisation’ P21. February 2012 | InterVIEW

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InterVIEW || February February 2012 2012 InterVIEW

Who’s looking at you? A recent Microsoft survey indicates that two thirds of people feel they are in control of their online reputations but less than half actively think about the long-term consequences of their online activities.

target marketing to them. However, nearly 62% of people confessed that they didn’t read the privacy policies or terms and conditions of the sites, often because they were too long or were The 2011 Privacy Awareness survey on social incomprehensible. networking revealed that people worry about Ways to manage our digital identity is the theme what the social networking company might be of two privacy-related conferences in Wellington using their information for. Nearly 68% of people during Privacy Awareness Week (29 April to 5 said they would stop using a site that used its May 2012). While the Privacy Forum will focus information in a way they hadn’t expected. on the New Zealand perspective, including In addition, around 46% said they were very discussions about government information uncomfortable, or quite strongly uncomfortable, sharing, the Identity conference will highlight the about sites tracking their activities in order to latest experiences in identity management from around the world.

Why our respondents

don’t need to worry

Under the MRSNZ / ESOMAR codes of practice respondent rights are protected in a number of ways. Members of the Market Research Society of New Zealand (MRSNZ) must abide by the code which in summary stipulates… • Personal information must be collected honestly and legally and respondents’ participation is voluntary at all stages of market research. • Research agencies must have a privacy policy which is readily accessible to respondents. • Research agencies must ensure that the personal data they collect is stored securely and collected for specified research purposes and not used in any manner incompatible with these purposes. • Respondents must be able to access personal information that a market research

agency holds about them if they wish to change or delete any data they feel is incorrect. • Respondents must be informed if they are likely to be contacted for quality control purposes (auditing) and their permission must be obtained before they can be recontacted for further research as a result of their participation in the original research. • Respondents’ confidentiality must be respected by the agency that collected the data and information that identifies an individual can’t be divulged to any third party (including the client) without the respondent’s explicit permission.

The Privacy Act also governs the collection and use of personal information as well as stipulating that agencies that collect such information must ensure that it is stored securely to prevent unauthorised use / disclosure to third parties. ■ February 2012 | InterVIEW

Letters Star letter!

Dear Market Researchers,

Does anyone care?

This is an open letter to ask, no beg, for a response as to what is necessary to get peoples interest in the MRSNZ / AMRO discussion as prompted by Rob Bree a couple of issues back. In fact, are we a group of individuals that, as a whole, retreat when issues need discussing and wait for someone else to make the first move before we retort? There are some very active members of our much loved and important industry who have been members of the MRSNZ, become fellows or life members and attend AGM’s and question decisions, reports, balance sheets etc and they’re great, in fact we need more of them, lots more.

Did you know? The star letter in each InterVIEW wins a bottle of champers. And even more importantly, a small amount of kudos from your colleagues.

This year is our awards year; it’s the year when we celebrate effectiveness and the year that sees us raise the profile of industry and celebrate what we do and laud over those that do it well. Can you share with the MRS what needs to be done to make sure that every good researcher in this country wants to turn up and share in that celebration and what needs to be done that every good researcher shares their opinion on such potentially important issues as governing bodies jostling and talking about shaking things up? Or is the real question “Does anyone care and if not, why not?” If you want, you can email me. Spencer Willis, Colmar Brunton

ink

Wellington CBD faciliation/meeting rooms for hire As researchers we know finding affordable, purpose-built qualitative facilitation and meeting rooms with client viewing facilities in Wellington CBD is a challenge. So we built our own suite of rooms to share with other market/social researchers, advertising agencies and independent consultants conducting focus groups, workshops, in-depth interviews and presentations. Our purpose-built suite on the corner of Manners and Victoria Streets offers:  Flexible seating options – boardroom, cafe-style or soft seating  Hostess and catering  Client viewing and recording facilities  Audio visual equipment, materials To make a booking, please email Janette@inknz.com or Sally@inknz.com.

   

Professional entrance 24 hours, 7 days a week access Convenient parking and public transport Affordable rates InterVIEW | February 2012

11 Dear MRSNZ,

Back to school Hi there, I am currently employed for a market research company and am looking to further my career with a degree or certificate. What course would you recommend? I would like correspondence. Anon.

Dear Ed,

White House chart skills I was intrigued to see Barack Obama’s use of charts during his State of the Union address (reviewed at thewhyaxis.info/sotu/ by The Why Axis). Long have politicians been the masters of giving ‘presentations’ without visual aids. In fact, I think most market researchers can learn a lot by watching politicians speechgiving abilities (if not the way they twist statistics!). Nonetheless, I like the addition of data visualisation to the State of the Union address. I think the points made are more digestible and more transparent when delivered with a bar chart or two. So how did the White House do? Well, the graphics aren’t over-done. If anything, they are a little old-fashioned in their style (but better that than too fancy). On the critical side, they miss a few axis labels and don’t start all their axes at zero, and of course they’ve cherry-picked what metrics to share. But on the other hand, they reliably provide sources and avoid some pitfalls (e.g. area rather than radius on bubble charts) which we all fall in to from time to time. They’ve also done well at keeping them clean. I wonder if what the average American voter makes of them? Have they been given a chance to evaluate the data for themselves, or have they been duped by propaganda? RM, Auckland

February 2012 | InterVIEW

Save the date When?

What?

Friday 17 February 2012

By 5pm

Call for nominations for the MRSNZ 2012 Committee closes

Wednesday 21 March 2012

6pm

MRSNZ AGM and election of committee members

Wednesday 21 March 2012

8pm

MRSNZ 50th Anniversary Celebration! (The Auckland Party)

Thursday 29 March 2012

5pm

MRSNZ 50th Anniversary Celebration! (The Wellington Party)

Thursday 12 April 2012

tbc

Daniel Berkal, Vice President, Research at The Palmerston Group (by invitation of the MRSNZ) “Project Butterfly: Escaping The Net”

(Provisionally) 17 August 2012

tbc

2012 Market Research Effectiveness Awards

From other organisations... 13-17 February / 20-24 February

2-5 day courses

NZ Social Statistics Network Summer Programme

Tuesday, 6 March

10am – 2pm

University of Auckland Commerce Careers Fair

28 June – 29 June

International Social Marketing Conference

InterVIEW | February 2012

QTR 1 2012

Unmissable events in market research in the coming weeks! If there are upcoming events you would like to see listed, please email secretary@mrsnz.org.nz

Where? New Zealand Auckland (venue tbc) Auckland Eclipse Bar, Wellington (tbc)

How?

