SURVEY the research industy’s TECHNOLOGY TRENDSETTERS Showcasing CHARITY: WATER Top Technology Trendsetters
Help us by donating just $20
market research bulletin
New Technology How New Technology Has Powered a Research Revolution
Raise Your Survey Response Rates
5 Juice Techniques to
Social Interaction Making the Most of Insight
Communities and Digital Studies
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Meet Jean Bosco Photos by Esther Havens. Story by Esther Havens and Taylor Walling.
Our anticipation for the morning radiated. I could nearly smell our excitement as we went to meet the the crew from Living Water International at one of the four selected drill sites funded by charity: water.
This shy 15-year-old used to walk hours each day to collect dirty water... until Charity Water and their partners constructed a well in his village.
For more than a year, I had been aching to see a well installation in Africa. I had donated money, seen photos, watched videos and heard stories. Each new exposure drove my desire. I longed to witness the affect of a water pump in a community, to see the power of clean, accessible water. At long last, I had made it. Today I would witness a village transformed.
MARCH 2014 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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LWI selected, along with the Rwandan government, an area of land for the pump to be installed. The land had been cleared of shrubs and debris, and the overbearing drills were set in place, ready to tear into the earth. Children carrying their sacred yellow Jerry Cans on their heads and shoulders approached the site in a continuous flow of curiosity. As the drills fired up, the air was filled with thick red dust. Red African dirt has become the subject of legend and here we were, drilling deep into its insides. The diverse and mingling crowd watched and waited for the first signs of water. Finally, at only seven meters deep, the red dust was replaced by muddy water shooting into the air. In continuous flow, the water kept spurting up. Higher and higher it pushed toward the sky. From the crowd came excited whispers, “Amazi, amazi”; “Water, water.” In the crowd was a boy named Jean Bosco. Shy and sturdy, he carried an empty 5-gallon Jerry can on his head with a banana as the cork. At 15 years old, his days were filled with little more than water fetching. Four to five times a day, every day, he walked. Back and forth, to and fro, the monotony would bring to me to the brink – but daily he woke up to walk. In an effort to better understand his story, we decided to join him. We eventually came to a brown, murky, stagnant pond. Small crowds of people filled their cans and despite the smell, Jean Bosco didn’t hesitate to wade right into the water in order to fill his Jerry Can. Staring down, I knew then that clean water is far more than a valuable commodity. It is a treasure. Leaving the hole and heading back toward Jean Bosco’s home, we passed leagues of crops and farmers. I couldn’t imagine how this brackish substance was being used to drink, cook, bathe, plant and water animals.
In the crowd was a boy named Jean “Bosco. Shy and sturdy, he carried an
empty 5-gallon Jerry can on his head with a banana as the cork.
“
Meet Jean Bosco Photos by Esther Havens. Story by Esther Havens and Taylor Walling.
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Murinja, Rwanda MARCH 2014 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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Meet Jean Bosco :
“ My world will never be the same. Neither will theirs. “
The following day, cement was laid and it dried around the tubing of the well. Waiting for the hand pump to be installed, a community of men, women and children gathered again to watch the finishing touches. This creation, this simple new contraption, would change their lives forever. And then, just like that, it was done. The workers jumped forth and pumped up and down as quickly as they could. As soon as water hit the spout, the crowd rose in huge cheers of celebration. The children made a mad dash for the water, drinking, bathing and basking in their refreshment. Like liquid magic, joy swept the crowd. The water gushing out was naturally filtered and free from parasites. Together we drank. Though I had
Murinja, Rwanda 006 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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known it would be clean water, I never imagined it would be this clean. Every last one of us should have access to this kind of clean water. For this village, Murinja, the well means a nearby clinic will finally be able to treat the sick with healthy water. For Jean Bosco, it means less walking and never needing to boil out the inevitable diseases that come from stagnant pools of unclean water. Eventually, with more disposable time, efficiency and better health, children like Jean Bosco will be able to rebuild this community. They will be able to create a more developed, safe and thriving home -- thanks to the presence of clean, life-sustaining water. Seeing it once, I couldn’t help but want it again. And again and again and again. My world will never be the same. Neither will theirs.
Every day,
Meet Jean Bosco: Photos by Esther Havens. Story by Esther Havens and Taylor Walling.
5,000
kids under the age of 5 die from water-related illnesses.
You can provide life-saving clean water to the people who need it most. 100% of your contribution will fund water project costs in the field. Just $20 can give one person access to clean water. www.mycharitywater.org/survey-magazine
MARCH 2014 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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SURVEYMAGAZINE
D E PA R T M E N T S
CONTENTS. MARCH, 2014
International Research
New Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 8 How New Technology Has Powered a Research Revolution
F E AT U R E S u r v e y To o l s & M e t h o d s
Digital Research Tools & Methods: Dispelling Client Concerns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 8
Research Best Parctice
Raise Your Survey Response Rates Email Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4
Project Management
The Matrix Management Edition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 4
Survey Buzz
Hot research topics and news . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 6
Survey Web Round-Up
Updates from our online properties . . . . . . . . 2 4
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SOCIAL INTERACTION
5
Techniques to Juice Social Interaction Making the Most of Insight Communities and Digital Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 8
SURVEY
TECHNOLOGY
52 TECHNOLOGY TRENDSETTER
2014
Page
TRENDSETTERS
TL
Becky Wu – Luth Research Jayme Plunkett - Decipher Melanie Courtright – Research Now Sean Holbert – KL Communications Andrew Reid – Vision Critical Jeff Miller – Burke Inc. Terry Lawlor - Confirmit, Inc. Jim Bryson – 20/20 Research Theresa Welbourne, Ph.D. – EEPulse Gloria Park Bartolone – Maritz Research David E. Zotter – SSI Carol Haney – Toluna
TA
Kumar Mehta – Cross Tab Julia Clark – Ipsos Al Nevarez – Allegiance Annie Pettit Ph.D. – Peanut Labs James Egbert – US DHHS
TL F
John Carroll, III - IPSOS Srinath Sankar – M-S-G Henry Cheang – Potentiate Global
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S URVEY
MAGAZINE
WHAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING
“
“
How I define “TRENDSETTER” To become a trendsetter or great leader you must first have an unconditional believe in yourself, and then follow your vision despite every obstacle. If you are able to achieve these two things, everything else will fall in place.
“
Look at your adjacent industries. Have a periperal vision on what problems and technologies attract deep thinkers and capital investment.
“
“
01
BIG
Next Game Changer
01
02
05
04
“Surround yourself with as many technology leaders as possible with an aim to learn about how it’s impacting industries far removed from market research. Be curious, ask questions and have a vision for the future.”
“
06
09
08
T
echnology Approach
“As it applies to market research, I follow the consumers. I make sure I watch where they are living, electronically, and that we are prepared to be right there with them.”
03
07
Integrating ‘Big Data’ and ‘Big Research’ we are no longer limited by small sample sizes and niche target audiences. “We really strive for simple, elegant solutions that address client needs. Technology should be intuitive and ultimately enable shortcuts for quick decision making. The simpler the solution, the better.”
10
Becky Wu Ph.D Senior Vice President Luth Research
02 Kumar Mehta President, CEO Cross-Tab
03 Julia Clark Vice President IPSOS Public Affairs
04 Andrew Reid CEO & Founder Vision Critical
05 Theresa Welbourne Ph.D. President & CEO eePulse
06 John Carroll, III Global Head of Clients IPSOS Loyalty
07 [ “Most, not all, technology innovation must be evolutionary rather than
revolutionary
to coax researchers from comfortable norms to dramatic new capabilities.” ]
Jayme Plunkett Co-CEO Decipher
08 Al Nevarez VP of Data Science Allegiance
v
09 Melanie Courtright
“ 010 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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Senior Vice President Research Now
We live in exciting times, where modern open source big data & predictive analytics technology will fundamentally tranform how we evaluate, measure and act on consumer behavior & sentiment. Businesses who seamlessly integrate domain knowledge, data, science, and technology will find new advantages for themselves and their customers.
“
10 Jim Bryson CEO, Founder 20/20 Research
Want to unleash your team’s
full potential?
Train them. © 2014 Burke Incorporated. All rights reserved.
For almost 40 years research professionals have relied on Burke Institute to take their knowledge and skills to the next level, whether through an existing seminar or an onsite program customized to meet your team’s specific development goals. Below are just a few examples of the type of program content we offer: • Advanced analytical techniques. • Qualitative tools for uncovering emotional connections with brands. • Next generation research tools including mobile, online qualitative and quantitative.
BurkeInstitute.com 800.543.8635
a division of Burke, Inc.
SURVEY
essentials. WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS MARCH 2014 ISSUE
R. Jon Leiman Editor, SURVEY Magazine
In this issue S U R V E Y EVENTS
webinar lineup
for a complete list of webinars, go to surveymagazine.org/webinars
26 TECHNOLOGY Page
TRENDSETTERS SURVEY
TECHNOLOGY
TRENDSETTER
2014
We’ve gathered together the research industry’s Top Technology Trendsetters. Meet the innovators in research HERE.
Page
52
SURVEY Magazine is honored to present this year’s selection of Top Technology Trendsetters. All of this year’s recipients exhibit great passion for their work in the research industry. Innovation and vision is core to the values, work ethic and professionalism that each of the recipients share on a daily basis. It is clear that wherever “TECHNOLOGY” takes us, the research industry will be at the forefront in adapting and applying it in ways that continue to expand our thinking and capabilities. Our showcase of this year’s Trendsetters begins on page 52. This month, SURVEY begins our campaign to raise a muchneeded $10,000 for safe drinking water projects in under developed countries. We’ve partnered with Charity Water, a Not for Profit Organization that is doing amazing work around the world. I would encourage anyone, to “take pause” and learn how
water born illness is affecting so many children and families in every facet of their lives. This basic need for “clean water” is something that many of us take for granted, yet in these under developed communities, children walk all day with “jerry cans” tied to their back for less than 5 gallons of dirty and polluted water. Help us make a change. Charity Water has a proven model to bring clean water to these Communities and 100% of our contribution go directly to an assigned water project. Just $20 can give one-person access to clean water. You can learn more about Charity Water and our campaign by visiting the link below. We hope you enjoy this issue of SURVEY as much as we’ve enjoyed preparing it for you. R. Jon Leiman, Editor
www.MyCharityWater.org/Survey-Magazine
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SURVEYMAGAZINE
CONTENTS. MARCH, 2014
COLUMNS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MEASUREMENT
with Michael Allenson
Customers want better engagement from the companies that they do business with. Our survey shows that customers expect to reward companies who better engage them with greater loyalty.
Going on a Wild Goose Chase? ........................ 29
Following Annie: The Listen Lady Insight Priorities: In which I bash insights again ......................... 33
T h e St ra t e g y G u y
Mich ae l Alle nson
@MaritzResearch
T h e L i st e n L a d y
A NNIE PETTIT
@LoveStats
NEWS Confirmit SODA 3.0 Pushes Market Research Operations Management to New Heights. ........................................................................................................... 94 uSamp Invests Heavily in Sampling Technology Advancements to Create SampleCORE™ ....................................................................................................................................... 98 UTA Brand Studio Unveils Brand Dependence™ Index on Leading Social Media Brands ............................................................................................................................. 98 MetrixLab acquires majority stake in social media analytics specialist Oxyme ......................................................................................................... 100 OfficeReports integrates SurveyMonkey® with PowerPoint® ............................................................................ 100 NJIT talks “Marketing” at SXSW in Austin TX ..................................................................................................... 101 Lumi announces the launch of research app Lumi Say ...................................................................................... 102 The Least Engaging Brands of 2014 Blackberry, Quiznos and Kmart Top the Bottom of Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Index ................................... 102 SSI Partners with Spirit Airlines for B2B inSSItes Strengthens SSI Sample Among Younger Professionals .................................................................................... 103 Network Research Licenses Decrypt’s Beacon Market Research and Reporting Platform Company lauds ease-of-use, speed and easy integration as key reasons for selection ..................................... 104
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THE LATEST
SURVEY BUZZ NEWS Confirmit SODA 3.0 Pushes Market Research Operations Management to New Heights.
New Technology NEXT PAGE >>
ON - DEMAND
How New Technology Has Powered a Research
Confirmit SODA enables enterprises and Market Research agencies to capture inthe-moment feedback from respondents, whether they are consumers or employees, providing unbeatable insights into experiences.
SSI Announces Chris Clarke as New Chief Marketing Officer
Google Consumer Surveys
Revolution
Easy answers to every business decision. Act now and get $75 off your first survey! www.MarketResearchBulletin.com
uSamp Invests Heavily in Sampling Technology Advancements to Create SampleCORE™ 016 SURVEY MAGAZINE
MARCH 2014
BY:
Bob Fawson, SSI Chief Access, Supply and Engagement Officer
SSI Means Business.
Introducing SSI B2B inSSItes sample. TM
Reliable B2B sample, blue-chip sources, phone verification via SSI CATI, realistic estimates, accurate profiling and genuine business opinions from the people who matter to you. Let’s talk business. Call 1.855.477.4726
ÂŽ info@surveysampling.com surveysampling.com
Gloomy predictions about the future of survey research have become familiar in recent years: we’re sending too many e-mail invitations; we’re over-grazing the commons; online panels are full of professional respondents; we can’t find the low-incidence targets we need; research is becoming a commodity. Most gloomy of all: with advances in technology, survey research will be dead in 10 years’ time.
New Technology How New Technology Has Powered a Research Revolution Bob Fawson, SSI Chief Access, Supply and Engagement Officer
10
Will survey research will be dead in
years time?
This scenario might have seemed believable even five years ago, but recently and perhaps unexpectedly, the opposite has happened: the very technology we feared would put us out of business has been the driving force in successfully solving some of the most daunting problems in research data collection. While much of the technology “buzz” in the industry has been centered on wearable devices, neuro-science and cool mobile toys, a quiet technology revolution has taken place, driving change at the heart of what we do as researchers: finding the right people at the right time, asking them the right questions and understanding their answers. Experts say that winning a war is as much about armies of backroom number-crunchers figuring out how to get the right supplies to the front lines at the right time as it is about flashy acts of bravery on the battlefield. Technology has enabled sample providers to mass respondent troops for battle – that is, to get the right people to the right place at the right time to give their opinions, quickly and economically.
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SURVEY
tip
The technology “ revolution is in full
swing: researchers must choose to benefit from it or be left behind.
“
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Technology and the Privacy Regulation Barrier Are surveys dead? If by that we mean survey instruments rooted in 1960’s telephone paper and pencil technology, then they’ve been on life support for a long time. Long, grid-heavy surveys asking questions no normal person can answer -- How many boxes of cereal, and what brand and size did YOU buy in the past 6 months? -- are surely destined to vanish in the world of mobile and big data. But if we mean research that uncovers how customers lives are changing and what that means for a company’s products and services, or research that puts a brand in touch with people who have never been their customer, then surveys and sampling are unlikely to become extinct. Where else do you go for access to the people you don’t know and who don’t know your brand? Customer databases? Social media? They don’t fit the bill. In other words: the questionnaire as an instrument is waning, but surveying is increasing in relevance. Survey research is distinctive in the era of ‘big data.’ It is a targeted approach to gather the insight we need from exactly the right people.
The technology “ revolution is in full
swing: researchers must choose to benefit from it or be left behind.
“
With increasing scrutiny around privacy issues, it’s becoming even more difficult to reach out to people you don’t know; especially when collecting observational data. Research sample providers have perfected permissioning with the help of technology.
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Technology &
Massing the Troops
New Technology How New Technology Has Powered a Research Revolution Bob Fawson, SSI Chief Access, Supply and Engagement Officer
Market forces in our industry have made sample and data collection into a scale business—researchers seek low incidence targets, timeframes are contracting and budgets squeezed. Without a massive inventory of people ready to take surveys, we have no hope of meeting the demand for speed, economy and precision. But simply having amassed respondents isn’t enough. We need technology to help us apply them efficiently to the available survey projects while maintaining a sample frame which is as consistent and representative as possible. To do this, we have to balance a multitude of dimensions in real time as if solving some massive optimization problem:
Revolution
+
The sample frame
+
Respondent’s preferred communication device
+
Field time
+
Cost of recruiting the respondent
+
Scarcity of the population
+
Demographics
+
Geography
+
Respondent’s preferred contact method
+
The right reward
+
Known characteristics of the respondent
+
Resting rules
+
Likelihood to complete the study
+
Local laws and customs
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MASSING THE TROOPS And we must solve this giant constrained optimization problem iteratively in real time for panels across the globe all day and every day. The more “big data” we have in our warehouse (and SSI holds over 4 billion pieces of information about our respondents), the more elements we can add to the algorithm. Only a powerful and sophisticated technology platform can solve this giant equation consistently and quickly. While survey research is often categorized as ‘little’ data, the ‘big’ metadata set gathered through surveying is making exciting advances possible in our field. This meta dataset serves another important function: it provides the foundation for sophisticated data integrity and fraud prevention tools. Highly publicized data breaches at recognized, national retailers have confirmed that online fraudsters are increasing their sophistication. In parallel, proprietary and commercially available big datasets make the identification and removal of suspect respondents a faster process than ever before. While the number of suspect respondents has always been exceptionally small; today we find and remove over 95% before they even attempt a single survey. This is an improvement from the days when researchers had to rely on survey data as the primary feedback mechanism to find suspect respondents. This big data revolution has created a virtuous cycle: a sample supplier’s scale is rewarded with more meta data, and this data improves how we sample and the integrity of our survey data. Technology will continue to disproportionately reward scale in sampling and data collection.
Keeping respondents happy is good business Adoption of new technologies has opened the door for research suppliers to use the CRM techniques familiar to global brands. Once, the behavior of panelists was something of a mystery. Some stayed on the panel a long time, others left soon after joining. Some were attracted to monetary or points rewards; others were not. Whatever their preference, they often experienced a “one size fits all” approach from panel providers. Today, via technology, panel providers can gain a sophisticated understanding of the respondent life cycle and differences in motivation and response patterns; and can deliver a customized experience, with relevant messaging and rewards. For the respondent, this means fewer points of friction as they give their opinions. For panel providers, the result is better management of recruitment costs and more ability to deliver bids which match available budgets. Researchers benefit from larger available sample and more diverse sample, which means better representivity.