How much?

Nominations need to be received by 5pm on Friday 17th February, 2012. If you have any questions Free! please contact the MRS Secretary on secretary@mrsnz.org.nz Watch your inbox for your invite!

Free!

Following the AGM. This will be an event full of surprises where all members past and present are tbc welcome! Look out for your invite coming soon. After Auckland, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re taking the party to Wellington! All members past and present are welcome! Look tbc out for your invite coming soon.

Auckland

Cutting-edge qual from the best in the business: a special opportunity to see a top-rated international speaker. Look out for your invite coming soon.

tbc

Auckland

Watch your inbox to hear about Expressions of Interest!

tbc

Victoria University, More details: contact courses@nzssn.org.nz Wellington Website: www.nzssn.org.nz Auckland

Business subjects (and Business/Arts/ Law conjoint) Email: employerservices@auckland.ac.nz

Brisbane, Australia Australian Association of Social Marketing

February 2012 | InterVIEW

Starting from $400 inc GST Company representation: $750 plus GST Varied fees:

aasm.org.au/ ism2012/

50 year predictions

for MR

For the 50th Anniversary of the MRSNZ, we spoke to Ron Stroeven, co-founder of Infotools, Duncan Stuart of Ipsos and the NewMR LinkedIn community about what our world will look like in 2062.

porting There Real time recordinengact&ionre and insight - we will have will no longer be a delay betwe ughts as they happen. access to people’s deeds and tho

Global challenges

We will face global scale disaster: either global warming or new challenges. This will lead to mass social and political disruptions.

Data-rich world means collection unnecessary

We will be savvy, demanding consumers. To combat information overlo ad we will rely on supersocial networks we trust, and suppliers will have to listen hard to please us. Research will be less about collecting data so much as sifting through it.

MR integrated and automated Big data analytics will be run by intelligent supercomputers on all sources of information - not only behavioural measurement but also sales, distribution, media, social media, pricing, etc. The computers will find the most significant patterns and then model and optimise changes. Specialist MR careers Market research will focus on what cannot be deduced using observational techniques: analysis of what might be, construction of experiments, drawing of insight, going where neuroscience can’t reach. We will be semioticians, ethnographers, behavioural scientists, and - rarest of all - people who can present results in ways that non-researchers can understand.

Complete consumer customisation

Product customisation will have reached such a degree that choices will be totally individual and understanding mass behaviour essentially redundant. Processing individal level data across billions of people will be done by sophisticated learning software.

Thanks to the wonderful NewMR and their LinkedIn Group who kindly contributed to this | February 2012 challenging topic! If you aren’t already a member of NewMR, join themInterVIEW - it’s worth it.

No more Likert scales

There will be fewer numbers and scales - computers will be capable of high quality text analysis.

Brain and body monitor

Neuron plug-ins will monitor subconscious decision-making. Brain data, and physiological responses such as heart rate, pupil dilation, etc. will give a complete picture along with activity tracking data to be analysed in-depth by psycho-neurosists.

Classic MR too expensive to survive

MR per se disappears (too expensive) and is replaced by data mining and/or direct-to-business social media itself. Some forms of qual survive because they offer social experiences in themselves. Think co-research.

Constant activity tracking Everything we do, or even look at, will be recorded. In order to access services it will be necessary to carry the successor to the smartphone, which will be mind-controlled. As a result, crime will be rare. We will benefit (financially or otherwise) from sharing our information.

Thought-controlle

d computers Keyboards will be replaced with thoughtcontrolled interfaces. Total global information connection. Astronomical computing power with high artificial intelligence. We will even complete que stionnaires using thoughts. Brain and body monitor

Community co-design

MR per se is outdated by community-centered business models and/ or service and experience design disciplines. Think co-design.

Think you know better?

Read the responses of contributers and add your own on the MRSNZ LinkedIn group.

February 2012 | InterVIEW

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InterVIEW | February 2012

Respondent Engagement

Flirtation or engagement? Prime’s Winifred Henderson and Research Now’s James Burge talk about engaging research participants in a mobile, social, rich media world.

ngagement has surfaced as one of the most popular buzzwords in marketing and communications in recent years and for good reason. Across the board the traditional practices have been challenged by the emergence of new technologies and new consumer attitudes and behaviours. Media and content proliferation, initially fuelled by the growth of the internet and more recently by the explosion of social and mobile media, have resulted in a society with ever-shorter attention spans and ever-more messages and actors competing for that attention. A Nielsen study showed that the average American, as an example, is exposed to 1,600 advertising messages per day. Market research is just one voice among many competing for the engagement of time-starved consumers. Falling response rates across all research methodologies have been a testament to the challenge we face as researchers as we seek to engage with a diverse and broad range of participants drawn from all areas of society.

in an everyday conversation requires all the same elements as a successful interaction with market research whether qualitative or quantitative: permission, relevance, listening, dialogue and reward. Without these elements at a personal, individual level, the experience and outcome can be less, or entirely different, than intended. So how do we apply this to research? Many of these principles exist in more traditional research methodologies but social change and new technologies are creating both the demand and opportunity for a rapid evolution in how both qualitative and quantitative research engages participants.

Permission

There is a limited pool of potential research participants in New Zealand and obtaining permission to engage the participant is not getting any easier. However, we have more tools at our disposal than ever (databases, pre-profiled online panels, customer relationships, loyalty programs, Conscious of the interest spurred by the Panel social networks and online communities) and Session of last year’s conference, and the limited the privacy policies to ensure participants feel time to do it justice, James Burge (MD, Research respected and safe. New approaches such as coNow Asia-Pacific) and Winifred Henderson creation, smartphone app surveys, customer (MD, Prime Research) take the opportunity to panels and improved incentives all enable increased opportunities to obtain permission to re-visit the subject. engage a potential respondent in research when ‘Engagement’ is an emotive word and is by no they want to, where they want to - and in return means a new concept. We know from our own provide a reward that is relevant. personal experiences that being properly engaged February 2012 | InterVIEW

Relevance

Reward relevance is also key. Online panel companies strive to ensure that their incentive programs match the interests of their panellists and are highly valued (vouchers, charities, frequent flyer points, gaming credits etc). We can also apply these principles to qualitative research: go beyond the cash in the envelope and provide participants a rewarding experience. For consumer qualitative research cash incentives still work best however sharing research results with business participants, even if only a snapshot or topline, can help participants understand their impact and generate interest.