MARCH 2014
tip
Those panel providers who are on the forefront of emerging digital marketing techniques - for example those who understand connections between communication channels; who use predictive analytics to help gauge respondent participation patterns; and those who know how to use content generation to engage respondents – will be the market leaders in their space.
Bob Fawson is Chief Access, Supply & Engagement Officer at SSI. Prior to SSI, he served the same role at Opinionology, which later joined with Survey Sampling International to form SSI. While at Opinionology, Fawson expanded the company’s portfolio of online sampling methods and improved methods for managing online panel inventories. Known for his expertise across diverse topics – from panel recruiting and sample routing to Address-Based Sampling – he is a frequent speaker at market research events. Fawson first joined Opinionology to manage its online client service and project management team. He holds a master’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in applied economics from Utah State University.
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New Technology How New Technology Has Powered a Research Revolution
Navigating the media and communication landscape Technology is the backbone Not so many decades ago, everyone watched the same TV channel. Today of course, the media landscape is not just fractured, but in smithereens. People self-select into microcommunities of interest. Sample providers must optimize their media buys across thousands of potential sources, deeply integrate with loyalty programs and constantly seek out new sources. We are blending more sources and encompassing more diversity of sources than ever before, each with their own characteristics. In the old days, SSI had one single panel in one country using one single mode of contact. Today, we have sample in 86 countries, a proprietary Loyalty Partnership program, and in the past few months alone, SSI has launched a mobile panel on four different technology platforms in 17 countries, each with distinct legal, privacy and reward environments. Over the past three years the SSI technology team has combined four different systems into one single system, SSI Dynamix. This system is the backbone that ties all the pieces together into one single sample delivery system and, for example, readies the population with a certain ailment, recruited from a number of support websites, communicating and rewarding them appropriately at the right time to answer a research need. This sampling platform is the key to solving our optimization problem: it must present relevant offers to the right people across loyalty programs, traditional panels, mobile apps, and other sources; it must profile and manage quotas in real time across projects to increase respondent qualification rate; and it must appropriately award and manage the individual panelist lifecycle to promote retention. A typical project today encompasses more than one country and language, multiple modes of contact, several sources each with their own usage and communication rules, and multiple reward options. Without a technology platform powerful and scalable enough to integrate all this, companies cannot be agile enough to meet the increasing complexities of research today, and cannot build the scale to meet global demand.
“
20%
MOBILE SURVEYS
Efficiency, speed, scale, cost effectiveness… But does it make the data better? It’s reasonable to expect that technology will render the questionnaire as we know it obsolete. And that’s a good thing for the richness of research data. With big data and passive data collection supplying much of the “What?, When?, Where? and How?” of research, respondents can focus on the allimportant “Why?” When given shorter and better designed opinion-giving experiences, our research proves that their responses will be richer and more accurate. And they’ll be more likely to want to repeat the experience. The commons may be over-grazed no longer. In addition, with technology solving many of the “backroom” challenges, we are freed to focus on the survey instrument more intently to ensure we are designing an instrument which helps the respondent share their opinion more accurately and stay more engaged in the process. Technology helps us there too, with new software enabling creative designs unimaginable just a few years ago. But there’s a caveat. The research industry has been notoriously slow to embrace new technologies and techniques. Are we ready to make changes now? For example, if we’re not creating questionnaires that are mobile-friendly, we’re risking data quality by excluding a specific and distinct group of people from the sample frame. Up to 20% of respondents now choose to take surveys on mobile devices. If our research is being fielded in key markets like the BRIC countries, the vast majority of respondents are on mobile devices. This is their choice, and not something we can control. We must convert our questionnaires to mobile and do it now.
The technology revolution is in full swing: researchers must choose to benefit from it or be left behind.
“
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MARCH 2014 WEB ROUNDUP SURVEYMAGAZINE.ORG
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Some of our most popular online stories...
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Going back in the archives, this article from December, 2013 gives new considerations for respondents and multi-tasking Find this article and more at www.SurveyMagazine/archives
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Discrete Choice Modeling. The first article in a three part series devoted to “Trade-Off Techniques”. In April, we cover part two of the series; Full Profile Conjoint Analysis.
Get SURVEY on your iPad and iPhone.
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This article written for last months issue of SURVEY by Karen Gottfried is getting a lot of attention from our online readers. Get up-to-date information on the Global Happiness Report produced each Quarter by IPSOS: www.SurveyMagazine.org
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March 2014 / Web Roundup
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COLUMNS MARCH 2014
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MEASUREMENT
SUR VEY MAGAZINE FEATURED COLUMNIST
Customers want better engagement from the companies that they do business with. Our survey shows that customers expect to reward companies who better engage them with greater loyalty.
The Strategy Guy
Mi c h a e l A l l e nso n
@MaritzResearch
Going on a Wild Goose Chase? Recently, we’ve been working with an automotive client that’s concerned about the prevalence of score-chasing in automotive customer experience measurement
Michael Allenson
programs. Sales associates and dealers are rewarded based on the number of “
Strategic Consulting Director Maritz Research
perfect” scores they receive.
I am Michael Allenson and I am
Our client is concerned that the system encourages sales associates to ask for ratings from customers. No matter how great the service is, some customers just aren’t in the habit of giving a top box score. Rather than simply being asked how did we do and how can we continue to improve, customers are put in an awkward situation. (What if a college student asked a professor for an A before her final essay was graded so that she could keep her scholarship?) This is not a new problem. To account for this behavior, companies put in checks and balances designed to limit this.
This phenomenon is by no means limited to the automotive space. In fact, I recently wrote a blog about a similar experience I had at an upscale hotel chain. Score-chasing is generally prevalent when there are incentive programs that are tied to satisfaction scores.
I’m not alone. Many other customers don’t like it either, in fact in some cases the results can backfire. Customers are left feeling that their scores are more important than they are.
a Strategic Consulting Director within the Tech, Wireless Telecom and Retail practice within Maritz. When I first entered
Score Chasing is Not Limited to Customer-facing Employees
college at the University of Chicago some years ago (more
Shortly after the end of 2013, I decided to look back at the trends in Maritz’ CEBenchmarks program, which measures customer satisfaction with a wide variety of transactions across eleven industries. One of the interesting things in the trends is the patterns of yearover-year change in key satisfaction metrics for each of the last 5 quarters. For most major brands in our CEBenchmarks study, year-over-year performance tends to be pretty consistent. However, many of these leading brands show at least one quarter with a year-over-year change that is significantly different than the previous year.
than I want to admit), I was a math major. What I quickly realized was that even though I was good at math, I didn’t want to be a professor or an actuary. When I took my first Sociology class, I was excited. It allowed me to combine my math chops with a desire to study human behavior. Ever since I have been a market researcher.
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Take for instance, discount department stores and warehouse clubs. Each of the brands shown are shopped by a large proportion of consumers and visits are fairly frequent. The CEBenchmarks sample is robust for each of these brands. Costco had a great first half of the year, with significant year over year increases in each of the first two quarters of 2013. Its chief rival, Sam’s Club was pretty consistent all year long with its previous year’s performance, with its biggest swing being a six percentage point drop in 3rd quarter 2013, though not statistically significant. Walmart and Target are notable for third quarter moves, with Target having a big increase at the same time as a large decline for Walmart. Interestingly, Walmart’s scores barely move in the other quarters of 2013 vs. its previous year performance. The pattern in wireless retail may even be more notable than the pattern in discount department stores and warehouse clubs. Looking at the two leading brands in the space, AT&T and Verizon, year over year performance 030 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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in each quarter is rock steady for both brands, with the exception of one quarter for each brand. Notably, the aberrant quarter is different for each brand, with a large and statistically significant decline for Verizon in Q1 2013 and an even larger and statistically significant increase for AT&T in the 2nd quarter of 2013. Similar patterns can be seen in other industries as well. Like discount department stores, leading fast food restaurants are patronized by large swaths of the population, visiting pretty regularly on average. Yet, like Walmart and Target, McDonald’s, Wendy’s Starbucks and Burger King all have one quarter within the last five quarters with an aberrant and statistically significant year over year change.
Q4 2013
3.0%
Q3 2013
-‐4.1%
Q2 2013
13.0% 12.3%
Q1 2013 Q4 2012
2.1%
-‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐5.0%
Q4 2013 Q3 2013
0.0%
15.0%
10.0%
15.0%
-‐1.7% 2.9%
Q2 2013 -‐3.8%
Q1 2013
-‐2.3%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
Q4 2013 Q3 2013
10.0%
-‐6.0%
1.9% -‐9.7%
Q2 2013
Like wireless carriers, bank customers don’t visit a branch or call the call center very frequently, but they do interact with its products and services every day. Similarly Bank performance shows little change year-to-year for each of the top three banks, however, each one has one quarter that stands out from the rest.
5.0%
0.0% -‐4.0%
Q1 2013
2.9%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
0.7%
Q4 2013
11.4%
Q3 2013 Q2 2013
15.0%
-‐6.7% 5.2%
Q1 2013 Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐1.6% -‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
0.4%
Q3 2013
1.2%
Q2 2013
12.1% 0.8%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
Q4 2013
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
15.0%
10.0%
15.0%
-‐3.9%
Q3 2013
3.0%
Q2 2013
2.5%
Q1 2013 -‐9.6% Q4 2012
1.6%
-‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
Q4 2013
3.7%
Q3 2013
4.4%
Q2 2013
1.8% 0.6%
Q1 2013 Q4 2012 -‐7.9% -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
Q4 2013 Q3 2013
10.0%
15.0%
5.8% -‐5.4%
Q2 2013
0.4% 14.2%
Q1 2013 -‐1.0%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
Q4 2013 -‐7.6% Q3 2013
-‐1.6%
Q2 2013 -‐8.0% -‐0.4%
Q1 2013
12.0%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐5.0%
0.0%
Q4 2013
15.0%
0.9%
Q3 2013
15.5% -‐1.1%
Q1 2013
7.1%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
-‐5.0%
0.0%
Q4 2013
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
0.1% -‐5.1%
Q2 2013 Q1 2013
I bring up the frequency of engagement with each of these brands because performance expectations are set based on customers’ frequent engagement with each brand. Also performance doesn’t tend to vary too much from one transaction to the next. So why do these ratings change in what is an apparently random way? Many things can impact performance beyond just the service that is delivered in the retail location. New product offerings, promotions and sale events, changes in pricing or even changes in the broader economy can influence performance. The truth is that when you have brands with a high frequency of engagement, a large proportion of performance ratings for a single transaction can be attributed to overall perceptions of the brand built up over many recent transactions and engagement with the brand. This has been clear over and over in client work that we have done.
1.8%
Q2 2013
Q3 2013
These changes in performance ratings are real, but…
SUR VEY MAGAZINE FEATURED COLUMNIST
10.0%
MARCH 2014
0.7%
Q1 2013
COLUMNS
Q4 2013
Going on a Wild Goose Chase?
6.6% -‐5.8% 0.2%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0% Q4 2013 Q3 2013 Q2 2013
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
-‐0.7% -‐0.1% -‐2.9% 13.8%
Q1 2013 5.3%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
Q4 2013 Q3 2013
15.0%
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
-‐0.8% -‐0.4%
Q1 2013 -‐16.6% 10.2%
Q4 2012 -‐5.0%
0.0%
Q4 2013
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
1.7%
Q3 2013 Q2 2013
16.8% -‐0.8% 4.9%
Q1 2013
5.0%
Q4 2012 -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
The problem as I see it --many of these very benchmarking programs that are not concerned with statistical significance nor the impact of factors beyond the control of operational teams, are used as the basis for senior managers to earn part or all of their bonus compensation.
4.8%
Q2 2013
-‐20.0% -‐15.0% -‐10.0%
In the CEBenchmarks results shared in this article, statistically significant differences have been highlighted. However, there are lots of smaller shifts that occur in the ratings, which can often lead to one brand moving ahead of or falling behind competitors. This is important because there are numerous benchmarking programs out there, some of which are used to declare a winner and are used in advertising. Most of these programs don’t worry about statistical differences in naming a winner, much less figuring out how much a change may have to do with factors outside the service performance of the brand.
-‐5.0%
0.0%
5.0%
10.0%
15.0%
So, when I think of the discussion about score chasing by sales associates in auto dealerships or by property managers at hotels, I realize they are not the only ones chasing scores. In both cases, customer-facing team members and management. The problem is that chasing scores most, if not all the time, isn’t in alignment with the business goals the organization is trying to achieve in the first place.
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What can be done about it? There are a few things organizations should consider to create better alignment between the targets they set for managers and customer-facing teams, and the business goals they hope to achieve. 1. Focus on customer relationships, not just transactions – It’s still important to measure performance on transactions so that employees can be coached, but link incentive structures to the impact that teams are having on maintaining and building stronger relationships. 2. Avoid the allure of focusing on one metric, while still keeping it simple – One number scores are very attractive because they allow management to focus on just one number for employees to perform against. However, consumers and their behavior are far from homogeneous and businesses have many drivers. While it is important to keep it simple for people to understand, use of a single number makes it hard to align operations activity with business results, even harder to define actions that need to be taken to improve operations
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and promotes score chasing at all levels of the organization. 3. Stop worrying about publicized benchmarking studies – Instead focus on internal trackers that tend to be more reliable measures of performance because they are based on concrete evidence of patronage and, for the most part, include significantly more sample. However, don’t forget to find ways to identify customers who engaged with you, but for whatever reason, did not complete a transaction. For the most part, publicly touting leadership in benchmarking studies makes little difference in consumer decision-making. Actually, consumers tend to lean on consumer reviews much more when available (even though those can also be a poor representation of performance). Benchmarking studies are useful for understanding comparisons, but shouldn’t be looked at to understand micro trends. If you have questions or want to join the discussions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to hear from you!
COLUMNS MARCH 2014 SUR VEY MAGAZINE FEATURED COLUMNIST
The Listen Lady
A N N I E P ET TI T
@LoveStats
Insight Priorities: In which I bash insights again I’m working on a very cool survey right now. Well, the survey itself isn’t that cool. It’s about hotels and airlines and loyalty cards, not chocolate, iPhones, and celebrities. The part that’s cool is that I’m preparing 3 test groups and 2 control groups. Forget the basic and insufficient A/B design on which we over-rely. I always wonder why marketing researchers don’t do more complex designs. Is it because they’re too difficult? I don’t think so. We’re a bunch of pretty smart people. Is it because we can’t afford to? For the most part, I don’t think so. Once a survey has been written and programmed, it’s pretty cheap to copy and tweak it. And to be honest, incentives for another 500 completes are also pretty cheap. These are the kinds of costs that any medium to large company can easily swallow. So what is the problem? Timing. When it comes to timing, we don’t allow ourselves a schedule that will permit the analysis of another set of data. Sadly, we already know the survey and the analysis inside and out so extra time isn’t required for back-
ground learning. The only extra time required is for analyzing the bits of the survey that are different. If we decided to take crazy short cuts, that analysis could be done in a couple hours and extended to a day or two if the results panned out in our favor. But, actually, I don’t think timing is the problem either. The problem, when you get right down to it, is priorities. Regardless of what we keep telling ourselves, we value speed and cost ahead of, you guessed it, insight. I scream, you scream, we all scream for insight, and yet making insights a first priority is often the last priority. Insights require time and planning not speed and reduced costs. But wouldn’t a more comprehensive methodology put you ahead in the long run?
Annie Pettit, PhD Chief Research Officer, Peanut Labs
Annie Pettit, PhD is the Chief Research Officer at Peanut Labs, Vice President, Research Standards at Research Now, and Editor In Chief of Vue magazine. She specializes in listening research, survey methods, and data quality. Annie is a sought after conference speaker, and has published numerous refereed and industry articles. She won Best Methodological Paper at Esomar 2013, and the 2011 AMA David K. Hardin Award. Annie tweets at @LoveStats and is the author of The Listen Lady, a novel about social media research. She can be reached at annie@peanutlabs.com.
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Raise Your Survey
Response Rates Organizations use surveys to achieve many different goals. Whether they want to measure customer satisfaction, conduct market research, administer training assessments or gauge employee engagement, a well-executed survey is an important business tool for making more informed decisions. However,
SURVEY
tip
surveys are only as good as the responses they collect. For the most accurate sampling of data, your surveys need to gain high enough response rates to mitigate outliers, analyze trends and enable you to draw significant conclusions from the results.
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Isolate your email variables
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Get creative with your subject lines
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Avoid redundancy
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Change up your format
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Use reminder emails
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Vary send times & days
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Be aware of baiting
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Analyze historical data
One of the best ways to see a spike in your response rates is to use a web survey tool in concert with a strategic email campaign. With an email campaign, you can introduce your survey, link participants directly to the survey and remind participates to complete it. However, for a campaign to be effective, your emails must resonate with respondents and convince them to take action. The only way to know if your emails are up to the challenge is to test their key components until you find out what works best.
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Tips to Try: Isolate your email variables Instead of testing completely different versions of your emails, avoid eschewing your data by only testing one element or variable at a time. If you establish a control version of your email to test certain variables against, you’ll be able to attribute positive or negative results to that particular variable. For example, if you want to see how the placement of your call-to-action button affects response rates, changing the content in each version would make it impossible to determine whether the content or call-to-action placement accounted for the change in response rates. A better solution would be to conduct two separate tests. Compare your control to an email that changes the call-to-action placement and use a separate test group to compare your control to an email with different content. You can combine the winning elements to create the strongest version of your email.
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Avoid redundancy Modify the content and subject lines of your subsequent reminder emails, so they aren’t identical to your first email. Try using variations of your first email that also tested well while staying consistent to your brand’s look and feel.
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Get creative with your subject lines Think of your email subject lines as movie trailers. If they are droll, unexciting and don’t build intrigue, no one will want to see the full-length feature. The same goes for your survey emails. Entice your readers with a subject lines that pique their interest. Test out a variety of strategies like using short calls to action, fun headline teasers or something more informative. When you analyze the results of your test, look at open rates and response rates. Sometimes the email with the highest open rate doesn’t necessarily trigger the most conversions. Look at both metrics and select a subject line that had a combination of high open rates and response rates.
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Change up your format While fancy HTML emails with slick graphics and vibrant colors may look appealing during the design phase, be cognizant of what devices your respondents use to read their emails. Not all HTML emails are easy to view on mobile phones, tablets or with certain email providers. Try testing both HTML and plain text emails to see which garners the most responses. If your email tool has the option to do a rendering test, always review the results to spot potential issues before sending. If not, consider getting a Litmus account.
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Raise Your Survey
Response Rates
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SURVEY
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Use reminder emails In most cases, one email is not enough to reach your full survey response potential. Sometimes people need to be prompted with one or two reminders. In fact, reminders can provide as much as an 80% lift in responses. Sophisticated survey software can even determine which respondents started a survey but failed to complete it, so you can send a different message to remind them. However, don’t go overboard. Limit reminders to no more than two. Also, be sure to space out reminders and reserve content with a sense of urgency for the final reminder. Making your respondents feel pressured and overwhelmed is a good way to spark an ‘unsubscribe’.
Vary send times and days Even if a qualifying event triggers your survey to go out to respondents (i.e. business transaction, bad review or customer service interaction), you can experiment with the amount of time you wait to send the reminder email. Keep an eye on your completion rates and test how many days is optimal for gaining more responses with a follow-up email after the initial one is sent. You can also test the time of day for optimum completion.
Be Aware of Baiting While off-message, creative subject lines may trick your respondents into opening your email, they won’t continue on to your survey if the messaging feels disconnected, unrelated or downright confusing. High open rates are a vanity statistic if your survey completion rates flounder, so connect your messaging to your subject line.
Analyze historical data Let historical data guide your future email campaign strategy. Use components that have proved effective in previous campaigns and conduct new tests in areas where you’ve fallen short in the past. Constantly testing and refining email elements will ensure you are using the most compelling combinations to raise response rates.
Next time you are plotting an email strategy to help increase survey response rates, keep these email campaign tips in mind. For information about online software or help creating your surveys and email campaigns, check out Cvent Web Surveys and Professional Services Group.
Founded in 1999, Cvent (NYSE: CVT) is a leading provider of survey and feedback management solutions with over 1,400 employees worldwide. Cvent Web Surveys works with 1,200 organizations around the globe to help them collect feedback from various constituents – i.e. customers, employees, partners, etc. With Cvent Web Surveys’ online software, professionals can test markets, qualify leads, measure program effectiveness, enhance company culture and gauge stakeholder opinions. The solution provides organizations with survey management, data collection and the reporting tools needed help increase their bottom line.
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Digital Research Tools and Methods
Dispelling Client Concerns Over the past decade, the way marketing research is viewed, used and analyzed has changed the landscape of our field. Significant penetration increases in smartphone and tablet ownership, new analytic approaches focused on scientific bases (neuroscience, eye tracking) and the ability to obtain real-time, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;in the momentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; insights are fundamentally shifting how companies obtain and use consumer-focused information.
Steven Marks, Vice President, Market Probe Simona Kats, Director of Digital Research, Market Probe +
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Why is it then, when we as practitioners raise the specter of utilizing Digital Research methods and tools that our clients sometimes become less than enthusiastic? We all know that technological adoption takes time to reach the masses and the use of newer methodologies versus proven/historical approaches is viewed by some with skepticism. Case in point, look how long it took for online research to become an acceptable methodology, especially among CPG companies. Yet, with mass acceptance and usage of smartphones and double-digit increases in year-to-year penetration of tablets, many corporate clients continue to view Digital Research with a wary eye.
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FEATURE
MARCH 2014
SUR VEY MAGAZINE: DIGITAL RESEARCH TOOLS & METHODS
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MARCH 2014 SURVEY MAGAZINE
WHAT ARE THE PERCEIVED BARRIERS OF ENTRY TO THE WORLD OF DIGITAL RESEARCH FROM A CLIENT’S PERSPECTIVE? WE WILL ADDRESS SOME OF THE MORE PREALENT ISSUES AND SHOW HOW WE CAN COMBAT THESE MYTHS THROUGH EDUCATING OUR CLIENTS.
MYTHS OF DIGITAL RESEARCH
BARRIER:
I won’t be able to reach the audience I’m hoping to target for research on digital devices. On the contrary, we see that the ubiquitous nature of digital platforms and devices are making accessibility to consumers easier and more cost/ time effective. +
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Eight of ten (81%) of U.S. adults ages 18+ say they are using laptop and/or desktop computers at home, work or their office setting1 Two-thirds (64%) of U.S. mobile phone owners own a smartphone (with even higher penetration rates noted for teenagers (70% among ages 13 – 17) and Gen X (81% among ages 25-34 audiences) 2 More than one-third (35%) of U.S. adults ages 16+ own a tablet, a substantial increase over 2012 penetration levels (25%)3
Use of one’s personal communication devices has increasingly become more common in today’s society. Indeed, one survey shows that 75% of Americans now bring their phones to the bathroom with them! (Digiday, 2013). Today’s younger consumers have been raised on technology and use digital devices as their primary communication platforms (utilizing SMS, Snapchat, Pinterest, Instagram in addition to other applications). Reaching other audiences such as Boomers, is most definitely possible when conducting research digitally. We know that online research via computer and laptop is generally commonplace among most research participants today. While penetration of tablet and smartphone use is growing among this group, it still does substantially lag that seen for younger audiences. So, if your client is looking to conduct a shop-along study or do some video ethnographies among a Boomeraged audience, you should keep this in mind. Additionally, most major online panels are now able to provide nationally representative sampling frames for Digital Research, in addition to the ability to identify/obtain ‘hard to reach’ sampling targets (such as patients, subject-matter experts, etc.)
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I cannot effectively integrate all insights gathered digitally.
FEATURE
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SUR VEY MAGAZINE: DIGITAL RESEARCH TOOLS & METHODS
Indeed, many clients have established new internal groups and divisions whose sole purpose is to assimilate online information coming in on a daily basis (from services such as Twitter and Facebook). Separately, online insights provided by adhoc digital research programs (e.g., shop-alongs, ethnographies, online community activities) are conducted to provide actionable information for corporate use. This is a marriage of two somewhat different approaches---the former being Social Media Monitoring (for which there are numerous research companies dedicated to this methodology) and the latter being qualitative Digital Research platforms. As practitioners, we need to work with our clients to help them focus on what their key objectives are, when undertaking any Digital Research program: Is it to provide ongoing trending data? Are the insights to be used as an incubator to help generate new ideas/approaches/products/ services? Have my new ads resonated with endusers and will they lead to increased purchase potential? Once this initial discussion has taken place, we can then design a targeted analytic plan which will synthesize all gathered insights.
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We should work collaboratively in these efforts. The days of a single research firm being able to use only their internal resources in meeting all client objectives are certainly numbered, if not already extinct. Social Media Monitoring experts should be sought out by research firms to incorporate the SMM expertise in text analysis and KPIs such as ‘Reputation’ and ‘Relevance’ with their primary qualitative Digital Research insights. Similarly, SMM companies need to reach out to Digital Research firms, when asked to provide a more holistic overview of how their consumer commentary can lead to more real-time research exercises, all with the goal of meeting a client’s objectives.
Dispelling Client Concerns
Digital Research Tools and Methods
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In summary, we believe it is a practitioner’s responsibility to ensure that end-clients better understand the tools and methods used in today’s Digital Research environment.
Technology has expanded the research opportunities
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If a key client objective is to track brand visibility and promotion and subsequently correlate it back to revenue generation, then this approach will provide actionable, measurable and proven results.
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Mobile surveys have opened up the doors for real-time, ‘in-themoment’ research activities. Utilizing methodologies such as, shop-alongs and geo-location technology which can be used to test customer experience and reactions to promotions and offers, we are now able to capture consumer behaviors like never before.
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Online focus groups and online communities, have been utilized for a variety of research activities (i.e., product and service ideation/testing, brand positioning/development, strategic planning), providing a cost-effective methodology to help uncover natural consumer behavior, interests and even follow a purchase process through to product usage.
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They have additionally been used to test ad concepts and provide direct input in helping companies ensure their message is being received properly.
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Increased tablet penetration, an abundance of Wi-Fi hotspots, high penetration of laptop ownership and usage all now make conducting online research a proven and accepted methodological approach, which is easier and more accessible. MARCH 2014 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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I am unwilling to spend any of my limited research budget on unproven approaches. +
One of the best things we as practitioners can do is listen to our clients and be prepared and able to discuss and execute meaningful Digital Research programs to meet their needs and answer their central research questions.
There are, in fact, many ways that can help show and prove how Digital Research programs provide actionable insights. One basic example is that nearly all social media sites (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Instragram) capture visitation statistics and can make them available to clients.
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With this, more informed and educated clients will result in greater utilization of digital tools and methods.
The conversation needs to not dwell on if digital research methods are proven approaches, but rather to show how new technology has expanded the research opportunities for clients. Any new technology will go through its trial period where its applicability and usefulness will be questioned. Until that trial period is over we need to refocus discussions as to how digital research approaches can provide greater, real-time and in-depth information at a cost-effective price point.
The
Matrix
Project Management Edition Matrix teams are a common method of staffing projects. Just like many other areas of project management, they have their benefits and their challenges. Let us discuss some of the pitfalls in using matrix teams on projects.
Money is not needed to save the world Only in fiction can this be true; in the real world, not so much. Typically, matrix teams are formed using internal company staff. If a software engineer, we will call him “Neo”, is needed on a project, then IT is asked if Neo can be assigned to the project. The downside, of course, is that when a price of a project is estimated, the ‘cost’ a company is ‘paying’ Neo to be on a project is ignored in many cases. However, our friends in finance will be happy to explain that Neo’s cost to the business is anything but free. Not just his salary, but benefits, vacation, etc. all should be added to the project’s costs when a project budget is determined. If this is not done, then the company has no idea if outsourcing the project might be cheaper than using an internal team. After all, if the internal team of super heroes has no cost, then no money is needed to do any project, including one that is saving the world.
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Please choose the “red task” or the “green task” Another commonly overlooked issue with using matrix teams, is if our software engineer “Neo” is busy working on Project A, what is he not working on that could be as important, or even more important? The official term of this dilemma: lost opportunity cost. As people’s eyes start glazing over at some point in project-budget calculations, it is not surprising that this topic falls off the radar. If it is hard to create a project budget where a lot of data can be known, it is even harder to try and come up with scenarios of things not being done, much less the costs involved. These costs should, however, be at least be given a rough estimate, so assignments of staffing can be made in ways that will improve a business as efficiently as possible. So if the “green task” is chosen, it makes the most sense, versus finding out much later that the “red one” would have been better.
BRIEFS MARCH 2014 SUR VEY MAGAZINE: THE MATRIX - PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Please choose the “red task” or the “green task” Another commonly overlooked issue with using matrix teams, is if our software engineer “Neo” is busy working on Project A, what is he not working on that could be as important, or even more important? The official term of this dilemma: lost opportunity cost. As people’s eyes start glazing over at some point in projectbudget calculations, it is not surprising that this topic falls off the radar. If it is hard to create a project budget where a lot of data can be known, it is even harder to try and come up with scenarios of things not being done, much less the costs involved. These costs should, however, be at least be given a rough estimate, so assignments of staffing can be made in ways that will improve a business as efficiently as possible. So if the “green task” is chosen, it makes the most sense, versus finding out much later that the “red one” would have been better.
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The
Matrix
ABOUT THE AUTHOR RUSSELL HARLEY, PMO Russell Harley is a veteran project manager and PMO director, passionate about helping organizations embrace world-class project management practices and “climb out of the quicksand” in terms of gaining control over complex, ever-changing project portfolios.
Project Management Edition
Which reality is ‘really’ real? The real downside of using matrix teams is, what are the people who are part of this type of team really doing? The company decided there was enough work to justify hiring Neo, our software engineer. He is now fully engaged in doing his job at 40+ hoursper-week. Now a project comes along that needs Neo’s skills for 20 hours a week for three months, approximately 260 man-hours. What happens now? One of two things could occur. One reality is Neo is very good at his job so the project team wants him, as he would be a good asset for the project. The other reality is Neo is not that good. Neo’s manager assigns him to the project, as that will impact the organization’s operations the least. Of course, how Neo feels about all of this may be a different reality than either of the aforementioned.
Time has no meaning In fiction, things that would take normal mortals months or even years to do, can be done in just a few minutes. While some may think this time compression can work for matrix teams, it cannot. If, as noted above, Neo was hired to do 40 hours of work without any project work involved, where does Neo find an extra 20 hours to work on the project? This assumes that Neo still has 40 hours of regular work to do. If Neo is a good worker, then he will try and fit both in.
It could even be that at the time the project started, Neo had some extra time available, so working on a project kept him fully engaged. As course of the project went on, however, other demands arose and the extra time he had within a ‘normal’ work week vanished. So regardless of the best intentions by all involved, time for Neo had to be expanded, versus being compressed. Can these pitfalls we have discussed be avoided or reduced when using matrix teams? Yes.
Typically this would mean Neo working longer hours, so maybe 50-60 hours a week for the three months. If Neo is getting burned out or not that motivated, then something, normally the project, will not get his full attention. This means that the project could have delays, possibly cost overruns, etc.
Proper planning, understanding of the real time constraints of employees, etc. can all help when developing a project using this model. Keep in mind though, each project should be carefully evaluated as to which will work best, dependent upon who the model is for: the business, matrix, outsourced, or some combination.
If this is escalated to Neo’s manager, there could be many reasons given why Neo is not working on the project as needed. Higher priority work, outages, etc. could impact Neo’s efforts on the project. All of which could be perfectly valid or not.
After all, when the fate of the world is in your hands, you want to make sure you have the right team, make the best choices, and the project path fits constraints of the real world. The ‘real’ Neo would not want it any other way.
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SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
One of the perils of directly adapting social web technology for research is assuming that the social behavior of people on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and forums will automatically translate to an insight community. While the technology and interfaces of many insight community and digital qual tools are mimic what people expect out in the social web, there are important differences in the context of the community that greatly impact how people engage. When people join social networks or forums on the web it is because they are brought together by a commonality – whether it’s an interest or a network of friends. Participants in insight communities are strangers in an artificial environment and members have no pressing informational or networking needs. In this situation, they are brought together by researchers, due to the needs of their study and because they match recruiting criteria – not the ideal basis for forming a social group.
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5
Techniques to Juice Social Interaction Making the Most of Insight Communities and Digital Qual Studies
01
Design for interaction
This sounds basic but it can get lost amongst other priorities. The main thing to keep in mind is that if the do gets too long, interaction will be strained â&#x20AC;&#x201C; the more effort that goes into doing the activity or answering the question, the less energy will be left to interact. This means you should recognise where interaction would be most valuable and place the focus on interaction there.
Steve August, Founder and CEO, Revelation Global
02
Choose the right format
You need to think about which format would be most suited to the type of interaction you want to get. One option, the forum is a good group space. It allows discussion to flow.
SURVEY
tip
Using a multimedia feed (which is more like Facebook or Pinterest in design) is best used for deeper activities with open ended answers, and recurring activities like diaries. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s also excellent for trend spotting and visual ideation.
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So how do you
transition make the
04
Social Second Steps
from perfect
strangers to a community?
03
Narrow the Focus
You must let your participants know what to expect. To do this, you must be specific about the interaction you want them to complete. You can narrow this down in several ways; by type of interaction (like, or comment), by deadline, by specific participant you want them to interact with, by number of responses you want them to give. This helps respondents to focus their energies – which increases the level of interaction. The generic, ‘Please take some time to comment on other people’s responses’ is a bad example because it is too general. In contrast, asking, ‘Today, please comment on 3 participant’s pictures which you feel are reflect your supermarket shopping habits most closely, and explain why’ will result in a greater response because it is very specific.
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We have found that building on the step of interaction, as set out above, can provide even greater and more focused participation. The first step should explain the activity that needs to be completed by the participant, e.g: Take the concept from yesterday’s activity, and write a short sales pitch. When you upload it, you will be able to see other people’s sales pitches. The second step should explain the social interaction you want your participants to complete. Read all of the other pitches. Choose which you like best and comment on that pitch to tell them why. Participants then understand what is expected of them and this builds participation, as they see that they need to complete one task before they can start another. The result of getting members of the insight community to take part in both steps is both social interaction and a means of rating different solutions.
05
Tune to Your Audience
Make sure you adapt your techniques for different audiences – paying careful attention to cultural differences. You will need to communicate very differently to a B2B audience than to B2C audience. It is important to recognise that the B2B participants are time pressured – so activities will need to cut to the chase. This means that there is less room for creative elements. Money can be an incentive for B2B participants, however, in our experience they find more value in the information they acquire from their peers. Forum is the best format, because it allows faster interaction, and as creative is not encouraged, there is no need to post media. A B2C audience are more motivated by money and have more time, which means more questions can be asked. This means that you can use some questions to drive interaction, but it does not need to be a priority in every situation. Therefore, you have more freedom to use both a forum and a multimedia feed, leaving more room for creative elements.
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> PASSION SURVEY Magazine is honored to present this year’s selection of Top Technology Trendsetters. All of this year’s recipients exhibit great passion for their work in the research industry. Innovation and vision is core to the values, work ethic and professionalism that each of the recipients share on a daily basis. It is clear that wherever “TECHNOLOGY” takes us, the research industry will be at the forefront in adapting and applying it in ways that continue to expand our thinking and capabilities.
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TECHNOLOGY
TRENDSETTER
2014
2014
TECHNOLOGY
TRENDSETTERS
TECHNOLOGY FUTURE LEADER
TECHNOLOGY LEADER
TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER
Demonstrated leadership and stewardship of the technology(s) that drive their business.
Outstanding achievement for administering research technology that advanced previous capability.
Instrumental to an organization’s technology capability within a demonstrated leadership role.
TL F John E. Carroll - IPSOS Srinath Sankar – M-S-G Henry Cheang – Potentiate Global
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Becky Wu – Luth Research Kumar Mehta – Cross Tab Jayme Plunkett - Decipher Julia Clark – Ipsos Melanie Courtright – Research Now Al Nevarez – Allegiance Sean Holbert – KL Communications Annie Pettit Ph.D. – Peanut Labs Andrew Reid – Vision Critical James Egbert – US DHHS Jeff Miller – Burke Inc. Terry Lawlor - Confirmit, Inc. Jim Bryson – 20/20 Research Theresa Welbourne, Ph.D. – EEPulse Gloria Park Bartolone – Maritz Research David E. Zotter – SSI Carol Haney – Toluna
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BECKY WU, Ph.D. Senior Vice President LUTH RESEARCH
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? “As a research company powered by a global research panel, our obligation in creating technological solutions is two-fold. On one hand, we need satisfactory user experience free of privacy concerns; on the other hand, we aim to achieve comprehensive data capturing capabilities for highly fragmented consumer devices and operating systems.”