For both qualitative and quantitative research, accurate pre-screening and profiling remain key to ensuring that our questions are reaching the right audience. Wherever possible, openly communicating the purpose and impact of the research can help generate interest. Timing also plays an important role, as do incentives. Online surveys and communities allow participants to engage when they prefer; new technologies such as smartphone surveys take this a step further, allowing participation outside the home or office at or soon after the ‘moment of truth’, in The days of ‘something for nothing’ are long gone. otherwise dead time (i.e. commuting). Each study should give back to the participant, Listening and dialogue whether personally and directly, or to society on Marketing communications are rapidly evolving their behalf. into a dialogue with consumers. Market research, particularly qualitative, has long been comfortable with this but we need to make the conversations deeper and longer.

Long, poorly written questionnaires and recruitment guides suffer the consequences in terms of response quality and drop-outs. Tone and language are important to making the participant feel respected and comfortable. Flow and logic are essential to pacing the interview and recruitment guide and avoiding frustration. Variety and mixing question types and formats help avoid repetition and boredom. Activities and presentation of questions need to make use of new techniques and technologies, such as rich media, to meet expectations and stimulate creativity. In this way, research can be enjoyable.

In conclusion, engaging research participants today and tomorrow will require innovation, application and a desire to go above and beyond the standard and traditional research processes and formats that served the industry well for many years. In the past decade, the pace of technological and social change has been rapid and would present a major challenge to the long term viability of the industry but for the rapid response of market researchers around the globe who are quickly evolving market research practice. People will always be willing to take time out for a rewarding, engaging conversation and it’s up to us as researchers to start that conversation. ■

Reward Academic studies have shown that not all participants are motivated by rewards. Some are, however, and in all cases we should offer appropriate rewards that compensate time, travel and other costs.

InterVIEW | February 2012

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Engage with the authors You can engage them in any further thoughts you have on the topic by writing to InterVIEW.

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Wow! 2012 is our year! Over the coming months we’ll be celebrating 50 years of great memories. It all kicks off with our 50th Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 21st March in Auckland (see details on page 12). The meeting will be followed by a party where all members past and present are welcome, and then a week later, we’ll continue the party in Wellington. What are your best MRSNZ memories? We’ll be asking you to contribute to a shared timeline project. Find out more about this at the 50th Anniversary Party. If you know of any past members, especially those who remember the Society in its first three decades, let us know. Contact secretary@mrsnz. org.nz to tell us who we should get in touch with.

InterVIEW | February 2012

► interviews

► history

► review

► the Kiwi viz

Focus on data visualisation

Data visualisation is one of the key skills for 21st century researchers. It’s no longer enough to have the insight; researchers must also communicate their findings in a digestible and compelling format. In today’s world of increasingly short attention spans, a deck of fifty bar charts just doesn’t cut it anymore. InterVIEW’s Sue Cardwell talks to three NZbased data visualisation practitioners to find out what we’re missing.

February 2012 | InterVIEW Clockwise from top left: Keith Ng’s interactive visualisation of the Consumer Price Index; David McCandless / Information is Beautiful “Snake Oil?”; Hans Rosling / BBC “The Joy of Stats”; Ptolemy’s World Map

Focus on data visualisation ► interviews

Design thinkers Simon Collins, Brendon Palmer and Hadley Smith created Infovision to address how companies use strategy and share it with staff. Their motto is to “take strategies out of peoples bottom drawers and put them on their (and their staff’s) office walls.” Early data viz innovator Otto Neurath said, “words divide, pictures unite” and this is the philosophy which Simon and Hadley are bringing to NZ organisations. “Infographics solve a lack of common understanding,” says Simon. Tell us about the process of creating a data visualisation. At the heart of what we do at infovision is take complex information - distil it down using insight, analysis and process - and present it back in a way that is simple to understand and highlights the key themes or issues. We draw a narrative out of the data that is already in there, but not obvious to the busy manager, client or stakeholder. It’s good when you’ve got a set of individuals in an organisation who are prepared to be engaged with the process of building a visualisation. When you take someone’s data and go away for months and then come back with a finished product, there’s always a “Err, this isn’t quite right” moment. It’s got to serve their internal purposes which we aren’t necessarily tuned into if we aren’t there to see it. Especially the qualitative data viz has nuances to Hadley Smith of Infovision Photos by Sabrina Hyde Studios

it which are nice to work through with the client. Visualising a business’ strategy shows people aspects of their organisations that they weren’t aware of before. It gives them passion and ownership. It’s about using consolidated data across the whole business, visibility of end-toend processes, seeing what a blue-sky strategy might look like... Why has data visualisation become so prominent recently? A few years ago, Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google, predicted that the next big career would be statisticians. The internet creates so much data, leading to information asphyxiation. Data visualisation comes from a place acknowledging that data is the new currency. Data matters so much, and data visualisation is a way of making data understandable.

InterVIEW | February 2012

Simon Collins of Infovision

The role of data visualisation is to tell you the critical elements. Does New Zealand do data visualisation well? The industry is about eight or nine years from having legs here. The biggest barrier is the mindset - convincing people that it’s worth the time and effort; it’s not just a pretty picture, it’s tangible. The leaders in New Zealand are probably the media think of the recent Rena and Pike River visualisations on Stuff.co.nz. When it’s good there’s a visual narrative - you should walk away with an understanding of the topic. What advice do you have for market researchers looking to improve their data visualisation? As market researchers you generate some complex information and it’s not necessarily in a language everyone understands. Graphs are really good for that, but they only show one or two variables at once. Data visualisation needs to bring myriad data together to tell a story which is present but isn’t obvious. If everybody was so competent with reading spreadsheets that they could find what’s important immediately then

February 2012 | InterVIEW

Focus on data visualisation ► interviews

“

we wouldn’t have data visualisation. That just isn’t the case. It’s important to understand what your data really says. It’s easy to get carried away, cramming numbers in which might augment your story

There’s a real risk that we can undermine our relevance by publishing visualisations which don’t really reflect the data or worse, they’re full of lies. but aren’t actually related or might even be misleading. One of the worst things you see on the internet are these infographics which are distributed through social media - they’ve got these statistics thrown together by someone with no idea. Anyone with any understanding can see they’re misleading but the Detail: Future Fantastic © Infovision

Should market researchers be working So, do MR agencies need to invest in developing with designers more? new tools and hiring new We are big proponents of talent? The skills which are Design Thinking, as such, important may be the softer everyone should be working skills of finding the narrative, with more designers, it leads of understanding how a to better products, insight, story is structured. Design strategies, everything. isn’t something you can But they have to be the teach yourself in a short right designers. We were time. Even with a head for lucky to find a designer who design principles, the tools understands data. take a long time to learn. Many off-the-shelf tools What’s your favourite of It’s are expensive and don’t do your infographics? that much more than Excel. one we did called Future Fantastic, and it’s about What are the pay-offs how businesses can fund for market research innovation. We got so much companies who get it positive feedback that it was right? If you can visualise clear that nobody had ever what your research really pulled all of this information says, you’re likely to get together in one place before. a lot better buy-in from clients. It turns the research You can find out more about that you’ve done into really Infovision on their website info■ usable and communicable vision.co.nz/ outputs. general public doesn’t.

Data viz whiz Keith Ng is a freelance journalist who creates interactive data visualisations. His work can frequently be seen in Fairfax publications. Tell us about your work. What I do is help clients with big datasets to understand what it means and how to communicate it. It’s inquisitive and interrogative data visualisation. It’s about how you show that bigger picture, the broad patterns, and allow people to drill down through to that micro level.

David McCandless school. That stuff is like print; it looks very good but it’s primarily intended for static usage. Because it’s static, the kind of exploration you can do with it is pretty limited. You see a lot of infographics around because they’re the easiest for designers to get into; you can make them quite quickly. On the other Data visualisation has hand you’ve got stuff like become hugely popular New York Times, which is recently. Why? It was primarily about story-telling. popularised with Hans It’s about guided narration Rosling in around 2007. He through a series of steps. managed to show the use So everything is dynamic, of web-based technologies but the train is actually quite to do animated story-telling simple. The third school is with very complex datasets. the deep exploration school. He managed to move data I’m of the last school. visualisation from something Animation and interactivity that looked really bad and have whole new elements to was only accessible to data them that infographics just people into something that can’t do. could be used for story- Is data visualisation telling. He inspired a lot of just something that people, including myself. happens overseas or is it There are three schools happening here too? The to data visualisation at the user base here is behind moment. If you look at some on technology - you’ve got of the stuff the Guardian a lot of people using old does, it’s very much versions of Internet Explorer, infographics orientated: the particularly in the public February 2012 | InterVIEW

sector. So a lot of the tools that we use, like html5 tools, won’t run. Also, the media don’t have much money to play around with. The New York Times for example

The inspiration: Hans Rosling

Rosling’s GapMinder allows people to explore the “health and wealth of nations” with animated bubble charts – the template which later became freely available as Google’s Motion Chart. Rosling is a charismatic speaker and his work became well-known when he presented a TED talk and a BBC documentary about it.

Focus on data visualisation ► interviews

has an entire floor of people designing data visualisation, in New Zealand there is no one. It’s a very small market at the moment. It’s partly a scale problem and partly risk averseness. Who becomes a data visualiser? You need someone who does design but is conscious of data considerations. You need a coder - that’s the most intensive and scarce part. Someone who can actually connect the data to produce these graphics and make the interactions. That broaches database management and the front end design - user interface construction. Finally you need the story-telling. If you just produce one of these visualisations and dump it in

which is exactly what we saw with Hans Rosling. Flowing through all three roles is the knowledge of the underlying dataset. Is it always three separate people? In the New York Times they will always have the designer, coder and journalist sit down together. Here, I tend to do a lot of it myself. But that’s your optimal team. What advice do you have for market researchers looking to get into data visualisation? They need to decide if they want to learn

Scoop’s 2011 election visualisation, by Keith Ng

the vacuum you’re not going to get that much value out of it. The real value comes from understanding what the story is and telling a story,

design or learn coding... As market researchers, they already have some kind of stats background or know about the processes that

they go through; those kind of industry-specific pieces of knowledge are really important. The coding can take a while to become proficient at - it would be difficult to learn whilst doing a full time job. The storytelling part is the easiest part for them to get into. So what they’ll need to have is a broader understanding of the visual vocabulary: understanding how a designer actually tells a story using images. They need to understand what technology is available so they know what is possible. Their role, then, would be the storytelling which they probably do now, but to tell it using a much broader lexicon of the visual interactive vocabulary. So, do MR agencies need to invest in developing new tools? They should read up on the basic tools. They should start reading some of the blogs and get a better idea of what other people are doing. It starts making sense to bring other people in is when they’ve InterVIEW | February 2012

27 story you want to tell with time market researchers to it. Tableau is on the more learn to code themselves. complex and expensive It’s quite a specialised skill. Agencies can prepare by thinking about how their data structures are managed. Market researchers give their clients Word and PowerPoint reports, but that can be really hard to work with. Think about machine reading - if you store your data in a way which isn’t designed for machine reading, it’s going to be a New York Times’ “Budget Forecasts, Compared to Reality” by Amanda Cox lot costlier and a lot more error-prone to create data Do market researchers side of the tools you can visualisations from it. need to collaborate use. Things like Google with design agencies? There are a lot of data Motion Charts can be useful. Designers are not going visualisation tools out there There’s a new generation which are designed so you of tools coming out which to have that interactive don’t need as much of the will take advantage of all coding ability. There aren’t many of us doing the data designer and coder skill sets these technologies without visualisation stuff as our - you just need to understand requiring the user to have a primary role in New Zealand. the data and what kind of knowledge of code. You don’t want to be limited Are there limitations to to the visualisation options off-the-shelf tools? The that a design agency can kind of stuff you can get off- provide. the-shelf is always going to What’s your favourite be limited if you can’t do the visualisation? Amanda coding yourself. But I think Cox’s New York Times it’s too much to expect full “Budget Forecasts, hit the wall with off-the-shelf tools.