Imag ine t he unimag inable.
TECHNOLOGY LEADER With extensive academic training in media effects and innovation diffusion, Becky Wu, Ph.D. brings a unique perspective to a wide array of research practices. Her cutting-edge insight and natural curiosity have galvanized her to better understand consumers’ digital lives. In spearheading the development of ZQ Intelligence and ZQ Digital Tribe, Dr. Wu leads the Luth Research team in uncovering the power of digital analytics for clients across industries.
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> ZQ Intelligence & ZQ Digital Tribe: Web Tracking Technology Working closely with the Vice President of IT and the CEO at Luth Research, Dr. Wu has developed a service that is relevant and, notably, dynamic. Her leadership during the development of ZQ Intelligence and ZQ Digital Tribe has surpassed all expectations and has helped put Luth Research on the map for digital measurement. ZQ Intelligence is a proprietary web tracking technology. An innovative approach to online quantitative methodology, it utilizes the power of web-based digital data from multiple platforms (PC, mobile and tablets) and integrates survey data to attain a deeper understanding of the consumer. The result is a holistic view of the consumer’s online behaviors and the motivation behind their actions. As Senior Vice President at Luth Research, Dr. Wu spearheaded the development of this technology in 2010 and added the custom feature of ZQ Digital Tribe in 2012. In early 2013, mobiles were added to the list of devices that are tracked by ZQ Intelligence. Dr. Wu not only understands the need for innovation, she recognizes the importance of it being a dynamic process. The methodology behind ZQ Digital Tribe utilizes ZQ Intelligence, which can be downloaded on respondents’ computers, mobile phones, and tablets. The
client’s audience of interest, determined by custom specifications, comprises each Digital Tribe, which tracks the web behavior of these individuals over a designated period of time. The catalyst for developing ZQ Intelligence occurred when Dr. Wu realized that marketers were seeking answers about the best way to optimize their digital strategies and were challenging researchers to provide the answers. While traditional research methodologies remain a critical component of consumer research, the missing link is an understanding of the consumer’s online digital behavior. Furthermore, by developing ZQ Intelligence, Dr. Wu facilitated the integration of digital data with survey data, providing the necessary actionable insights needed for our clients to be highly competitive in today’s marketplace. Some of our clients that have benefitted from the insights provided by this cross-platform digital tracking technology are MSFT, Ford, Dominos, Salesforce. com, Viacom, and Colgate.
LUTH RESEARCH 1365 Fourth Avenue, San Diego, CA 92101 bwu@luthresearch.com
A B OU T BECKY WU, Ph.D. Digital Tracking Forefront
TECHNOLOGY LEADER
During her past thirteen years at Luth Research, Dr. Wu has played an integral role in propelling the company to the forefront of market intelligence. She was the mastermind in understanding that digital tracking was the way market research was heading. For Dr. Wu, innovation is at the core of her professional career. She possesses the ability to recognize the issues facing research methods and actively works towards solving them.
Dr. Wu’s areas of expertise include customer loyalty, satisfaction and retention, advertizing efficacy, new product development, media measurement, and branding and marketing strategies. Her consultancy with clients includes various methodologies and statistical modeling, like segmentation analysis, multivariate analysis, price sensitivity analysis, and predictive modeling. Her ability to combine strong analytical skills with ingenious business ideas and her passion for market research make her indispensible to Luth.
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What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? Passively measuring emotional responses/brain activities together with behavior tracking on a large scale.
LOCATION San Diego, CA
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CONTACT 800.465.5884
What is your approach to technology innovation? Look at your adjacent industries. Have a peripheral vision on what problems and technologies attract deep thinkers and capital investment.
TL
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT LUTH RESEARCH
www.LuthResearch.com
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KUMAR MEHTA Chief Executive Officer CROSS-TAB
What is your approach to technology innovation? The primary goal of technology innovation should be to increase overall efficiency, productivity and speed. It should open up opportunities that didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t exist before, such as gaining simple customer truths from linking disparate data streams into a single platform.
TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Kumar Mehta is the Chief Executive Officer of the Cross-Tab group of companies that includes Cross-Tab Marketing Services, blueocean market intelligence, Informate Mobile Intelligence and Borderless Access Panels, with over 700 professionals specializing in analytics, market intelligence, social media, mobile and emerging markets.
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To become a trendsetter or great leader you must first have an unconditional believe in yourself, and then follow your vision despite every obstacle. If you are able to achieve these two things, everything else will fall in place.
Prior to joining the Cross-Tab group, Kumar spent over 13 years at Microsoft in a variety of leadership roles within Market Research, Competitive Intelligence, Corporate Alliances, Business Management, Strategy and Finance. As one of the earliest market researchers in the software industry, he helped shape how research is conducted within the technology marketplace. He was one of the first individuals in the world to study the impact of the Internet on consumers and businesses, and has collaborated on some of the largest groundbreaking research studies on the evolution of the Internet.
> INNOVATION
In 2013, Cross-Tab Marketing Services introduced their latest technology innovation – the CrossTab Optimizer Suite (ctOS). Shattering traditional conventions of market research, this advanced platform transforms operations and achieves faster, more superior results with real time access and control. Working at multiple levels in the research value chain, it unlocks efficiencies and enhances the way researchers interact and report their survey results like never before.
CROSS-TAB MARKETING SERVICES 2889 152nd Avenue NE, Building 12, Suite D, Redmond, WA 98059
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kumar@blueoceanmi.com
AB OU T K UMA R MEHTA What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology?
TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Over his career, Kumar has directed over a quarter billion dollars of market intelligence and research, and as a frequent speaker on research transformation, he is passionate about the role market intelligence can play in shaping businesses.
“The future of research innovation will be focused on integration – there is too much data sitting in organizational siloes. The next game changer will be around harnessing and synthesizing multiple data streams to generate real customer insight and value.”
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? LOCATION Redmond, WA
CONTACT 866.614.7954
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I look for functionality, productivity and elegance. Does the technology do what it’s supposed to do, does it make my life better and do I enjoy interacting with it?
“
TA
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT CROSS-TAB www.Cross-Tab.com
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JOHN CARROLL, III Global Head of Clients, IPSOS LOYALTY What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? “We see Enterprise Feedback Management platforms as transforming the customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty survey research world. In terms of hardware, we believe that smart mobile devices will become pervasive and break into a variety of wearable devices which will work together in a personal network. Lastly, the “Internet of Things” will create massive new opportunities for researchers to collect, analyze, and present insightful and practical Big Data.”
What is your approach to technology innovation? “I develop near term practical technology innovations based on reading high quality science fiction. SciFi writers do a great job envisioning future technology development and the best writers are right on the mark. You only need to watch a few episodes of the original Star Trek series to see how prescient SciFi writers can be.”
TECHNOLOGY FUTURE LEADER John is the Global Head of Clients for Ipsos Loyalty, the world’s leading customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty professional services firm with revenue of over $300 million and dedicated expert staff in excess of 1,100 located in over 80 countries covering every region of the world. In this role, John leads efforts in the areas of Practical Big Data, Enterprise Feedback Management, and Mobile Wearables Based Research which are three of the fastest growing areas of growth in terms of technological innovation in research.
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> Innovation: John is helping innovate in technology in three areas: Mobile Wearable Technology John is currently leading an Ipsos effort to file for patents in the area of using mobile wearable technology to capture qualitative and quantitative customer journey mapping information for the purpose of ideal customer experience research. Ipsos already is using Google Glass as well as other proprietary eye tracking and biometric tracking hardware tools in several research pilot projects which are the practical application of this patent pursuit. John was the original creator of the Ipsos customer journey mapping solution called Ideal Customer Experience which has now been deployed in over 20 countries in every region of the world.
Practical Big Data John is an active speaker and writer on innovating in the topics of Practical Big Data. For example, he presented with Dr. Nika Kabiri on February 14th 2014 on the subject “We Heart Big Data” and will present in Dubai with Dr. Tim Keiningham at the ESOMAR event in March 2014 on Big Data. By speaking at these events and publishing on the topics of Big Data, John is popularizing the practical use of these technologies amongst broad population of researchers around the world.
Enterprise Feedback Management John is an expert in the area of Enterprise Feedback Management literally defining the term in the research world. John also authored an article entitled “Seven critical steps from traditional c-sat research to modern EFM”, which is helping researcher move from traditional customer satisfaction research tools to innovative Enterprise Feedback Management technologies.
IPSOS 222 South Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL, USA, 60606 John.E.Carroll@ipsos.com
A B OUT JOH N CARROLL, III TECHNOLOGY FUTURE LEADER John regularly speaks on the subject of technological advances in research at major conferences (New York, London, Singapore, Beijing, Shanghai, Delhi, Santiago, Moscow and Toronto in 201113), and is interviewed by the media (most recently for presentation to Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation global conference in Chile) for expert guidance. He is a specialist in the areas of social (including unstructured data and text mining), local (including geo-localization technology) and mobile (including Wearables such as Google Glass, FitBit and other tools) customer experience and brand management platforms and systems.
Previous Experience: Prior to Ipsos, John gained a broad range of experiences helping organizations resolve critical strategic and technology issues while working at McKinsey & Company and Deloitte.
LOCATION Chicago, IL
CONTACT 312.526.4000
Beyond thought leadership, John actively practices and serves commercial and government clients across industries and around the world including supporting major technology heavy research programs for world renowned companies such as Google, Huawei, and Microsoft. He is the global alliance manager for several of technology partners of Ipsos including Medallia and Allegiance which are two of the top software companies serving the voice of the customer and operational customer experience management spaces.
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? “Technology design should always have a strong foundation in elegance. It is this elegance that provides high performance, high efficiency, and high effectiveness.”
TL F
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT IPSOS www.Ipsos.com
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JAYME PLUNKETT CO - CEO DECIPHER What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? We really strive for simple, elegant solutions that address client needs. Technology should be intuitive and ultimately enable shortcuts for quick decision making. The simpler the solution, the better.
Ma ke it simple. TECHNOLOGY LEADER With individual proficiencies spanning from traditional research analytics and operations to technology and new product development, Decipherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership team has worked together to create tools and techniques that directly address present and future research needs. Taking inspiration from both within and outside the industry, Decipher creates best-in-class research solutions that are driven by a clear vision of the future.
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Simple Solutions Providing thought leadership and strategy that has driven Decipher to significant growth. Decipher has been included on several fastest growing technology lists, including being ranked by INC 5000, and LEAD411 for the last three years. JAMIN BRAZIL, CO-CEO
KRISTIN LUCK, PRESIDENT
But they say it’s more than just senior executives driving the company’s vision, emphasizing that
“
direction also comes about through staff empowerment and bolstering innovation across all employee levels through open idea exchanges. Every team member is a contributor:
Our entire team has a clear vision of where we’re headed, and the freedom to manifest that vision, innovation (and as a result, the customer experience) thrives.
“
A B OU T DECIPHER TECHNOLOGY LEADER
How does this approach result in industry leading technology? Decipher says it is simple, elegant solutions that deliver. The company’s belief that technology should be intuitive and highly efficient for quick decision making has resulted in tools that are user-friendly, effective and can positively impact business decisions every day. Most recently, Decipher has addressed pervasive issues like research decentralization and cross-platform data collection channels with tools that marry diverse data sources and share insights that ensure true “research intelligence.”
Introducing New Technology Decipher has launched ground-breaking technology just in the last few years. Beacon, the company’s innovative survey and reporting software suite which originally came to market in 2011, is consistently being upgraded with the latest technological advancements.
info@decipherinc.com @deciphertweet
LOCATION Fresno, CA
CONTACT 800.923.5523
Most recently, Decipher announced the launch of Beacon’s Hub which is the industry’s first centralized research and data management portal that increases data visibility and accessibility to give users a comprehensive understanding of the total health of their organization’s research practice -regardless of the data source.
TL
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT DECIPHER www.decipherinc.com
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MELANIE COURTRIGHT Senior Vice President, Client Services, Americas RESEARCH NOW
TECHNOLOGY LEADER Melanie has been involved in advancing the practice of research through technology innovation since the early days in online research. As part of the DMS organization, Melanie helped develop the first river and router, and testing to prove out the possibilities to the industry. Melanie has also helped companies build quota management platforms and the next generation of routers.
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>
Leading By Example What is your approach to technology innovation?
What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology?
“As it applies to market research, I follow the consumers. I make sure I watch where they are living, electronically, and that we are prepared to be right there with them.”
How do you define “Leadership”? “Someone who leads their organization and industry into places they couldn’t have imagined. Someone unafraid to challenge the norms and push the boundaries in an effort to be closer to the consumers and deliver their thoughts and experiences faster than yesterday.”
“Wearable devices rendering content on virtual screens. It will change everything about how we interact with consumers to ask questions and seek feedback.”
Describe your philosophy on technology innovation. “Consumer-centric. Follow them wherever they go and make it pleasurable for them to interact with you.”
Innovate or Evap orate!
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? “Agility and reliability. Today’s technology solution must be built so that they are easily adopted to tomorrow’s devices and experiences. And they must give users a best in class experience every single time.”
>
RESEARCH NOW 5800 Tennyson Parkway, Suite 600, Plano, TX 75024 mcourtright@researchnow.com @melcourtright
A B OUT M EL AN IE C OURTRIGHT TECHNOLOGY LEADER Recently, Melanie has been leading the way in mobile data collection, leading the teams thoughts around geo-fencing, app development, and behavioral data. Melanie is also a key leader in her company’s approach to data integration, combining survey data, behavioral data, and anonymous big data into a single, holistic data set and view of the consumer.
Melanie has led the industry and helped the firms she supports advance the practice of digital data collection through the development of river, router, mobile, digital, cookie, and social technologies. She is also leading her clients and firm in the next wave of big data, integrated data, metering, and unstructured data, as well as working with evolving device types on mobile and wearable devices. Melanie has always pushed the envelope, forcing us to evolve and embrace faster than we would otherwise. Melanie is known for telling people, Innovate or Evaporate! She is truly a great technology visionary.
Recently Published: • • • •
Multimodal, Global Scale Usage (Esomar Best Methodological Paper, 2013) Lessons in Data Integration from Underwater Basket Weaving (2013) Mobile Ten Commandments (2013) Respondent Validation: So Many Choices White Paper, (2011)
LOCATION Plano, TX
CONTACT 214.365.5148
Recent Awards: • •
TL
ARF FoQ Machine and Respondent Verification Initiative Leader (2013-2014) ARF Great Minds Award, (2011)
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT RESEARCH NOW www.ResearchNow.com
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What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? “I think that online and mobile co-creation is going to really elevate the role of insights in driving new innovation. It will allow brands to get broader perspective and even deeper insight while empowering the consumer to do more than provide feedback, but to actually provide input.”
Sean Holbert Executive Vice President, Client Relations KL COMMUNICATIONS, INC.
Innov at ion t hroug h insig hts TECHNOLOGY LEADER Sean has played an integral role in developing and designing CrowdWeaving, an online co-creation tool which will change the way Market Researchers co-create and collaborate with clients and consumers. In early 2014, KL Communications is going to release its new community platform, which will combine CrowdWeaving and Online Communities in a way that has never been achieved before.
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>
CROWDWEAVING IDEATION SESSIONS are a dynamic, collaborative process, engaging consumers, marketers, researchers, and all internal stakeholders. During these sessions, consumers provide creative ideas and solutions to a challenge or problem. Ideation Sessions begin by issuing a challenge; then participants create solutions through a multi-step process: Independent Idea Generation Collaboration Idea Evolution Ranking and Passion Measurement
> PASSION
Through this creative process, we gain deeper insight into consumers’ key needs and drivers of behavior. Our Curators use unique tools to filter, synthesize, and analyze ideas to uncover key opportunities for innovation.
Our unique Passion Index allows us to prioritize the ideas and determine the best opportunities for innovation. This index goes beyond an idea’s popularity and finds those that have passionate support from a small, niche group. The spark of disruptive innovation often lies not in broad appeal, but in ardent support.
KL COMMUNICATIONS, INC. Live Coding Real-time Analytics and Segmentation Achievement Bonuses and Gamification for Stronger Engagement
411 Camino del Rio South, Suite 103 San Diego, CA 92108 50 English Plaza Suit 6B, Red Bank, NJ 07701 sholbert@klcommunications.com
A B OU T SEAN HOLBERT TECHNOLOGY LEADER Sean saw the high level potential for customer co-creation back in the mid 90’s when he shifted his research career online. When “You’ve Got Mail” first launched, Sean saw the opportunity to go full-bore with online market research. He knew that using technology to bring brands and consumers closer together would be powerful.
CrowdWeaving Sean has played an important part in developing and creating this platform, which will also have a mobile component, taking it to the next level.
LOCATION Red Bank, NJ
CONTACT 732.224.9991
KL Communications is a collaborative research agency that specializes in co-creation via communities and CrowdWeaving™. We connect brands and consumers by empowering them to create together using our suite of collaborative tools. KL Communications is set to release a new community platform, this winter, in which Sean has played an important role in developing and creating. The platform will combine CrowdWeaving™, Online Communities and a Native Mobile App in a way that is currently unmatched by competitors.
With Sean’s leadership at KL Communications, the company started with email surveys which quickly evolved into online surveys, panels, MROC’s and customer co-creation.
TL
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT KL COMMUNICATIONS www.KLCommunications.com
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SRINATH SANKAR Solution Architect MARKETING SYSTEMS GROUP
What is your approach to technology innovation? “Innovation always happens with necessity at its core. If you keep customers’ needs as the goal and try out ideas without being afraid to fail that provides a perfect recipe for innovative products.”
TECHNOLOGY FUTURE LEADER Srinath Sankar is innovating technology solutions for the Qualitative Research industry. For the past 10 years, he has leveraged his hands-on design and engineering training with a focus on customer management and engagement.
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I have always felt that the closest thing to a technology that can turn back time is a photograph that can make you relive some of those moments.