Compared to Reality”. Also Rosling’s “Health and Wealth of Nations”. I’ve never seen such a good example of story-telling and data visualisation. ■

Read Keith Ng’s work on his blog at publicaddress.net/onpoint. February 2012 | InterVIEW

Focus on data visualisation ► history

Charts that changed Sue Cardwell takes us on a journey back in time. • Bar charts, line charts, pie charts • William Playfair • 1786, 1801 • Playfair was the first to publish all the best chart types, leaving none for the rest of us. Clearly an overachiever. • Choropleth (that’s a shaded map to you and I) • Charles Dupin • 1826 • A politician, Dupin invented one of my favourite charts: the choropleth. And for the worthy goal of reducing illiteracy, no less.

• Coxcomb / Nightingale Rose / Polar Area Chart • Florence Nightingale • 1857 • Although advised against using dramatic charts, Nightingale did, persuading Queen Victoria to improve military hospitals by depicting the causes of deaths during each month of the Crimean War.

• Flow chart of the losses of Napoleon’s army against Russia • Charles Minard • 1869 • An engineer from Dijon, Minard was sharp as mustard. This “World’s Champion Graph” is just one of several Minard charts which remain famous today.

InterVIEW | February 2012

HISTORY • • • •

• Doomsday Clock • Artist Martyl Langsdorf and the board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists • 1947 • 1900-1950 was the “Dark Ages of statistical graphics”, however it yielded potent symbols which entered the popular psyche. Langsdorf designed the clock as a magazine cover (where it remains).

February 2012 | InterVIEW

Weather map Francis Galton 1875 Galton is also famous to researchers for pioneering the questionnaire and crowdsourcing, amongst other innovations as diverse as fingerprinting and correlation. The word polymath was invented with people like Galton in mind.

• • • •

Tube ma p Harry Be ck 1931 Beats all other pub lic transport maps ever tried .

• Treemap / Billion Dollar-o-gram • Invented by computer scientist Ben Shneiderman, used to great effect by journalist David McCandless • 1990s, 2010 • Treemaps helped visualise computer drive usage. David McCandless used the treemap to help us make sense of the masive sums bandied about in the media.

Further reading Keep up to date with cool new vizes and learn techniques at:

Delight in rainbowcoloured vizzy goodness at David McCandless’ site or books.

Hear about viz principles from the master, Edward Tufte.

Focus on data visualisation ► review

The Battle of

Substance

Style

and

Article by Robert Bain

Visual Storytelling: Inspiring a New Visual Language is published by Gestalten at USD65

esigners and journalists are coming up with some striking ways to tell stories and convey data visually. But a new book suggests there is something missing from the field that research professionals could provide. Everybody wants to have a go at data visualisation these days. Including market researchers.

The examples fall at various points on a scale from data-heavy to purely decorative: in some cases the visuals convey concrete information, at others they just bring emotional context to some kind of narrative. There are also interviews with some of the people behind them, discussing the ideas and processes that go into their work, including Peter Grundy, whose infographics have appeared in The Guardian and The Telegraph, and Steve Duenes of The New York Times.

But the ability of research people to present data visually is questionable. A showcase at last year’s Research conference included Sarah Illenberger’s illustrations of survey some great pieces of information design and results (about politics, sexual health and life some much less impressive ones. satisfaction) for German magazine Neon are Researchers seeking inspiration for how to particularly striking, and should be studied present findings will find plenty in Visual by any researcher looking for fresh ways to Storytelling, a new book from art and design present quantitative data. publisher Gestalten, which gathers some Other highlights include the work of Carl stunning visualisations and other examples Kleiner, whose photos for an Ikea cookbook of stories told visually – including maps, depict the full ingredients of each recipe, sculpture, photography, diagrams and laid out in geometric patterns. Some of the posters. work is essentially glorified pie and bar

InterVIEW | February 2012

huge opportunity to bring some rigour to a field where substance is often eclipsed by style. Part of the appeal of infographics from a designer’s point of view is the feeling of working on something weighty, important and based in fact. It’s up to people with a In the book’s introduction journalist Andrew good understanding of data, how to process Losowsky criticises a recent glut of “relatively it and how to present it, to make sure that meaningless” visualisations, saying that the this is more than just a feeling. ■ best examples are “inspiring, fascinating, visually interesting and easy to read, while conveying complex levels of information in This article first appeared on an impactful way”. Research-live.com and is reprinted charts – like Peter Ørntoft’s visualisations of Danish social statistics (below) and German media agency KircherBurkhardt’s charts presenting economic data using the colours of the country’s flag.

But getting the right balance between style and substance is easier said than done. Losowsky’s assertion that “the visuals have to serve the data as well as the audience” is followed by plenty of examples of the visuals failing to serve the data. This is not always the fault of the people who produced the visualisations – it’s more the way they have been presented in the book. Some are printed purely for illustrative purposes, too small to do them justice, inadequately labelled or in foreign languages without translation.

here with kind permission from the author. Robert Bain is deputy editor of Research-Live.com and Reseach magazine, the international magazine for market researchers.

Visual Storytelling is a beautiful and fascinating book but, given its title, it shows a surprising unwillingness to let the visuals tell the story. It ends up reinforcing the view that the main purpose of infographics is to look nice and impress people. Perhaps that’s not surprising in a publication aimed at a design audience. And it’s worth noting that there are no contributions here from research agencies, even though much of the data that goes into infographics is from surveys. If Visual Storytelling has something to teach research professionals it’s that there’s a February 2012 | InterVIEW

By Peter Ørntoft. From Visual Storytelling, copyright Gestalten 2011

Focus on data visualisation ► the Kiwi viz

The Great The Great Viz Kiwi Kiwi Viz Is great data visualisation something which only happens elsewhere? That was the question which started off this “Focus on Data Visualisation” feature.

they never ask for it?