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Srinath had a clear vision for the product’s latent potential to merge the management and recruitment of panelists with questionnaire building and data analysis tools – all on one platform. Flexibility has always been a quality he has insisted be built-in to ARCS. It supports multimode management options via telephone, IVR, Web, call centers, mobile phones, and tablets. The results speak for themselves. The client base has tripled. The product has an international scope, serving six countries currently (nine more
in the works). Srinath also expanded the global support team. He was design lead for a dramatic product interface makeover, and he continues his ongoing dedication to quality of service and streamlined product efficiencies. In the near future Srinath will oversee the roll out of innovative solutions helping customers in the areas of , social media analytics, Mobile engagement application and enhanced business data visualization tools.
> ARCS RESEARCH PLATFORM
Srinath has been working with ARCS intensively since 2004. He took what was a limited application built on ACCESS with an SQL back end and moved it to a full-fledged, unparalleled Qualitative Research Platform.Under Srinath’s watch, ARCS has built a reputation for strong survey capabilities and robust panel/ data management and Customer Engagement.
MARKETING SYSTEMS GROUP 755 Business Center Dr. Suite 200, Horsham PA 19044
www.m-s-g.com/web/Srinath-Sankar.aspx ssankar@m-s-g.com
AB OU T SRI NATH SA N KA R TECHNOLOGY FUTURE LEADER With an MBA in Data Mining and BS in Computer Technology, Srinath has focused on the big picture, seeing opportunities where business and technology can merge to improve engagement with panelists, customers, and clients. His background in research call centers plus his time as a software developer exposed him to the need for flexible, multimode, customer-focused solutions.
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? LOCATION Horsham, PA
CONTACT 215.653.7100
What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? “In my opinion the next “Game Changer” is not going to be a new technology , but more how some of the existing technology converge to provide better coverage to the reality of the market.”
“I have always viewed them in unity. Technology performance is not just about how quickly bits can be crunched but it is about how quickly users can provide input and get the output they are looking for. This leads to keeping design and user experience as an important part of the solution.” ~SRINAT H SANKAR
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ANDREW REID Founder, President & Chief Product Officer VISION CRITICAL
What is your approach to technology innovation? “Surround yourself with as many technology leaders as possible with an aim to learn about how it’s impacting industries far removed from market research. Be curious, ask questions and have a vision for the future.”
“E x plore. Embrace. Iterate.” TECHNOLOGY LEADER In 2000, Andrew Reid created Vision Critical to disrupt market research. By leveraging the power of technology, Andrew transformed the industry by bringing online insight communities to traditional market research and as a result, has empowered businesses and organizations to engage with thousands of consumers for feedback on new products, services, advertising, promotions and much more. Thanks to Andrew’s vision and the efficiency of software, companies are now able to quickly make informed decisions that benefit both the business and its customers.
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Shepherding Technology Since creating Vision Critical, Andrew has shepherded the technology powering Vision Critical Insight Communities. For more than a decade, Andrew has been behind product innovation and development, consistently pushing the business to embrace game-changing technologies that deliver the best experience possible for all those involved in the market research process, including marketers and business executives, as well as community participants and customers. An out-of-the box thinker, Andrew pioneered a number of tactics and solutions. In Vision Critical’s early days, Andrew brought visual elements to surveying in order to make the research process more dynamic and results more accurate. Later, he established technologies that would capture longitudinal data, so that brands wouldn’t have to ask customers the same questions.
to become one of the top marketing technology companies across Canada and North America. Since its founding, Andrew has been front and center at Vision Critical helping grow the business from $1 to over $80M. Today, Vision Critical has 16 global offices and more than 650 employees across the globe. For his work, Andrew has been selected as a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® award twice and has been further honored as one of Canada’s top 40 under 40 by Caldwell Partners International and The Globe and Mail. Vision Critical has also gained recognition as a great company to work for and has won British Columbia’s Top Employer award several times.
In just 12 years, Vision Critical has quickly grown across Canada, the United States, Australia, Europe and Asia. What began as a start-up in Vancouver’s emerging and quickly growing tech scene has now grown
VISION CRITCAL
200 Granville St, Vancouver, BC V6C 1S4, Canada andrew.reid@visioncritical.com @reidandrew
AB OU T ANDR EW REID >
TECHNOLOGY LEADER Andrew was a Vancouver Film School student and in 2011, he completed the Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business Executive Program. He is an active member of the BC chapter of the Young Presidents Organization, the Variety Children’s Charity Strategic Advisory Council and a club member of the New Media B.C. Organization. He also sits on the Board of Directors for the B.C. Technology Industry Association and CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organizations).
Awards
For his work, Andrew has been selected as a finalist in the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year® award twice and has been further honored as one of Canada’s top 40 under 40 by Caldwell Partners International and The Globe and Mail. Vision Critical has also gained recognition as a great company to work for and has won British Columbia’s Top Employer award several times. LOCATION Vancouver, BC
CONTACT 604.647.1980
What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? “We need to stop treating people like lab rats. It’s our job to make research more intrinsic. We know a lot about people through their social and behavioral data, so we should be asking intelligent, relevant questions. We should also be sharing insight with the participant—it’s key to the future. We’re working on some interesting things in this area and excited for what’s to come.”
How do you define “Leadership”? “The best leaders I know inspire and make an impact when they aren’t present. They create an infectious enthusiasm that makes the people around them strive to push their boundaries and unlock new levels of achievement.”
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Jeff Miller President, CEO BURKE, INC. What is your approach to technology innovation? “Technology should be viewed as first and foremost a means to an end. If innovation is not driven by need, technology is in danger of becoming the tail that wags the dog.”
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? “Design itself must be intimately tied to performance, with form always following function. Research integrity suffers when technology is deployed simply because something new is possible.”
TECHNOLOGY LEADER Mr. Miller has held many titles during his 26 years at Burke, ranging from Research Analyst to Senior VP of Technology and now the President and CEO. Technology has always been a passion of his, and Burke has stood out as a thought leader in technology as a direct result of this.
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As smart mobile devices play an increasingly important role in consumer research, a major challenge for our industry is learning how we can continue to collect a high volume of thoughtful, meaningful information from those respondents who choose to participate in research via these devices.
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INNOVATION When the research industry began to shift away from telephone data collection and toward online panel samples, Mr. Miller was the first in the industry to question the move from a best-practices standpoint. Subsequent R&D conducted under Mr. Miller’s guidance revealed a staggering amount of data quality issues associated with online panels. Burke was the first company in the industry to implement a complex questioning sequence and algorithm, based on the R&D, that allowed researchers to identify and remove respondents who were not truly within the sample frame, who were not paying adequate attention to the task or who were giving random answers to complete quickly and receive the incentive. The industry quickly followed suit with nearly every firm developing some sort of approach to mirror that developed by Mr. Miller. Never one to sit still, Mr. Miller then set about conducting R&D to understand how “problem
A B OU T JEF F MILLER
The research world is once again seeing another change on the horizon as the preponderance of smart mobile technology devices has grown. Some firms have rushed to tout “mobile-enabled” surveys as cutting edge innovation. Ever the researcher, Mr. Miller has already completed one R&D project on the effects of intentional versus unintentional data collection on mobile devices. This research has allowed Burke researchers to anticipate and avoid potential pitfalls, and to develop surveys that allow for multi-mode data collection with KNOWN effects on data results. Further R&D is in development to continually stay in front of technology trends and to measure (and correct for) the impact these trends may have on primary research data. jeff.miller@burke.com @BurkeInstitute
Giving Back His Learnings
TECHNOLOGY LEADER Being first and foremost an organization of research professionals, Burke has always sought to raise the quality of marketing research for the entire industry. Consequently, the R&D discussed in this document has been shared with our clients and at many industry conferences.
Learnings from this research have also been incorporated into the public seminars available through Burke Institute, the teaching division of Burke, Inc. This division’s mission is to educate the industry, which includes Burke competitors as well as Burke clients.
Technology Innovation and R&D
Jeff Miller’s interest in technology and desire to harness it through carefully conducted, innovative R&D has benefitted the entire research community and industry.
LOCATION Cincinnati, OH
respondents” could be gently directed to refocus on the task and give it the attention needed to provide high quality data. This, too, was an industry first.
CONTACT 513.684.7658
Standing Tall
Burke is proud to hold this leadership position, and continues to blaze trails that demonstrate the way to intelligently innovate without losing sight of the need for rigorously controlled statistical applications.
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TERRY LAWLOR Executive vice President Product Management CONFIRMIT
TECHNOLOGY LEADER Since his move to Confirmit a year ago, Lawlor has been instrumental in defining the technological and innovation path for Confirmit, and has overseen several product releases, including new mobile capabilities and enhancements to Confirmitâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Voice of the Customer solution, as well as many successful client implementations. He has spearheaded a new level of customer intimacy to ensure that new developments meet rapidly evolving market and customer needs.
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> Social Intelligence & Text Analytics Through this new level of insight, Lawlor determined that there was an opportunity for improving the way in which organizations sense and respond to these needs. Lawlor has been central to Confirmit’s acquisition of social intelligence and text analytics leader, Integrasco. The acquisition brings advanced technologies for capturing social insights and analyzing unstructured text into the Confirmit portfolio of software offerings for Market Research, Customer Experience and Employee Engagement. Integrasco has helped many blue-chip companies track the performance of their brands, products and services, across social media, traditional media and customer channels to extract significant commercial value from mining unstructured text and insights. Lawlor’s involvement was critical to ensuring that not only was the acquisition a good fit in terms of meeting customer demand, but that the two technologies could be integrated effectively and seamlessly. This is key to ensuring that the resulting solutions will not lead to silos of data residing in multiple disparate systems.
delivering a significant part of the enhanced solution within 6 months of the acquisition announcement. Lawlor is also responsible for the upcoming launch of the latest version of Confirmit Horizons, Version 18, a highly anticipated release that is generating huge levels of excitement in the industry. Many of the innovations that will be featured have come about as a direct result of conversations that Lawlor has had with customers, industry analysts and industry professionals, and which are now helping to drive the development roadmap for the platform. Finally, Lawlor has worked closely with the R&D organization to evolve the agile methodologies employed at Confirmit for building and releasing new products. Beyond Version 18, Confirmit will now be releasing new capabilities onto the SaaS platform through state-of-the-art continuous deployment processes. This ensures Confirmit can be more agile in how it senses and responds to customer and market needs.
Lawlor is now leading the Integrasco product integration into Confirmit’s core platform, Confirmit Horizons. This will ensure that Confirmit’s customers will be able to derive value not only from quantitative data gathered through direct surveys, but from unstructured text from a huge range of sources. The integration of two such advanced technology solutions is highly complex, but Lawlor’s team will be
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CONFIRMIT Blue Fin Building 110 Southwark Street London, SE1 0SU, United Kingdom terry.lawlor@confirmit.com @terrylawlor
A B OUT T ERRY L AWLOR TECHNOLOGY LEADER Terry Lawlor joined Confirmit as Executive Vice President for Product Management in April 2013. In his role, Lawlor manages all aspects of product management, including strategy development, product definition, and product representation in client and marketing activities.
Lawlor is a seasoned and highly professional enterprise software executive who possesses a wealth of expertise in the customer experience market and is highly skilled at driving growth in global software companies. He’s passionate about delivering a great customer experience in all languages, across all channels and is always looking for new ways to solve complex business issues in innovative ways.
Previous Experience Lawlor’s previous roles include, Marketing and Business Development for mobile specialist The App Garden Ltd; eight years working for customer experience leader SDL plc (www.sdl.com) as SVP Strategic Accounts, SVP Operations, VP Product Management, and VP Worldwide Marketing; Director at Tenia Business Services Ltd; Marketing Director at SupportSoft; and Marketing Director at Informix Software.
LOCATION London, UK
CONTACT +44 (0) 20 3053 9333
A DRIVING FORCE Throughout his career he has been a driving force at fast-growing, innovative technology companies, such as SDL, where he delivered new innovations in translation technologies, through both internal developments and acquisitions.
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JULIA CLARK Vice President IPSOS PUBLIC AFFAIRS
What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? Integrating ‘Big Data’ and ‘Big Research’ – we are no longer limited by small sample sizes and niche target audiences. Advancing online research technology, and the integration of Big Data coming out of sources like social media, mean our ability to aggregate and interpret data for our clients is moving forward by leaps and bounds.
TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Julia, together with the team at Ipsos, has worked to develop and deliver the largest online polling vehicle in the United States for client Thomson Reuters. This cutting-edge approach to political research is unique in the world of political polling, which traditionally relies on phone interviewing, IVR, and a handful of panel-only online pollsters.
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> Largest online polling vehicle in the United States Using Ipsos’ unique Blended Sampling approach, which utilizes both panel and non-panel (river-based) sample, Ipsos interviews approximately 350 individuals per day year-round, yielding a total of 11,000 per month, and approximately 10,500 per month. By embracing the newest online technologies, paired with a strong base in core research methods, this new sampling and technology approach has yielded an astounding record for accuracy: during the 2010 midterm election, the Ipsos polling team was scored as one of the most accurate by independent polling analysts. Similarly, Ipsos accurately predicted the outcome of the 2012 US elections and again tied as one of the country’s most accurate pollsters. The data Julia’s team collected before Election Day 2012 and on Election Day 2012 itself as part of Ipsos’ Election Day Exit Poll exceeded 163,000 interviews in total. The polling world, as both the polling and election techniques of the 2012 results showed us, is moving rapidly towards the world of Big Data, and Ipsos is leading this charge.
survey; they undertake continual reviews of sample quality and source; they apply appropriate weighting at various levels as part of the automated process; and Reuters receive a full SPSS file daily which is uploaded to their interactive polling analysis tool Polling Explorer. This tool enables the public to have full and unfettered access to the data on a continual basis, to search for topics and questions by keyword, and to filter the data on almost any socio-demographic or political variable imaginable.
The Blended Sampling approach utilizes Ipsos’ Ampario and Cortex technology to build a survey platform for political polling. Julia and her team have developed a seamless project management system wherein survey questions change daily and respond immediately to current or emergent news events; they carefully control the balance of panel and non-panel sample to ensure consistency and accuracy of the
IPSOS PUBLIC AFFAIRS 222 S. Riverside Plaza, Chicago, IL 60606 2020 K St. NW, Suite 410, Washington D.C. 20006
A B OU T JU LIA C L A RK
julia.clark@ipsos.com @PollsterJulia
The Big Data Revolution
TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Julia and her team harnessed the Cortex and Ampario technology developed by Ipsos as part of our ongoing efforts to lead the market when it comes to data capture techniques. These technologies, paired with the polling platform Julia and her team built, have resulted in a truly innovative approach to political polling in the United States.
This innovation came about by pairing Ipsos’ newest technologies with tried-and-tested political polling techniques; Julia’s ability to bring these more traditional techniques into a new technological sphere allowed Ipsos to capitalize on the benefits of a huge volume of interviews and data. This type of innovative thinking – the pairing of new and old – is at the crux of the Big Data revolution, and Julia’s success is rooted in capitalizing on the Big Data Capture possibilities afforded by social media and the internet, but grounding them in established research techniques.
What is your approach to technology innovation?
How do you define “Leadership”?
Our approach to technology innovation is deeply collaborative. To succeed, we seek to bring together the best possible mix of complementary skills and creative ideas, and work through options until we hit the ‘sweet spot’; testing, re-testing, and learning from our hypotheses are all critical to the process we employ with all our work.
Leadership is very simple at its core: above all else, it must inspire and empower. Strong leadership inspires and empowers others to innovate, challenge, improve, develop, create, advance, and grow.
LOCATION Chicago, IL Washington, DC
CONTACT 312.526.4000 202.463.7300
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JIM BRYSON Chief Executive Officer & Founder 20/20 RESEARCH What is your approach to technology innovation? “Most, not all, technology innovation must be evolutionary rather than revolutionary to coax researchers from comfortable norms to dramatic new capabilities.”
Intuit ive Prac t ic a lit y TECHNOLOGY LEADER Jim Bryson founded 20|20 Research in Nashville, Tennessee in 1986 as a focus group research company, which today has grown to include facilities in Nashville, Charlotte and Miami. But believing that technology was to become a major influencer on better market research, in 2000 he repositioned the company to focus more on providing advanced tools and new technological innovations to other researches so they could “do better research.” The firm has since become a pioneer in both traditional and online qualitative research techniques and software.
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In spending 26 years in the research industry, Jim knows exactly what researchers need to execute research projects for themselves and their clients; and he’s harnessed the power of technology and service to set industry trends.
He’s built a smart team dedicated to innovation, especially an extensive technology operation/company led by Isaac Rogers, chief innovation officer, and one of Survey Magazine’s 2013 “Researchers You Need to Know”
He has spoken at numerous national and international conferences and serves on boards of the Marketing Research Association and, three times previously, as president of the (International) Qualitative Research Consultant’s Association. He is also president of The Joseph School, a secondary leadership school he founded in Haiti in 2011 to address a post-earthquake crisis filling the leadership deficit of Haiti by giving orphaned children a world-class education. The school is slated to open in the fall of 2015
Technology products include QualBoard ®, QualMeeting™, QualLaborate™, Life Notes™, and QualLink™ with service to back up the technology.
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INNOVATION
QualTranslate™ - the first real-time, fully integrated human translation tool for online qualitative research that breaks the language barrier. QualMeeting™: Enhancements to the most widely used online webcam platform includes new polling and question types (Card sorting, likert scales and storyboards), with an enhanced audio system and a real-time transcription tool. Virtual Intercepts™ - Just-in-time online recruiting tool, intercepting respondents from social media and other online platforms. Mobile Ethnographies ™- Using smart phone technology to take real-time research into the respondent’s home, while the researcher remains in office.
20/20 RESEARCH 2000 Glen Echo Road, 2nd Floor Nashville, TN 37215 | USA jimb@2020research.com @JimBrysonTN
A B OU T JI M BRYSON TECHNOLOGY LEADER Since 2001, the company’s signature bulletin board research system QualBoard® -has become one of the most widely used and innovative online qualitative research platforms in the world. Its available in over 20 languages, has been used in more than 90 countries and has been greatly expanded with new capabilities and technologies.
Online Training Programs
As a leader in online qual, we have trained -- and will continue to train more researchers in online qualitative than any other organization through our free online webinars, one-on-one trainings and demos.