Market researchers don’t - let’s be honest - produce great, or even good, data visualisation on every project. Why not? As our interviewees mention, a key skill is being able to see the interesting story in the data. And that’s something we’re brilliant at.

Who knows?

Is it simply a case of inertia: we’ve never done it so we don’t know where to start, and clients have never seen it from us, so

Or is it that we’re wedded to ‘ivory tower’ principles - it’s not the ‘decoration’ which is important but the integrity of our methods... What we can say for sure is that data visualisation isn’t only happening in London and New York. It’s happening all around us. Here are some examples you’ll love. Bravo to the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga for inspiring several of these visualisations with their annual Mix & Mash competition. ■

Detail of “From Stamps to Social Media” by Infovision Ltd

InterVIEW | February 2012

“MashBlock” by Cameron Prebble

Love it for: Seriously, ‘Mashblock’? What researcher could not love it? “NZ Walks Information” by Daniel Pietzsch

Love it for: The vital statistics you need to take to the hills.

“Vinyl Lionel” by Gareth Bradley

Love it for: Great Kiwi tunes! February 2012 | InterVIEW

“100 Companies” by Alex Gibson & Graham Jenson

Love it for: Its entrepreneurial optimism for the NZ economy, and GORGEOUS interactivity. “A Grand Mother” by Candy Elsmore

Love it for: Proving that data viz doesn’t have to be quantie or high-tech to be brill. RWC Infographics (one per match) by ruggerblogger

Love it for: Immortalising the RWC’11 in glorious technicolor.

InterVIEW | February 2012

Company news Market Pulse International acquire Ignite Research Ltd Market Pulse International Ltd has now concluded an agreement with Ignite Research Ltd and its Managing Director Mark Lloyd which will see Market Pulse acquire Ignite Research Ltd. Mark joins the Market Pulse management team, where he will continue as Managing Director of the Ignite Research business unit. Market Pulse intends to utilise the Ignite Research brand to develop a range of services to complement the current research offers of both Market Pulse and Ignite. Of the deal, Group Managing Director Chris Jones says: “This agreement represents a significant step forward in our growth plans and in particular our further expansion in the research space with our current clients and of course new clients”

E-Tabs win Technology Effectiveness Award E-Tabs have claimed another MRS ASC Technology Effectiveness Award with their “ingenious” automated table-checking solution. E-Tabs Verify, developed with groups of DP professionals, simplifies and automates the process of table-checking.

New ownership for Dialogue Partners Dialogue Partners, the qualitative market research recruitment service, is under new ownership. Founder Faye Bland has sold her interest in the business to new owner, Rose Austen. Dialogue Partners targets, screens and recruits respondents for focus groups and market research projects for advertising agencies and small market research companies.

February 2012 | InterVIEW

Movers and shakers Personnel changes from the last few months from the market research world: Colmar Brunton… announces that Brian Turner has been promoted from Group Account Director to Executive Director International Development. Colmar Brunton also announces a number of new additions to their staff: • Richard Head joins as Account Director, Qualitative, from TNS UK • Marinka Teague joins as Account Director, Quantitative, from Martin Jenkins Consultants • John Han is now Graduate Data Analyst fresh from University • Sariah Chen is also a Graduate Data Analyst from University • Maria Abstillas joins as a Graduate Data Analyst from University • Diane Yao is also a Graduate Data Analyst from University • Liming Zhou joins as Graduate Sampling Analyst from University • Eric Chapuy is now a Sampling Analyst from GFK Paris • Harry Lee is a Digital and Media Specialist from University

Focus Research/ NeedScope International … is proud to announce a senior promotion – Nadine Bower. Nadine first joined the company as a graduate and has now been promoted to Research Director. This is in recognition of her strong analytical skills and contribution to the business, as well as to the on-going development of NeedScope. Also, we are also pleased to announce the promotion of Ilya Davydov to Research Executive.

Ipsos is delighted to announce the addition to its ranks of Adi Staite, in the role of Executive Research Director. Staite’s appointment reflects Synovate’s continued drive to add more commercial insights to its research and consultancy services and well complements the recent recruitment of the incomparable market researcher Duncan Stuart. Adi joins Synovate after an eclectic and distinguished career in marketing, research and advertising agency planning in both …And Colmar Brunton farewells the the UK and NZ, including senior roles with following people: Colenso, Blackwood King (now BCG2) and, • Christiane Wong , Client Executive, for the last 4 years, with his own planning Quantitative, in Wellington, who is off for and research consultancy, Bamboo NZ. some overseas travel Also new at Ipsos is Christine Dangel. • Ada Poon, Senior Data Analyst, who is Christine joined towards the end of last going to Westpac year as a Research Manager after leaving • Theresa Smith, Field Operations her role as Customer Insights Manager at Manager. The Warehouse. ■ InterVIEW | February 2012

Coming soon to an MRSNZ event near you...

February 2012 | InterVIEW

Achievements Congratulations to Claire Lloyd, Executive Secretary of the MRSNZ committee, who celebrated her 10 year anniversary with the organisation in January 2012. Claire has been a stalwart of the committee and MRS with her knowledge, guidance, information, and support throughout her years. Her longevity with the organisation has been invaluable to the fluidity of the committee year after year as well as ensuring the success of all the MRS events. Claire replaced Brenda Osborne as Executive Secretary back when Richard Dunbar was MRS President and Ian Mills was VicePresident. That was five MRSNZ conferences and five awards night celebrations ago. Thank you, Claire, for your loyalty, hard work, and support to the Committee and the Market Research Society.

InterVIEW | February 2012

Friday night drinks? Meet me at: Any English theme pub. I’m a sucker for a British pint… Failing that, just txt me where you are. I’m not too fussy. Where I’ll be wearing my new: Carved stone Viking pendant from Scotland (Xmas gift from sister). And this weekend I’m planning on: Trying to wrestle the garden into a blend of low maintenance and food production. You should see my spuds!

Who’s who in MR: 60 seconds with Grant Storry of Ipsos

But first I’ll need to refuel at my favourite café: Bolero at Westfield Albany. Great long blacks. Saturday evening. If my dreams came true there would be a gig by: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds supported by Stereophonics. Opening act by Bill Bailey… But if there’s nothing else doing I’ll probably just: Play Singstar. On my stereo/headphones right now is: Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds. The books I can’t put down are: The Stephen Fry Chronicles and anything by Lee Child. The TV show I take the phone off the hook for: True Blood. And at the moment re-runs of Who’s Line is It Anyway? (UK version). I have eclectic tastes… The movie I’ve been dying to see: Mission Impossible – Ghost Protocol. Don’t judge me… A non-cooking Monday night means takeaways from: Burger Fuel – or perhaps Thai from Khun Phun in Albany. Superb food, if you can find where they are. It’s worth looking. Or a splash-out Wednesday night restaurant would be: Long Bay Restaurant – right on the beach. Go on, you’ll love it.

February February 2012 2012 || InterVIEW InterVIEW

Book review by Duncan Stuart FMRSNZ

Everything is Obvious – Once you Know the Answer by Duncan J. Watts In conference presentations since 2001 I don’t think I’ve ever neglected to quote Duncan Watts who used to be the Professor of Sociology at Columbia University, New York (standing on the giant shoulders of Paul Lazarsfeld and Robert Merton). He’s a smart cookie, and these days he has thrown in the towel with academia to enjoy a role as head of Yahoo Research – a business unit which, as Watts describes it, is a free-forall think tank of great thinking, challenging discussions and enough cash to fund social experiments using hyper-samples available to the likes of Yahoo. A six degrees of separation experiment in connectedness involving hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world? Not a problem!

covers numerous questions mostly about the nature of common-sense, but also about the nature of sociology itself, and how it contrasts with other harder sciences such as physics or even biology. I’m not sure that the work is a total success. Where his focused works such as Six Degrees: The Science of a Connected Age, were revelatory and inspiring because Watts is genuinely at the forefront of social network theory, here the agenda feels less focused. It begins with a rumination on common sense and how often (and how often so hilariously) fails us, but then it wanders over into bigger topics such as predictiveness (beginning with why common sense is such a lousy predictor) then, he can’t help himself, jumping into the work at the Yahoo research labs. Excellent stuff, but I’m not sure how it dovetails so neatly with the deeper question that bugs the author: why is sociology not seen as a legitimate science? I sense he’s projecting his own doubts and reservations that came as he considered jumping out from one of the prestigious sociology posts on our planet. He loves sociology, but he wants to take it further and faster than academia may permit.

Watts has a background in military training, and later in the biology of cicada communication (that’s where he got his first major degree), and clearly he enjoys coming in to any given subject from the direction of a polymath. So in this book, which is the result Another reason for feeling a trifle disappointed of three years stewing he not surprisingly with this book – I was hoping for sensational and what I got was ‘very good’ – is that

InterVIEW | February 2012

nor have I ever seen a statistic that really proves causality. After all, if 30% of road deaths are ‘due to speeding’ but 40% of New Zealanders speed while driving, then there’s an argument that speeding drivers are safer than average).

several of the anecdotes and examples have been trodden over too often by the current crop of popular psychologists and business writers. If you’re going to discuss a business decision that was well made but turned out wrong, isn’t there anything more recent than the Sony launch of Beta and their failure (a lot through luck) against VHS? The technology is two generations ago. So bang, I’ve outlined why I wouldn’t give this book 10 out of 10. But now let me tell you why I would give it an 7½ out of 10. Watts sets about dismantling the overrelied-upon role of common sense in modern commentary and politics because it is simply wrong so often, and yet it is taken as gospel. In New Zealand in recent months we have had the media tell us that Winston Peters was elected on the back of the tea-gate episode (was he? Has anyone surveyed his supporters to determine their actual motivations?) or that our shocking road toll is due to speed (I’m not sure our sample size of accidents is big enough,

February 2012 | InterVIEW

So Watts goes through a number of quite clever examples to show that the causal reason we give to explain various phenomena just aren’t the causes. Take one example: the utter fame of the Mona Lisa painting. Why is it so famous? Most art historians and tour guide operators in Paris will tell us that the Mona Lisa is worthy of a visit because of the exquisite beauty of the painting, and the masterful – enigmatic – qualities of that smile, and even of the technical brilliance of using two perspectives in the painting; perhaps to enhance that sense of enigma. But Watts points out that the painting really entered our folklore 100 years ago when a disgruntled Louvre employee Vincenzo Peruggia stole the painting by smuggling it out of the gallery under his overcoat. In fact he wanted a neighbouring painting which was more highly prized at the time, but it was too big for his coat. Now what Peruggia did was create headlines (and a whole genre of fiction) around Europe, and in his desperate moves to escape the iron grip of the law, appealed to the Government of Italy by arguing that the painting had been ‘stolen’ from Italy and he was merely returning it to its homeland (that was never his primary motive.) By the time Peruggia was caught, in a ransom payment sting that he badly misjudged (he had the actual painting on him), the painting was elevated to iconic status by the French press and by the Italian press as well. In fact before returning the painting to France, the Italian authorities put the painting on tour. In those years of the new 20th century, where

there were imperial tensions between France and Italy, not to mention a burgeoning sense in Italy of national identity, the painting was more than a painting. It became engraved on the cultural consciousness of our age.