LOCATION Nashville, TN
CONTACT 800.737.2020 615.732.7757
Because of 20|20’s focus on innovation, the company’s reputation is stellar. Its facilities have been “top rated” by the industry’s Impulse Survey and the firm is the preferred global online research provider for hundreds of international research firms, including Kantar, the number one custom research firm in the world.
Jim is th Founder of The Joseph School, a secondary school for orphaned children in Haiti www.thejosephschool.org
24/7 Customer Support
A critical differentiator for 20|20 – we have made ourselves available for our clients around the world, at any given hour, to ensure that they are producing the very best research possible.
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TECHNOLOGY
AL NEVAREZ Vice President, Data Science ALLEGIANCE. INC.
How do you define “Leadership”? “To me, technology innovation leadership is all about efficiently linking business goals with customer needs. It’s about seeing the possibilities and being able to lead & grow a team that makes the magic come to life.” What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? We live in exciting times, where modern open source big data & predictive analytics technology will fundamentally tranform how we evaluate, measure and act on consumer behavior & sentiment. Businesses who seamlessly integrate domain knowledge, data, science, and technology will find new advantages for themselves and their customers. Wearable computing is in its nacent stages now, but the technology will inevitably get better, smaller, cheaper and their data & results will become an integral part of great customer experience design. These hands-free eye tracking glasses are used to help better understand consumer behavior and sentiment insituations like an un-boxing or retail store shopping.
TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Al Nevarez is the Vice President of Data Science at Allegiance, Inc., a company that offers Voice of Customer technology and services. Nevarez, who was previously Vice President of Product Management at Allegiance, focuses his team on the next generation of intelligent data products designed to quickly uncover actionable insights in customer data.
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Y ACHIEVEER will provide the maximum lift in traditional survey metrics as well as business outcomes. When customer datasets are combined from surveys and other systems like CRM, POS, or ERP, Spotlight reveals the business story behind customer feedback and guides real business decisions that increase revenue, decrease costs, and increase retention.
Nevarez’s passion for innovation is clear in the VOC platform product he and his teams have designed. He has a healthy disregard for what’s ‘not possible’ and continuously pushes the boundary on web and analytics technology. He is also a lifelong learner, and he absorbs lessons learned from other industries on how they take advantage of modern analytics to create real value. He then brings that knowledge to the world of survey research.
Spotlight’s speed is unprecedented, made possible by a patent pending software process that intelligently preclassifies raw data to make pattern discovery extremely efficient. The invention, which blends analytics and computer science with learnings from its use in global VOC programs, is serving as a basis for the next generation of innovative data products.
Nevarez is the inventor of Allegiance’s award winning and patent pending Spotlight data mining product, an advanced analytics tool with unprecedented ease of use and broad application in survey research. Allegiance Spotlight is the first and only data mining product built for business users who need to get high-value insights from large customer data sets quickly and easily, without the time and cost of an advanced analyst team or expensive analytics tools. While data mining is not new, Spotlight is the first online or cloud based, fully-integrated, self-serve data mining tool designed for survey analysts and business users. Its visual and plain English results have raised the bar for the industry in regard to usable advanced analytics.
Based in the world’s TECHNOLOGY hub.
Nevarez’s technical and innovation leadership lead to Allegiance Spotlight’s ability to efficiently analyze every possible pattern in a dataset and illuminate areas that
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A B OUT AL NEVAREZ TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Nevarez has lead product vision and design on modern survey analytics tools for the past 10 years. In his tenure with Medallia and Allegiance, he has lead product teams that created the enterprise class Voice of Customer platforms used by some of the most admired companies in the world, including Apple, Nike, Fidelity, Four Seasons, VMWare, SAP, Merck, Ameriprise, Target, Abbot, Nissan, and Activision. In all, hundreds of companies and millions of their customers use the modern survey and analytics tools created under Nevarez’s leadership.
10235 South Jordan Gateway, #500, South Jordan, UT 84095 al.nevarez@allegiance.com
Technical Leadership
Through his technical leadership and team building, Nevarez has a unique ability to combine traditional statistical techniques, modern machine learning techniques, software, data visualizations, and user experience design in a way that allows many to benefit from the insights derived. He is passionate about democratizing not only the data, but also the insights. Many businesses are now capitalizing on data, machine learning algorithms, and computing power to drive real value, user engagement, and profit. Nevarez applies these approaches to Voice of Customer data. Under Nevarez’s direction, the new data science team at Allegiance invents tools with the intelligent characteristics of a Google search or an Amazon recommendation, yet with the simplicity of an iPhone app.
Work Experience
The Allegiance Team
The team focuses on creating products that automatically explore blended survey and operations data to discover useful insights that drive great customer experience, operational efficiency, and financial strength in clients’ offerings.
LOCATION South Jordon, UT
ALLEGIANCE. INC.
CONTACT (385) 695-2800
Nevarez started his career at Ford Motor Company, where he worked in the US and Japan in engineering and marketing on several of the most technically advanced vehicles of their time. Nevarez studied mechanical engineering and computer science and received a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University.
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THERESA WELBOURNE Ph.D. President & CEO EEPULSE WINNER: Academy of Management Human Resource Division 2012 Distinguished HR Executive Award
TECHNOLOGY LEADER Theresa Welbourne, Ph.D. is a visionary for what technology can do in creating better leaders. After conducting extensive research, she brought technology experts together to move the ideas forward and turn this data into a valuable service. Now, anyone can easily see data about their particular work environment and business, find issues before they become major problems and make changes to increase sales and productivity.
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What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology?
Theresa Welbourne, Ph.D. and her experts at eePulse, Inc. have been using technology to radically change a process that has seen very little innovation. They don’t think going from paper to the web is real innovation - It’s automation. eePulse has used technology to: Rethink what surveys can do for leaders and transform them into leadership tools. Provide predictive, leading metrics on people that can be collected, trended and FED BACK as frequently as weekly. This technology allows for even more frequent data collection, but best practice has shown it is not necessary. Improve performance management by providing managers and employees with data used to drive ongoing, frequent conversations for continuous improvement.
I like technology that helps me do something differently - I mean at the core the process is used for creates big improvements. I’m not looking to do the same thing I always did but now on the web. Slamming bad, slow and old process on a web site is not interesting technology. It’s higher impact when you fix things - you change for big improvement and you break the traditional rules of how everyone else “does it.” Technology should make us better at what we are doing.
www.whatsmyenergy.com
Allows the utilization of new metrics, such as work energy and optimal energy. Both are needed because energy is an optimization metric. The gap between the two numbers can be trended and recovery times minimized. Make employees part of the continuous improvement process by giving them personal feedback reports, learning journal and best practices from action taking on-line tools.
EEPULSE, INC. 1705 Woodland Drive East, Suite 101 Saline, MI 48176-1614
A B OUT T HERESA WELB OURN E, Ph . D. What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology?
TECHNOLOGY LEADER Theresa Welbourne and her eePulse, Inc. team constantly conduct leadership research and look at how best to use the latest technology to make this data meaningful to others.
Make dashboard interesting - today I think they are not. Dashboards are really a lot of bar charts and pie charts on one page. Managers are not doing their jobs differently because of them. This area of work has a lot of potential, but it is not doing the job. If bigger data just equals bigger dashboards (we all buy bigger monitors for example), then we are in trouble.
What is your approach to technology innovation? It has to be continuous innovation, and both small and big innovations work well. We use the agile model of innovation and not just for technology -for our consulting work, new product work and more.
theresa@eepulse.com @theresawelbourn
LOCATION Saline, MI
CONTACT 877.377.8573
“The next game changer is really about merging technology with human insights to create better outcomes for businesses. I’m teaching a class called “data-driven story telling” and the big wins here are not technology - they are in teaching people how to tell stories with data. “
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ANNIE PETTIT Ph.D. Chief Research Officer PEANUT LABS
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? Design needs to be obvious. If something simple requires just a short explanation, then fix it so it needs no explanation.
Ma ke it e as i er. TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Annie has a PhD in experimental psychology and is an experienced market researcher with a passion for Research on Research. Along the way, she learned a very simple computer programming language, as well as SPSS, SAS, and SQL, skills that allowed her to carry out validation and product development research for a brand new technology. More importantly, these technical skills gave her the ability to speak intelligently with the technology developers (computer programmers) who could then turn her specifications into the fantastic technology that is Evolisten.
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Box Scores: Like traditional surveys, Annie designed the system to incorporate box scores based on 5 point scales. Unlike most sentiment analysis systems which were and are based on either 2 or 3 point scales, she knew that 5 point scales were a minimum requirement for most market researchers. They needed a way to separate brand lovers and haters from brand likers and dislikers. And, insisting on a 5 point scale would ensure that scores could be compared to survey scores which were traditionally done with at least a 5 point scale. Norms: Market researchers live for norms. There’s no point knowing that your brand scored a 38% Top 2 Box score if you don’t know how your competitors or the category scored. Annie designed the system to inherently and simultaneously share category scores for any brand being researched. Sampling: Annie realized from the very beginning that Twitter (or Facebook) was not the entire story. From day 1, she designed the Evolisten platform to be able to sample websites just as the survey methodology samples people. Users of the technology could choose which combination of websites best suited their research objective instead of simply using “whatever comes up.” If the research project intended to generalized back to Twitter and Facebook, then just those two websites could be included in the data collection. But, if the intent was to generalize back to the entire internet, then thousands of websites could be included.
And this, of course, was done using a sampling matrix just as any survey project would. Weighting: Just as survey researchers would never allow a census rep survey to be comprised of 80% women, social listening researchers can never allow an internet rep study to be comprised of 80% tweets. From the very beginning, Annie recognized that Twitter, representing only 6% to 10% of internet users was absolutely not a generalizable datasource. As such, she designed the Evolisten system to be able to weight datasources depending on a client’s research objective. This unique concept in the listening world meant that data sets that were 80% tweets could be weighted such that tweets were only 5% or 10% of any measures. Market Research Variables: Where would market researchers be without variables? Annie built a system that allowed researchers to measure 7000 unique characteristics from a multitude of categories. From traditional variables like Purchasing, Recommending, New, and Different to variables in Finance, Athletics, Education, Food, Beverage, Health, Beauty, Safety, Education, Business, Government and more, Evolisten automatically coded every verbatim into relevant variables, just as surveys do. It was suddenly possible to compare what people were saying about specific topics in social media with how they answered the same question in surveys. And, researchers didn’t have to waste their time manually creating 5 or 10 variables for every study. Every researcher
needs a certain subset of variables – those variables ought to be sitting there ready for use all the time. Validation: Above all else, Annie created a system that insisted on validity. Technology can easily search for and flag strings of text. The letters N E W are easy to find. But without validity behind those letters, researchers can not be sure whether NEW means a brand new product or a reference to New York, Newton, or “I new it all along.” The same problem holds for Apple, Target, Gap, BP, and thousands of other brands, companies, and variables that hold multiple contrasting meanings depending on the context. Validity can never be perfect but it must be an essential component of market research systems and Annie made sure that was part of the technology from day 1. What did Annie do? She recognized what market researchers need and want from data. And she made it happen in a social listening technology.
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PEANUT LABS 3080 Yonge Street Suite 2000, Toronto Ontario Canada M4N 3N1 annie@peanutlabs.com @LoveStats
AB OU T ANNI E PET TIT, Ph.D. TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Annie was the key thought leader behind the development of Evolisten, a social media listening technology designed specifically for market researchers. There are hundreds, possibly thousands, of technologies that count Facebook updates, tweets, users, websites, and likes but none of them incorporate all the features that make the data instantly and intuitively available to market researchers.
As with all Monday morning quarterbacking, the key features of the system seem obvious and not worth a second look. But, innumerable discussions with competitors along the way proved that these “obvious” techniques were absolutely not obvious. Now, these competitors are slowly beginning to incorporate more of these features in their own technologies.
What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology?
Wearable devices will take us out of the realm of memory and self-description induced errors, and into daily life, real-time, fact-based data collection. Big data will become ridiculously massive data. LOCATION Toronto, Ontario CA
CONTACT 415.659.8266
What is your approach to technology innovation?
“As many others have said before me, history is full of innovations that could never be done. Make it a priority and you can do it.”
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TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PEANUT LABS www.PeanutLabs.com
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GLORIA PARK - BARTOLONE Ph.D. Senior Vice President, Global Fieldwork Operations MARITZ RESEARCH
C onsid er t he Aud ience. TECHNOLOGY LEADER Gloria is a non-traditional technology leader. Instead of relying on personal expertise, she understands how to innovate research data collection methods through a diverse team of specialists. Under her direction, Maritz Research has advanced web-based survey research by managing both technology advances and market research considerations.
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Using Web Design for Survey’s Gloria’s philosophy is that good survey design must also reflect the basics of web design and development. Rather than create a solution for each of the growing number of devices, her team uses responsive web design to allow for optimal display across a range of devices from computers to mobile phones. They design with mobile in mind understanding that the respondent makes the decision about which device he or she will use. Therefore, Maritz surveys are able to auto detect device types and the surveys are available in the format customers choose in the moment (computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone) rather than dictating the device. Essentially this entails understanding both the features and limitations of mobile devices as the base design standard and then modifying surveys for computers. This is only the beginning of the innovation. The surveys Maritz creates today extend the brand experience into the survey experience through use of graphic design, which integrates with the survey technology seamlessly. Through this marriage of technology and graphic design, they have extended a level of personalization into surveys that have featured the make, model and color
of a customer’s car or incorporated well-known brand icons in unique ways. Their surveys engage people by relying on slider scales with corresponding images that fade in and out depending on the rating. Her team also incorporated gamification into a survey. Their solution is to direct people to play a game at the end of a survey, which ties into the brand’s experience. To make the survey-taking experience fun, they play the game and get some type of “reward” that ties them back to the client’s brand. This innovation has been well-received and applauded as a significant advancement.
Try the demo at on your computer or mobile device: http://you2.us/bigkahuna
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MARITZ RESEARCH 1355 North Highway Drive, Fenton MO 63099 gloria.parkbartolone@maritz.com @GParkBartolone
AB OU T GLOR IA PARK BA RTOLON E Ph . D. TECHNOLOGY LEADER Three years ago, following a prediction that unintended Maritz mobile respondents (people who take surveys designed for personal computers on their mobile devices) would grow from single digits to over 50% by early 2014, she formed and led a crossfunctional Mobile Advisory Board consisting of Maritz people with a single focus on how to improve web-based surveys accessed on mobile devices. She is often called upon by industry organizations to develop mobile standards or speak at conferences.
What is your approach to technology innovation? Technology innovation reflects the tools people use every day. Our approach is the best tool for our client’s customers. I’ve recently experienced trying to help my father (with his cell phone) and father-in-law (with Facebook). It’s given a whole new perspective on the right tool for the right person.
LOCATION Fenton, MO
CONTACT 636.827.2817
Gloria also led the patent process for their SmartProbeTM solution, which gathers additional verbatim feedback, particularly in situations where companies have a specific topic of interest. In some cases up to 60% of people surveyed provided significantly more commentary when SmartProbe was used. Try the demo on your mobile device http://you2.us/maritz
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I define a trendsetter as the one who has the idea first and others follow. Leadership is about the person who encourages the right trend for their use. At Maritz, we have subject matter experts who are the trendsetters, and people in our leadership determine the tools we use for our internal people and our clients’ customers.
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TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MARITZ RESEARCH www.MaritzResearch.com
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E. DAVID ZOTTER Chief Technology Officer SSI
How do you define “Leadership”? “Leadership is about empowering others. . .the greatest satisfaction comes from working with talented people. When you surround yourself with good people, you can achieve anything.”
What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? “All the usual suspects. Mobile, Big Data, Quantitative Self, and LifeLogging”
Tenacit y matters . TECHNOLOGY LEADER David Zotter has 20 years of building online panel and survey platforms, starting as an intern at NFO Research back in 1994. He is an angel investor in parallel industry companies such as uTest (now Applause) which has a panel of people that do software testing instead of surveys.
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“The Willy Wonka of the Research Industry” People: People are at the heart of everything SSI does. We’ve recruited the best people from around the industry and tripled the size of our development team as we shift to become a true technology company. The entire technology team uses the same agile processes, build processes, and DevOps –a software development method that emphasizes communication and collaboration between team members – worldwide. Platform: David and his team centralized four separate legacy company platforms into a single unified global system to create one operational set of processes, everywhere. This platform has scaled to meet the needs of SSI in 86 countries by supporting a doubling of transactional volume in each of the past three years.
Router: Another notable achievement is the creation of SSI’s powerful, sophisticated research router, which manages billions of data points for millions of panelists, matching them with the precise needs of tens of thousands of projects in real time across the globe. The router is modeled after the speed, flexibility, reliability and efficiency of online advertising exchanges allowing SSI to seamlessly integrate with dozens of trusted partners worldwide to increase the size and representivity of SSI’s sample frames. In other words, SSI’s router has scale on both the supply-side and the demand-side, allowing the most efficient just-in-time routing of respondents anywhere.
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Mobile: David led the extension of SSI’s platform through the launch of SSI’s new QuickThoughts iOS and Android apps in 17 countries, delivering hundreds of thousands of client interviews. QuickThoughts was the first survey app to integrate iTunes as a reward type, allowing panel members to purchase music, movies, books, and apps on the same device as they take surveys.
6 Research Drive, Shelton, CT 06484
david.zotter@surveysampling.com @SSITweets
A B OUT E. DAVID ZOT TER Utilizing existing and future sensors in mobile devices.
TECHNOLOGY LEADER David and his team at SSI Labs have built the next generation technologies that are driving research innovation with both sophistication and scale. He continuously invents new capabilities that help SSI’s clients to make sense of the past, measure the present, and predict the future via access to reliable data.
Example: Media measurement (audio fingerprinting) + Geolocation + Surveys. Give me a sample of all the people exposed to the advertisement and visited the restaurant within the past 90 days. Did the McDonald’s television or radio advertisement influence your decision to visit the restaurant? Why? Using a combination of various technologies is more powerful than each by itself. We’re also doing a lot of R&D with iBeacon – currently devices are littered around the office. QuickThoughts serves as SSI’s mobile platform: https://vimeo.com/88269431
What is your approach to technology innovation? At SSI, we feed off each others’ ideas and that’s how we innovate. Immersing yourself with creative people can bring unexpected results.
LOCATION Shelton, CT
CONTACT 203.567.7200
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David Zotter is the Willy Wonka of the Research Industry
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- Marshall Harrison, CEO of Imperium
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What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? “The big game changer will be the day where there will be no consumer research like we know it today. It will be replaced by data that is passively collected through digital technology where it is used to understand consumer behaviour without the need to ask a question.”
HENRY CHEANG Chief Executive Officer POTENTIATE
What is your approach to technology innovation? “Developing technology that will change or transform the way we do things.”
TECHNOLOGY FUTURE LEADER Henry is an Australian entrepreneur who has started, operated and sold over 20 companies, including an online research firm and Australia’s largest call center business. He has, in recent years, focused on developing next generation technology to drive new approaches to research operational efficiency and value including the handling of big data systems & services, building data analysis platforms, and digital fingerprinting.
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> Expert Connections Everything Potentiate achieves is because of the vision, culture and passion of our people. With our 20+ year history of working with data our foundation is solid. From this base we have added people from a range of backgrounds and expertise to create a culture where innovation thrives, challenge is encouraged and everyone knows that they can make a difference. Using an array of global experience, clever thinking and amazing proprietary technology, Potentiate sets about to change things for our clients. We challenge traditional practices and apply our energy and experience to help our clients achieve their goals for a better understanding of their customers, business growth and greater efficiency. New technology sits at our core and our team of creative problem solvers just won’t accept that solutions can’t be found for any of the issues raised by our clients. We are inspired by our clients’ success and enjoy contributing to it.
The Potentiate business model incorporates access to a range of independent individuals and groups who bring expertise which adds to and complements Potentiate services and products. These experts bring global experience across many categories and brands and their services can be incorporated into Potentiate services.
Customer Experience Management Today, news, good or bad, travels faster and wider than ever before. Thanks to social media, a poor experience can be instantly shared with millions just moments after it occurs. This, coupled with so much product choice and virtual ubiquity in products, makes Customer Experience vital in this age of the customer. Potentiate’s Customer Experience Management (CEM) service enables brands and businesses to connect with customers daily, and to determine opportunities to drive change and achieve real growth through the transparency of real time feedback.
A B OUT H ENRY CHEANG TECHNOLOGY FUTURE LEADER His vision is to keep Potentiate development ahead of traditional approaches to research, measurement and customer communications.
Sydney-headquartered Potentiate, which Henry founded a few years ago, is a data intelligence firm that offers technology-driven solutions such as live customer experience management (CEM) programs, big data integration and visualization solutions.
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology?
POTENTIATE 347 Pacific Highway, Artarmon, NSW 2064 Australia henry.cheang@potentiateglobal.com
“Simplicity is the key to everything we do, and it is the embedded in the philosophy of the technology we produce.”
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I am a serial entrepreneur who have started, run and sold over 20+ businesses. LOCATION
Artarmon, Australia
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CONTACT +61.040.5680.544
Software Design
“A lot of organizations have to change the way they do things to suit the software, but our philosophy is the other way around,” Henry says.
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TO LEARN MORE ABOUT POTENTIATE www.Pontentiate.com
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What is your approach to technology innovation?
Carol Haney Senior Vice President, Product Marketing TOLUNA
Technology is a means to an end. The goal is always to provide the best predictive information to clients so clients can make wellinformed decisions. The technological innovations quickly change – if we focus on the goal of providing new, meaningful information about people while respecting their privacy, we will almost always make good technology decisions. Right now, we have two challenges with technology. The first challenge is the ability to take a technology technique that works well qualitatively and adapt it so it works at a quantitative scale. The second challenge is to quickly sift, knit together, and find the right information from the big data that is produced when we take a quantitative approach.
How do you define
“Trendsetter”?
My goal is not to set trends or be an early adopter : sometimes, the best approach is using a research technique that’s been around for fifty years. I look to technology when the technological solution will meet a client’s research need. This means that sometimes it makes sense to adapt new technologies developed outside of the market research space for research purposes.
TECHNOLOGY LEADER Carol Haney is expert at exploring the data that results from social media scraping, and knitting that with quantitative survey data for a more complete and innovative look at the topics we’ve been exploring in market research for years. She’s also mastered the method of using social media data through mobile devices to get closer to the “moment of truth” and identify what goes into a consumer’s purchasing decisions.
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> INNOVATION Carol is constantly working to improve the way we collect and analyze data, through multi-modal research methodologies, advanced mobile research using geo-fencing and other features, as well as highly-sophisticated analysis tools to ensure our clients are getting the insight they need in innovated, complete, and accurate ways. Toluna is one of the world’s leading online panel and survey-technology providers and provides a comprehensive proven, scalable solution that enables companies to answer questions of their target audience quickly and efficiently. Toluna pioneered a one-of-a-kind approach to recruiting and engaging members through Toluna.com, its online social voting community. Recently the company launched SmartSelect™, a sophisticated respondent selection methodology for assuring sample representativeness and increasing response accuracy.
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology? “Much of the time, technology innovation means to make the software work correctly for the task at hand. This is what I love about Toluna, we spend quite a lot of time making our technology easy to use, fast, and accurate. We think that if the client has to look in the training manual or take more than 10 minutes to set up for a specific research objective, we’ve failed. “
What do you see as the next big “Game Changer” in research technology? “Wearable technology and ambient devices. This will be a game changer in life, not just in research”.
TOLUNA 21 River Road Wilton, CT 06897 US
carol.haney@toluna.com @carolsuehaney
AB OUT CA ROL HA N EY TECHNOLOGY LEADER Toluna provides the industry’s leading survey technology suite, enabling hundreds of organizations worldwide to create online and mobile surveys, manage panels and build their own online communities.
At Toluna, Carol Haney manages product marketing while also leading the formative research for the largest anti-smoking consumer education campaign sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The formative research included message platform development through copy testing, and the campaign, released in April 2012, was declared “transcendent” as well as “among the year’s most memorable advertising and perhaps among the best-ever work in its category” by AdWeek.
At Harris, Carol Haney managed social media research and technologies, company-wide, within our Research Lifestreaming platform. As thought leader behind Research Lifestreaming (RLS), Carol Haney led the development, implementation and execution of the platform (a year-long initiative). RLS is a method of doing data collection by linking disparate streams of data together with the unit of analysis the panelist instead of the anonymous post or transaction item.
LOCATION Wilton, Connecticut
CONTACT 802.254.2117
This approach connects what people have on their minds (quantitative data), the conversations they may be having (social media data), with the actions that they take (behavioral data). The data streams are large, unstructured and structured, and the “secret sauce” are the proprietary text analytics algorithms created to both link and structure the data so quantitative analysis is efficiently performed.
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James Egbert Human Capital Stratigist Employee Survey Program US DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES
TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER Through the leadership of the HHS Employee Viewpoint Survey (EVS) this annual survey admististered in partnership wtih the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is allowing the Department to collect annual workforce experience data to help inform a social technology strategy to help create a positive, healthy, and innovative work environment for all 92,500 HHS employees.
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ACHIEVEMENT
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What is your approach to technology innovation?
Employee Viewpoint Survey
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Using these data has helped to provide a main source of individual perceptions around workforce innovation, engagement, and satisfaction experience. While some survey approaches are just a snapshot of the past, the work being done at the Department is helping managers and employees to frame the postitive conditions needed currently and in the future. The use of an integrated action planning process that is driven from the bottom up through an enterprise action planning and employee engagement action team is helping to close the gap in employee perceptions of sound managment practices and actual programatic changes to ready the Department for future changes to the workforce.
Stay close to customer needs today, but don’t be too tied to how you might meet them tomorrow. Lean forward and try new things.
US DHHS 200 Independence Ave, SW, Washingon DC 20201
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James.Egbert@hhs.gov
A B OU T JAMES EGBERT HHS 2013 Employee Viewpoint Survey [FEVS]
TECHNOLOGY ACHIEVER
How do you define “Leadership”? “Leadership is pursuing a goal in such a way that others can and want to join in the pursuit.”
The HHS FEVS was conducted from April 30, 2013 through June 14, 2013 in accordance to the Federal requirement to complete an annual employee survey. The survey collects information and results pertaining to the Department’s human capital progress in areas such as strategic workforce alignment, leadership, knowledge management, performance management, work-life quality, and talent management.
What do you look for in terms of design or performance of technology?
“A good design calls us to interact...and when we, do we find value.” LOCATION Washington, DC
CONTACT 202.205.2491
US HHS is committed to making ongoing improvement to gain employees’ satisfaction and enhance its human capital management. The FEVS data is evaluated to determine and prioritize opportunities that the Department can implement to continually better its progress in key FEVS related areas.
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S URVEY
Company Showcase
NEWS Confirmit SODA 3.0 Pushes Market Research Operations Management to New Heights. Confirmit announced Version 3.0 of its award-winning mobile App, SODA – The Survey On Demand Application. Confirmit SODA enables enterprises and Market Research agencies to capture in-the-moment feedback from respondents, whether they are consumers or employees, providing unbeatable insights into experiences.
Version 3.0 features extensive new program and field management capabilities that can radically optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of Market Research operations. Additional enhancements include an expanded push notification system to help field researchers stay in constant contact with their home base, and real-time views of staff location based on continuous GPS tracking. This development signals a change in the mobile research arena, as the channel matures and client fieldwork and mobile agent programs grow into the tens of thousands, with consumer mobility at an all-time high. SODA 3.0 powers seamless program management and improved productivity, ultimately optimizing the speed and quality of data collection and analysis.
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Danni Findlay, Director, Marketing Sciences Limited, comments: “We have every confidence in Confirmit’s SODA mobile App and are currently using it to optimize work flow and drive efficient operations in one of our major projects. We use MobileMR to implement one of the UK’s largest Customer Experience programs with Tesco, which provides each individual Tesco store with insight into how its store performs on key measures. With 1 million interviews under our belt in the last year, we know that using MobileMR, based on Confirmit SODA, has allowed Tesco to react quickly to customers’ wants and needs.” “The key to a successful mobile research program is the ability to have a comprehensive view over a multitude of projects, and to be able to balance
effort and resources across ever-shifting priorities,” explains Terry Lawlor, Confirmit’s EVP Product Management. “With SODA 3.0, Confirmit provides managers and lead researchers with unprecedented real-time insight into their networks of agents and their devices, including how teams are progressing against targets, and with sophisticated quality checks on the work being completed.” Confirmit is the leading global software provider for Market Research, Customer Experience and Employee Engagement. Its leading-edge mobile applications power millions of surveys each year, with over 15 million survey responses gathered on the SODA platform in 2013 alone.
ON - DEMAND
What is Confirmit SODA? Confirmit SODA is the Survey On Demand Application - a mobile App that enables leading enterprises and Market Research agencies to capture in-the-moment feedback from respondents regardless of their location, providing unbeatable insights into their experiences. As well as providing an immediate channel for standard survey questions, Confirmit SODA provides a streamlined approach which enables respondents to provide rich media files, including audio, photo and video clips, regardless of whether they’re onor offline. And GPS data means that you can get a clearer picture than ever before about where your customers and respondents are, creating incredibly deep insight.
“The ability to carry out lifestyle studies in the format of a multimedia diary that also uses GPS to gather location-based data to map critical variations in geographical data has dramatically improved our ability to capture relevant and immediate ‘in- themoment’ data.” — Mizuno Toshisada Managing Partner at SurveyMy
Interviews and retail audits: Capture in-the-moment views from customers to enable deep
What can Confirmit SODA be used for? Capturing feedback on-the-go lends itself to a wide range of Market Research and Voice of the Customer activities. More than an additional data collection channel, it provides a unique way to engage with customers, opens up hardto-reach audiences and adds depth to existing programs, including:
profiling. Replace paper-based processes for significant cost and time savings.
Diaries and ethnographies: Travel with people to capture their experiences as they go about their day (auto-ethnography). Use rich media in longitudinal studies to capture insights about day-today activities of consumers to provide lifestyle data that drives effective decision- making.
Consumer panels: Enhance your panels and maximize engagement by enabling panelists to participate on the move, regardless of the device they use.
Voice of the Customer programs: Access hard-to-reach groups, and add mobile to your wider marketing mix, by enabling customers to engage with your brand via an interactive App.
Voice of the Employee programs: Provide a channel for employees to provide feedback about their training, facilities and requirements so you can retain your best people. And you can enable your front-line staff to comment directly on the customer experience to uncover new ways to improve.
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How Does it Work? Creating research and feedback programs in Confirmit SODA is simple. Your survey authors simply log into the Confirmit SODA solution and follow an intuitive process to create your mobile program.
Generate Tangible Business Value Confirmit SODA allows you to radically increase the value from your feedback and insight programs. For in-person interviews, it offers increased efficiency, reduction in data entry challenges and costs, and a higher control over field operations. For consumer research, it allows you to be at the point of experience with your customers to capture fleeting attitudes and opinions as they make critical decisions. For employee programs, you give staff a dedicated tool to deliver front-line insights directly to stakeholders for immediate action.
Secure, stable, reliable mobile solutions Confirmit SODA is used by businesses around the world to capture tens of millions of responses every year. We run the most stable, secure and reliable mobile research and feedback solutions available, so you know that your data is safe, and that your programs are in good hands.
Make it your own with Confirmit MyMobile Your brand is critical to your feedback and research operations. Confirmit MyMobile enables you to completely rebrand the Confirmit SODA App to include custom logos and colors to reflect your brand. We have the expertise required to develop, manage and publish your App across all of the app stores so that employees and respondents can easily gain access to your custom research app. To find out more, review our Confirmit MyMobile material, or speak to a member of our Sales team.
See it in action for yourself Contact mobile@confirmit.com to see a demo and learn more about what mobile applications can do for your business today.
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There are 6 stages: O1 Design: Simply drag and drop your custom questions
into the survey. A range of question types, branching, randomizations, range validations and more are available to ensure you capture the right feedback.
O2 Publish: Publish your survey to a central server where
an elegant interface enables you to manage all your projects, invite team members to participate in testing and deployment, download data, schedule exports and more.
O3
Deploy: Users and customers download the App from the relevant App store (iTunes, Google Play, BlackBerry World, etc.), and connect with your custom surveys by entering their username and password, or you can automatically generate a short custom survey code.
O4 Communicate and Collect: Invite respondents to
take your surveys and inform Interviewers about updates via email. Confirmit SODA also offers push notifications, text-message notices and on-device alarms and reminders for diary studies. Whatever your preference, we have it covered.
O5 Report: Keep track of whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s happening in the field with beautiful online dashboards, geo-location views and more. Youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll have the clearest view possible of what your respondents are telling you.
O6 Manage: Project Management: Confirmit SODA
helps you manage a changing world by enabling you to host test and live revisions simultaneously so that you can manage survey updates and push them to field when they are ready. In addition, Confirmit SODA offers data cleaning and robust backchecking for quality assurance. Field, Staff and Interviewer Management: Managing fieldwork requires productivity, efficiency and quality assurance. SODA offers full Quota control and Interviewer Management options, including quality review (backchecking) capabilities, background audio recording for spot checks and more.
NEWS
NEWS
MARCH 2014
Lumi announces the launch of research app
Lumi Say
SURVEY MAGAZINE: MARKET RESEARCH INDUSTRY NEWS
Top source for market research news, research topics, research methods, and the resources driving market research best practices.
MetrixLab acquires majority stake in social media analytics specialist Oxyme
Lumi, the leading specialist in real-time insight technology, is pleased to announce the launch of Lumi Say, a new self-service tool for building mobile surveys.
SXSW this March was called a haven for marketing innovation, not technology, so the New Jersey Institute of Technology shared an infographic entitled, “How technology is Shaping the Future of Marketing,” that echoes this idea.
NJIT talks “Marketing” at SXSW in Austin TX
OfficeReports integrates SurveyMonkey® with PowerPoint® Torben Laustsen
Fred Balkenende
Mobile communications, Big Data, advances in recording equipment is providing a greater impact to the way products and brands are marketed than anything else.
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UTA Brand Studio Unveils Brand Dependence™ Index on Leading Social Media Brands
uSamp Invests Heavily in Sampling Technology Advancements to Create SampleCORE™ uSamp, the technology leader in providing targeted audiences for global consumer and business insights, today announced a significant investment in its next-generation sampling business called SampleCORE™. The technology enhancements -- including the move to a fully-open Application Programming Interface (API) platform and enhanced sampling and distribution mechanisms -- will provide greater flexibility, enabling the Company to maximize efficiencies and scalability. This announcement builds on uSamp’s current API product, SampleMarket, which was introduced in 2010 and has a market-leading position both in terms of its revenue and feature capability. The evolution of the SampleCORE API suite enables streamlined internal efficiencies and an increased rate of innovation while providing a high degree of flexibility and control to application developers. The investment in infrastructure is designed to simplify the adoption and operation of this platform. “The fundamental problem with the sample industry today is that 95% of audience is acquired in a back and forth, manual process which leads to errors and more costly sample,” said Carl Trudel, chief technology officer, uSamp. “By developing SampleCORE to be agile and adaptable, we are able to harness the right audiences precisely at the moment our clients need them.” The real-time, on-demand, open sampling platform will provide clients with richer insights, including traditional profile information, as well as social, behavioral and geo-location information. All sampling capabilities, exposed through its Software as a Service (SaaS) platform, are designed to help clients maximize their efficiency, and provide better insights faster through automation of the sampling process. In addition, the company has tripled the capacity for SampleMarket API, as clients continue to embrace the move towards automation in the audience market. For more information on uSamp’s sampling solutions, visit: usamp.com 098 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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Brand strategy firm UTA Brand Studio today unveiled the second installment of Brand Dependence™, a newly launched quarterly index powered by uSamp, providing a unique and innovative measure of consumer brand strength. This edition of the Brand Dependence™ Index, focused on fifteen leading social media brands, and reveals that Facebook dominated the list as the social media brand that consumers say they can’t live without and relates more to themselves. Laurence Vincent, UTA Brand Studio founder and Chief Branding Officer, presented findings from this new Brand Dependence™ Index during a session entitled “Followers Attached” today at the 2014 SXSW conference in Austin, Texas. uSamp, the technology leader in sample and insights solutions providing automation, mobile and global solutions for marketers, is UTA’s exclusive technology partner for the index. In the index released today, Facebook ranked among other social media brands with a Brand Dependence score of 43. Brand Dependence measures how much people are dependent on, or “cannot live without,” a brand. A brand can potentially score up to 100 points. The top five brands on this wave of Brand Dependence research included Facebook (43), Instagram (42), YouTube (39), Pinterest (39) and Reddit (38). When adjusted for Impact (diluted by reported usage), the ranking shifted to Facebook (40), YouTube (34), Pinterest (20), Twitter (19), and Instagram (19).