organ donor unless you (freely) opt out. In Germany the default position is that you are NOT an organ donor unless you (freely) opt in. That’s all it is. But can you imagine how, without that simple piece of information, Yes, it’s a fine painting, but no finer than Mark Sainsbury and his TV One team could many hundreds of others in the same concoct a whole half hour of huffing and gallery. The qualities of the painting (largely puffing about the moral decay of Germany unremarked upon for 400 years after it was or the famous generosity of those Austrians (cue shots of jolly strudel eating). painted) did not suddenly get revised. In example after example Watts shows how Watts gets into deeper and more familiar we fit rather neat narratives, written with territory when he examines how people use hindsight, that appear to explain events and common sense to make choices and plans certainly make common-sense, but aren’t for the future. We fall for all the traps that are well explored by Kahneman and Tversky anywhere near the actual truth. (anchoring, availability and other cognitive Here’s another one. See if you can guess biases) and yet we still make massive the answer. Two nations in Europe ask blunders. their citizens to sign a form, and this form authorises medical authorities to take organs, But are they? The American boardrooms are if necessary, if the person has already died. rife with stories of corporate darlings who As we know, organ donors save the lives of get unceremoniously dumped after making many hundreds of people each year. Now big corporate blunders. Unceremoniously, here’s the thing. In one country (Country by the way, usually involves the shame of A) just 12 per cent of citizens agree to be accepting a multi-million dollar parachute. organ donors, while in Country B, 99.9 per Yet as the Sony example reminds us, the cent agree to be organ donors. How can we decision-making behind launching Beta was explain this difference? Any suggestions? the result of very careful deliberation, very Well common sense tells us that there are careful and well-reasoned market research probably religious or cultural differences and a sound philosophy that erred toward between the two countries. But here’s the quality. VHS was always inferior quality. zinger. The two countries are Germany and Austria. So, any more suggestions?

So what went wrong? Well this is one reason why I admire Watts, because he is one of the The answer is probably nothing you or I few thinkers in the marketing environment have come up with when contemplating the who dare suggest that luck has an awful question. I had a bucket of reasons and I lot to do with what eventuated. Sony made had a pretty good hypothesis going relating a perfectly good decision. But as events to the sense of community in the old Stasi- unfurled, history zigged one way instead of zagging another. plagued East Germany. But the answer was something else, and stupidly simple: the nature of the form that people are asked to sign. In Austria the default position is that you are an

Here Duncan Watts exposes us to several of his really interesting experiments involving social media. In one, he sets up a website in which tens of thousands

InterVIEW | February 2012

of visitors can assess new music - and download free tunes. But here’s the twist. Watts and his colleagues set up several parallel experiments, so that this population of young music lovers did not pollute that population of young music lovers. They had the same attitudes and demographics, but they were just kept separate. So did the same music rise to the top of these various Top 40s? Absolutely not. A smash hit with one crowd was ignored by the next. And while quality did tend to elevate some tunes generally higher across all the populations, there were no pronounced common threads to each competing narrative. In environment one, your tune might be lucky. In the next run, it may be totally unlucky.

“who is playing on their home turf?” as well as “the win loss record of the past three games” is sufficiently accurate to beat the punters, beat the commentators, and match the Futures sites. Better still, he says, the futures sites are open to manipulation (in 2008 shadowy investors skewed the results in favour of John McCain in an effort to game the system).

He concludes that the internet age opens a huge door for social research, and a golden age for social experimentation using – as he is able – the vast numbers of people on the net. Rather than rely on hoary old commonsense, his suggestion for businesses, marketers and governments is to utilise what is now available: the capacity to measure This, by the way, is a feature of so called responses and experiment with options. social contagions, and Watts uses the Whatever minor frustrations I felt with opportunity to challenge Malcolm Gladwell’s this book and its multiple missions, it is a central planks to his Tipping Points book. stimulating read for market researchers. I Was Paul Revere a great connector? Or came away inspired, actually. The book is was he lucky? Did early adopters really lead a challenge to lazy thinking (ours and our to the rising fortunes of once-uncool Hush clients’) and provides the talking points that Puppies? Or was this a rhythmic spike in can help move our profession forwards. the fortunes that every company faces day to day – in the same way that shares seldom do anything except fluctuate? Watts then tells us how he tested several competing prediction systems to see if there is a best method, and whether there’s much credence for the much-vaunted Futures Trading systems in the market in which punters buy “futures” in upcoming Hollywood movies or political candidates. In fact these are no worse than the work of specialist punters (Hollywood experts for example) Duncan Stuart is a Director at Ipsos and a Fellow and somewhat better than the prediction of the MRSNZ and regular contributor to MRSNZ powers of commentators. But Watts and his activities. ■ cohorts have found that they can develop algorithms that largely meet these complex systems. For example in predicting baseball outcomes a simple algorithm based on

February 2012 | InterVIEW

Sneak preview: The next InterVIEW will put Stakeholders in the Spotlight. The words ‘stakeholder’ or ‘stakeholder analysis’ are some of the least sexy words in the business world, but this management language is now enshrined in the world of public sector performance management. This year has seen a surge in government stakeholder research projects, due in part to the increasing emphasis on robust Statement of Intent (SOI) reporting for government departments. There’s a growing recognition that for an organisation to work well, it has to actively engage its stakeholders. Arguably, the research in this area can be split into two camps: those who are doing the project for accountability reasons (to fill in an SOI report) and those who are doing it because they genuinely wish to learn from their stakeholders (to improve organisational performance). Obviously the latter is more fun to work on. I find that a combination of qualitative and quantitative research, including both senior and junior staff within stakeholder organisations

works well. Some of the quotes that come back from senior stakeholder interviews can be juicy and insight-driven but also difficult for your client to handle. But it is our job as researchers not to shy away from uncomfortable findings. It’s these projects that achieve lasting change. A recent example is a stakeholder project we undertook for the Treasury which was picked up by Scoop’s business news section – under the title ‘Treasury high class, but stuck in its ways’. Perhaps not an ideal title from the client’s perspective, but one which will spark further discussion. The research in this area has exposed some common themes which organisations can learn from. The results show an organisation’s reputation rises and falls depending on the perception of their people. In every survey we’ve done, stakeholders have put staff firmly in the spotlight. Stakeholders no longer focus on whether the person they deal with is

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courteous nor whether they answer the phone on time. It’s all about authenticity. Stakeholders ask: are they responsive and empathetic to my needs? Do they have the right resources to get their job done, and are they going to stay so I can have a connection with them? Undertaking a research project with stakeholders to answer these questions might seem intimidating but it helps to remember that stakeholders are waiting for organisations to undertake this type of exercise. They want to be asked their views. Doing it well will generate goodwill and identify quick wins. It may be more challenging for organisations to make long term differences to their people and processes. But hearing how stakeholders currently view an organisation, and seeing how they would like to see it transformed, can be a powerful tool for managing change.

About the author: Ian Binnie is a Group Account Director at Colmar Brunton’s Social Research Agency.

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