“Facebook and Instagram scored significantly higher than the other brands we studied in this round,” said Vincent. “As for Twitter, the brand actually scored well in comparison to other consumer brands. A 33 is comparable to scores for Pepsi and for Chevrolet. However, the average respondent in our study found the brand to be less relatable, much like many of their other sources of news. Our findings are very consistent with many recent studies on the Twitter brand, including one that was released by the Pew Center for People and the Press last fall.” “As the exclusive technology partner powering UTA’s Brand Dependence Index, we provide the machinery and expertise to execute forward-thinking research models such as this one. Our goal is to provide marketers and brands with the critical insights that help inform innovation and improve business decisions,” said Justin Wheeler, vice president product innovation & business development at uSamp. “We are excited to fuel ‘brand dependence,’ enabling marketers to better understand their brand’s ever-changing impact on consumers.” “We established the Brand Dependence™ Index to clarify how US consumers relate to top brands. By evaluating the brandself connection and the degree to which their thoughts and feelings about a brand automatically come to mind, we re able to gauge how much consumers see a brand as ‘like me’ instead of just how much they like a brand,” added Vincent. In a series of peer-reviewed academic studies, Brand Dependence™ has been proven to be a better gauge of a brand’s influence and market power than many conventional metrics that rely heavily on intent to purchase, likability and attitudinal factors. Continued ....
Brands showing the most potential include: Reddit (38), Tumblr (37), Snapchat (37) and Vine (35). All of these brands scored very well on Brand Dependence™ measures, despite their relatively low rates of usage. Full results of the second installment of the Brand Dependence™ Index, which ranks 15 leading social media brands, can be found in tables which are available upon request.
BRAND DEPENDENCE™ INDEX METHODOLOGY Developed by UTA Brand Studio in an exclusive technology partnership with uSamp, Brand Dependence™ is a methodology built upon the pioneering academic research on brand attachment of Deborah MacInnis, Vice Dean and Professor at USC Marshall School of Business and C. Whan Park Professor of Marketing at USC Marshall School of Business, at the USC Marshall School of Business.
Unlike traditional ways of measuring brand strength, Brand Dependence™ is measured on the basis of the following two factors: (1) how close (far) a brand is to (from) consumers themselves, and (2) how often and naturally thoughts about a brand come to their mind. These two factors are, in turn, determined by how much consumers see a brand as being like themselves, sharing their values and belief systems, the degree to which they believe a brand is indispensable (or useless) in their lives, and how pleasing it is to their senses. People who are attached to a brand (a high “BD”
ABOUT UTA BRAND STUDIO
United Talent Agency (UTA) established UTA Brand Studio in 2012 to provide industry-leading brand consulting services for businesses. The studio helps companies launch new brands, re-establish the relevance of existing brands, and develop innovative brand experiences.
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The study reasserted the power of YouTube. The brand had strong Brand Dependence™ scores on all core drivers. It was also the brand that most respondents liked the most, and it was the brand they were most likely to recommend to a friend.
The Brand Dependence™ Index is also available as a custom offering to clients who want to score their own brands as well as interpret the core drivers behind the score.
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Women tended to score Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest much higher than men, where men tended to elevate YouTube, Snapchat and Reddit. Respondents under 25 years of age, gave Instagram the top spot, followed by Facebook and Pinterest. People age 25-44 ranked Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest as the top three. Those over age 45 ranked Facebook, Instagram and Foursquare as their top three picks.
score) are more likely to purchase and repurchase products and services than people who merely say they “like” or “prefer” a brand.
NEWS
ADDITIONAL BRAND DEPENDENCE™ INDEX FINDINGS
Founded on the principle that storytelling is the root of every great brand, UTA Brand Studio uses a proprietary approach to branding that leverages two decades of research and handson experience in the field of brand narrative and consumer behavior. This approach results in experiences that drive strong consumer attachment and measurable brand preference. For more information, please visit www. utabrandstudio.com.
ABOUT UTA
United Talent Agency is a premier global talent and literary agency representing many of the world’s most widely-known figures in every current and emerging area of entertainment, including motion pictures, television, digital media, video games, books, music, and live entertainment. The agency is also globally recognized in the areas of film finance, film packaging, corporate consulting, licensing, endorsements and the representation of production talent. UTA operates the brand strategy agency the UTA Brand Studio as well as New York and Los Angeles-based United Entertainment Group, a joint venture firm focusing on branded entertainment for Fortune 500 companies.
ABOUT uSamp
uSamp is the technology leader in sample and insights solutions providing automation, mobile and global solutions for marketers. Based in Los Angeles, with five offices in the United States, Europe and Asia, uSamp has been recognized in Inc.’s 500|5000 exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. For more information visit www.usamp.com MARCH 2014 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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MetrixLab acquires majority stake in social media analytics specialist Oxyme MetrixLab, global provider of marketing analytics and research solutions, announced that it has acquired a majority stake in Oxyme, a globally operating social media analytics company headquartered in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Oxyme is known for pioneering digital research methodology which connects social activity to business performance. Oxyme created the Digital Sentiment Index (DSI), a new marketing metric that captures the value of brands online. DSI correlates with key performance metrics like sales and market share and is implemented at an increasing number of international and Fortune 500 companies in Europe and the USA. . “I believe that marketers are looking for a next generation consumer insights provider with a strong digital DNA, data source agnostic marketing analytics skills and a global infrastructure to support them in today’s complex decision making. Oxyme shares our vision in helping clients uncover consumer insights that lead to better business decisions. Both firms share a passion for data quality and innovation. We can now provide our international clients with global social media analytics expertise” said Han de Groot, CEO of MetrixLab. This addition marks a next step towards MetrixLab’s declared goal to strengthen its capabilities in multi-channel data analytics, a seamless approach to insight development leveraging all available data channels, i.e. surveys, social media, CRM and ERP platforms. “I am excited to see two digital innovators, MetrixLab and Oxyme, join forces. The MetrixLab offering is now augmented with Oxyme services. Together we will roll out our solutions internationally, particularly the DSI 100 SURVEY MAGAZINE
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program to integrate our methods and datasources. In the past years, we developed advanced new methods to create insights that help our clients make data informed marketing decisions. We believe the next step for social analytics is to stop treating and dealing with the world of social media in isolation, but by looking at social media as part of the bigger picture. It is what our customers really need, together with Metrixlab we can service that need at scale.” adds Oxyme’s managing director Joep Arts. As a result of the acquisition, MetrixLab employs over 400 marketing analytics and research professionals and operates a network of 150 social media analysts in the US, Europe and Asia. About MetrixLab MetrixLab is a global provider of marketing analytics and research solutions. We turn data from surveys, social media and sales channels into actionable insights that help leading brands drive innovation, brand engagement and customer retention. Headquartered in Rotterdam and San Francisco with 15 offices across the US, Europe and Asia, MetrixLab collects and analyses data from millions of consumers in more than 50 countries. About Oxyme Oxyme is fanatical about creating mind-changing insights from social media data that allow companies to make profound data driven marketing decisions. Oxyme operates in 15 languages with a network of over 150 analysts located across the world.
OfficeReports integrates SurveyMonkey® with PowerPoint® OfficeReports, a data analysis and reporting overlay within the Microsoft’s standard Office suite, releases a new version which integrates directly with SurveyMonkey. OfficeReports converts PowerPoint and Word into fully functional survey analysis and reporting programs capable of reading raw data and producing all of the complex cross-tabular and statistical analysis that professional researchers typically need. Torben Laustsen, CEO of OfficeReports says: “The majority of all survey data ends up as tables and charts in PowerPoint. The new integration with SurveyMonkey makes the process from survey data to tables and charts in reports much shorter, simpler and much faster. We hope that SurveyMonkey users will welcome this new opportunity.” Fred Balkenende, co-founder and responsible for development says: “OfficeReports integrates SurveyMonkey with PowerPoint by giving direct access to survey data from within PowerPoint presentations. You can start building tables and charts in PowerPoint while the survey is running and at any time link to the survey and update all tables and charts with the latest data.” OfficeReports is provided as a simple download which adds data analysis capabilities as a new menu in both Word and PowerPoint. This includes creating new variables and cross-tabs, defining filtering, weighting and statistical testing and refining the output formats. Licenses for professional users cost the equivalent $25 - 75 (US) per month, but there is a free version available. OfficeReports outputs, which are standard XML Office documents (.DOCX and .PPTX) can be shared freely with any other Microsoft Office user. A short video introduces the solution: www.officereports.com/surveymonkey#what-is-officereports
Torben Laustsen
Fred Balkenende
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NJIT talks “Marketing” at SXSW in Austin TX Mobile communications, Big Data, advances in recording equipment is providing a greater impact to the way products and brands are marketed than anything else. The world of marketing is in a constant state of flux, always on the lookout for the newest trends and opportunities. Technology is certainly providing marketers a lot to think about these days. Old models are gradually making way for new ones and businesses are quick to act on it. Consider these statistics on mobile marketing:
The great thing about these technologies is that they provide more personalize data on usage and purchases. This allows marketers to get a clearer picture of what the people want as individuals. This depth of insight can lead to a better relationship between businesses and consumers, leading to higher profits.
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46% of companies currently have mobile versions of their websites and 30% are planning to follow suit next year 45% of companies are offering a mobile app and 31% will roll out their won within the next 12 months 32% of companies offer mobile messaging campaigns 25% use mobile ads
Social media is another game changer that businesses have learned to embrace: • • • •
66% of companies manage their own page on a social networking site 59% connect with their customers through microblogging sites like Twitter 43% host their own online communities 45% currently purchase social media ads and 23% intends to do the same next year
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The most successful companies are 3x more focused on improving customer experience In a First Tennessee bank case study, better customer targeting produced 600% ROI
Marketers will become increasingly dependent on Information Technology to create their campaigns. Close integration is necessary for successful implementation. With the right tools for data gathering and analytics, marketers may soon be able to know customers so well that they can predict what people want before they want it. To learn more about how technology is shaping the future of marketing, take a look below at the infographic below created by the New Jersey Institute of Technology’s Online Masters in Business Administration program.
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Lumi announces the launch of research app Lumi Say Lumi, the leading specialist in real-time insight technology, is pleased to announce the launch of Lumi Say, a new self-service tool for building mobile surveys. Extending the versatile Lumi SURVEY platform first launched in 2012, the updated mobile app is designed specifically, though in no way exclusively, for market research and stakeholder engagement and is deployable across iPhone, Android and Mobile Web. As a 2.0 proposition, Lumi Say brings: •
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Unique geo–fencing and geotriggering capabilities, for targeting participants based on their location Advanced event triggers and notifications - sending people surveys or tasks based on prior behavior, time or events A synchronized approach with mobile web and native (offline) app - the best of both worlds An evolved, intuitive user interface
As market leader, Lumi understands how so many people charged with gaining audience insight are struggling with the inevitability of mobile. Challenges Lumi has helped to overcome recently include: 1. A global panel company achieving higher completion rates and respondent engagement with a script-once solution for native app and mobile web 2. A leading healthcare business using mobile to dramatically transform its understanding for customer retention and compliance 3. A major beverage manufacturer determining the critical drivers of choice at point of purchase – dramatically revising prior thinking and reducing wasteful promotional expenditures 4. A soft drink distributor understanding how its advertising campaign works on a global scale – from the Himalayas to rural Brazil – using third party facial recognition technology to understand emotion via video playback
Lumi Say operates from a new dashboard with significant improvements to the user interface, making it much easier to navigate. In addition, the new respondent management process helps researchers and moderators to create and publish projects in a shorter timeframe. Launching the new app, Richard Taylor, CEO of Lumi, said: “After pioneering real-time market research on mobile devices, our platform that has developed into Lumi Say is being used in increasingly diverse ways. It does much more than enable researchers to take surveys. Now it’s about tracking purchasing and consumption behaviour with diary studies; presenting and capturing qualitative data with multimedia options; or measuring learning with scored questions for accreditation. Lumi Say captures reaction, opinion, attitude and context in the moment, taking mobile market research to yet another level.”
The Least Engaging Brands of 2014 Blackberry, Quiznos and Kmart Top the Bottom of Brand Keys Customer Loyalty Index “Where engagement is high consumers behave better toward a brand and the brand sees more sales and, along with that, should also see increased share and profits. Where engagement is low, the reverse happens,” ~ BRAND KEYS
Subscribers of SURVEY Magazine are offered $300 off a full registration to the VOC FUSION event held in Las Vegas; April 21-23. Use promotion code VIP0033.
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www.milesforthoughts.com
SSI Partners with Spirit Airlines for B2B inSSItes Strengthens SSI Sample Among Younger Professionals SSI announced this month, a partnership with Spirit Airlines, allowing members of its FREE SPIRIT™ loyalty program to join a new business research panel from SSI, the Miles for ThoughtsTM research panel. Miles for Thoughts panel members, part of SSI’s B2B inSSItesTM business sample, will earn FREE SPIRIT™ miles for sharing their opinions. “We are excited to be partnered with SSI because it offers an attractive loyalty partnership program that enables our FREE SPIRIT™ members to earn miles whenever they share their opinions,” said Bobby Schroeter, V.P. Consumer Marketing of Spirit Airlines. “Miles for Thoughts adds another unique dimension to the FREE SPIRIT program, and we look forward to enhancing our member engagement and growing the size of the Miles for Thoughts panel.” Spirit Airlines members will join members of bluechip loyalty programs in the travel, leisure and media sectors, along with profiled respondents from SSI’s own proprietary panels as part of SSI’s B2B inSSItes sample. “The new partnership is exciting for us in that it greatly increases our business sample capacity, especially among younger business professionals,” said Bob Fawson, SSI chief access, supply and engagement officer. “We are delighted Sprit has chosen SSI as the partner it wants to work with to create this new member research panel.” The Miles for Thoughts panel allows FREE SPIRIT™ members to receive surveys relevant to their lives, share their opinions to influence products and services from companies around the world, and get rewarded for their time with FREE SPIRIT™ miles.
B2B inSSItes sample offers precise targeting using questions designed by methodologists. Members include decision-makers and influencers in areas such as IT, HR and advertising; senior executives, small business owners and professionals of all types. Respondents are selectable by revenue, employee size, geography and vertical market. B2B inSSItes is the only business sample to use live telephone and LinkedIn® verification combined with proprietary SSI validation techniques to deliver quality responses. SSI is also the only company to offer B2B sample in every mode: telephone, online, mobile and postal mail. Spirit Airlines (Nasdaq: SAVE) empowers customers to save money on air travel by offering ultra-low base fares with a range of optional services for a fee, allowing customers the freedom to choose only the extras they value. This innovative approach grows the traveling market and stimulates new economic activity while creating new jobs. Spirit’s modern fleet, configuration and other innovations enable Spirit to burn less fuel per seat than competitors, making Spirit one of the most environmentally-friendly U.S. carriers. Spirit’s all-Airbus fleet currently operates more than 250 daily flights to over 50 destinations within the U.S., Latin America and Caribbean. Visit Spirit at www.spirit.com. SSI is the premier global provider of sampling, data collection and data analytic solutions for survey research, reaching respondents in 86 countries via Internet, telephone, mobile/wireless and mixedaccess offerings. SSI staff operates from 25 offices in 18 countries, offering CATI, questionnaire design consultation, programming and hosting, online custom reporting and data processing. SSI’s 3,300 employees serve more than 3,000 clients worldwide. Visit SSI at www.surveysampling.com.
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Network Research Licenses Decryptâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Beacon Market Research and Reporting Platform Company lauds ease-of-use, speed and easy integration as key reasons for selection Decrypt, the UK-based branch of comprehensive market research services firm Decipher, today announced that Network Research has licensed its Beacon market research and reporting platform. Network Research, customer experience research specialists based in the United Kingdom, will use Beacon to help fulfil its goal of increasing online work. Virginia Monk, managing director for Network Research, commented,? Having reviewed a large number of options and providers it was an easy decision to choose Beacon. Beacon provides a versatile, visually engaging online experience for our respondents, an easy-to-use platform for scripting and data access, and a futureproofed solution to give us continued operational efficiencies.? Other reasons cited by Network for choosing Beacon include the extensive range of built-in question types, the fresh look and feel, and the platform?s ability to interact seamlessly with all types of devices. In addition, Decrypt is always looking ahead, enhancing Beacon with the latest innovations and ensuring that the platform stays up-to-date with technological advancements. Monk said that the surveys the company has conducted using Beacon since licensing the platform last October have been ?successful from both an internal and external perspective.? Beacon is Decipher?s survey and reporting software suite that features an easy-to-navigate, user-friendly interface and a comprehensive suite of custom survey tools for authoring and deploying professional online and mobile surveys. It allows numerous question formats, multiple languages and branding customisation. It provides advanced features like integrated digital finger-
printing, quality control review tools, email campaign management, mobile field reporting, interactive reporting dashboards and more. Beacon is a TrueSample-certified platform, and has integrated iModerate qualitative conversation technology for both online and mobile surveys. About Network Research Specialists in customer experience research, Network Research work with clients to understand their customers to grow their business and customer value. Trusted by many major blue chip companies to change the way they do business, Network Research is a client-focused company with the in-house resources and experience of a top 10 agency but with the can-do culture, flexibility and responsiveness of a boutique agency. Network Research works hard to make their clients stronger and earn more customers. About Decrypt A marketing research services provider, Decrypt specialises in online survey programming, sampling, data collection and data reporting. Utilising proprietary Webbased applications, Decrypt integrates state-of-the-art technology with traditional research techniques. Decrypt is all about uncovering opportunities in whatever territory is explored with clients. As a true partner, Decrypt isn?t interested in just data, but also about what that data represents for each client. The company focuses on technology and research systems that bring data to life, and in doing so, helps reveal how even seemingly small discoveries can yield meaningful insights. Decrypt is the UK-based branch of Decipher, which is headquartered in Fresno, CA. http://www.decryptresearch.co.uk
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