What Insights Come From Your Toilet? Good Ones.

I am in Las Vegas this week as a judge for the OMA Awards. One would think my eyes and ears would be riveted to signs and displays. Outside the Global Shop Expo, I should be focusing my anthropological heart and mind on gambling, the spatial layout of the resort/casinos, the press of human life as in decends into unabashed hedonism. And in many ways these are indeed the places my mind has indeed gone to, but they are not the primary places. No, after half a day at the Sands and the other half at the Bellagio, my mind goes to toilets and bathrooms.

The flush toilet is recognized in the West as an icon of modernity. It is 
often the first thing that pops to mind when thinking about the bathroom, 
but the thing we discuss the least ­ it is often hidden within larger bathrooms and is the last object we want to display when we give the tour of 
the home. Even with the lack of willingness to talk about toileting, we take 
the toilet as a symbol of our civilized nature. Toilets, like basins and 
baths, are often in attractive colors or designs. We tend to believe that 
our toileting habits are the best, as are our toilets, and that they reflect 
progress, hygienic superiority and the civilizing nature of our world-view. 
But interestingly, in the 1930s only 30% of American houses had indoor flush 
toilets. In the economic boom following WWII a fully-fitted bathroom, then 
later multiple bathrooms, became standard even in modest American homes.

Sometimes aspiring families in poor countries or countries enamored with 
the image of the West will install a porcelain pedestal in their home to 
demonstrate modernity, status and progress. The toilet gives them the upper hand in terms of social capital. They may even install the toilet even if 
there is no piped water connected to make it work or a sewer system in which 
to deposit “the goods.”

Here in Las Vegas, they are symbols of opulence and leisure. Materials, colors and even sounds are orchestrated with the precision and artistry of Mozart. And it is not just Las Vegas – there is a men’s room in Hong Kong that is something of a tourist attraction because of its striking view of the city. The point is that bathrooms, toilets and plumbing are more than they perhaps seem.

In all cases, excreta must be completely disassociated from the individual generating them. They should be invisible (even unscented where possible) and above all anonymous. The system of flush toilets we use lead to communal sewers and make the separation of the individual the waste not only possible, but mandatory. Toilets provide a strange, powerful link to a 
shared identity where everyone not only poops, but that poop becomes part of 
the collective identity, both physical and metaphysical.

So why does any of this matter? It matters because we often stop looking when we seek out insights about the uncomfortable or the mundane. Ask a person about their toileting habits and the answers will be half truths. Ethnography is often thought of in terms of interviewing with a brief home tour, but toileting provides an example as to why asking people about their preferred product benefits doesn’t work. You have to expand the realm of inquiry and the means by which you collect data. If you want to understand people’s “shit” you have to visit public bathrooms, talk to the kids, etc. Similarly, if you want to understand the motivations behind buying a car, or a beer, or anything else, you have to expand the scope of inquiry to tease out those pieces of information that would normally go overlooked. In part, it’s because people don’t know what they don’t know, but it’s also because we often take our own cultural practices for granted. With something as simple as bathroom behavior, it’s easy for us to get lost in our own worldview and stop searching. Digging deeper reminds us that the mundane is often more complex than it seems. Understanding that complexity means understanding new sources of revenue, innovation and branding potential.

What Online Panel Companies can LEARN from STEVE JOBS?

In between February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011 lived a WIZARD on Planet Earth who was called by the name Steve Jobs!! I think this article would fall short of words to describe this visionary who changed the way we do business. His life was nothing short of a BOLLYWOOD pot boiler and for ages to come he has left his mark on our thought process. This article illustrates 5 business lessons which Online Panel Companies can learn from Steve Jobs.

LESSON 1: WHERE THE ‘PUCK’ IS GOING TO BE!!

Once Steve Jobs said ‘I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been’ – an amazing business lesson to anticipate future trends and work accordingly. Most of the companies LIVE in the PRESENT – which is not all wrong but if they fail to foresee what future demands they are bound for disaster.

Today online panel companies are in a mad race to recruit respondents & bombard them with survey requests – what they are failing to anticipate is the future is all about investing in technology!! Panel business in recent times has been churning out low quality data as companies are failing miserably to purge out ‘FAKE RESPONDENTS’. If the current trend continues clients would be really vary of using this methodology for conducting their research fieldwork.

What had separated online data collection from other methodology was the TECHNOLOGY – but if panel companies do not invest heavily in the technology department they are bound to FAIL!!!

LESSON 2: SURROUND YOURSELF WITH AN AWESOME TEAM!!

Steve Jobs wasn’t a great computer engineer. Apple would not have been what it is today had Steve Jobs was the only one building computers. That was the very reason why he partnered with Steve Wozniak. Through the years, Apple progressed thanks to the brilliant people Steve Jobs brought on board – like Apple CEO Tim Cook and Pixar CCO (Chief Creative Officer) John Lasseter.

Apart from few big ones, most of the panel companies do not understand this philosophy – YOU ARE WHAT YOUR TEAM IS!! Most of the panel companies are so much worried and concentrated around panel development that they completely ignore this fact. Employee training is something never heard of in panel domain!! It is not the right way to do business as an ill trained employee can mess up the best laid processes!!

LESSON 3: OBSTACLES ARE JUST A PHASE IN YOUR JOURNEY TO SUCCESS!!

Steve Jobs ran out of money while developing first Apple computer– instead of giving in, he sold his van – aptly signifying that ‘WHERE THERE IS A WILL THERE IS A WAY’.

Panel management is not an easy task – if you are unable to feed your respondents a regular supply of surveys most of them will become DORMANT!! All the money you have spend to recruit people will burn away. DO NOT LOOSE HOPE – you need to just keep your respondents engaged for e.g. you can run an internal survey on a popular topic and share the results with all participating members – this will help create a very strong brand loyalty amongst your panel members!!

LESSON 4: CREATE A PERSONAL BRAND!!

Steve Jobs was one of the foremost people to understand the growing importance of personal brands in the digital age. The black turtleneck is easily recognizable!! In fact no other CEO has such a profound effect on the brand imagery of a company as Steve Jobs had. His product launches were easily the most anticipated events in the media.

Panel companies now days lag behind in the brand building exercise – ask yourself how many panel members know for whom they are filling up surveys. Many people might find the argument weak but people are sharing their personal opinions with you – they ought to know and connect with the people running the show. Imagine what if Apple was a panel company and people had received survey invitation – I guess any survey would have been completed in minutes!!!

Create a personal brand for your panel company and CONNECTwith your respondents!!!

LESSON 5: PUT A DENT IN THE UNIVERSE!!

Steve Jobs once said, “We’re here to put a dent in the universe. Otherwise, why else even be here?”

The very reason that panel companies are POPPING UP now days is ‘LOW ENTRY BARRIER’ & ‘GREED FOR QUICK MONEY’!! But I personally believe that having a higher purpose doesn’t just help you find SUCCESS – it redefines the meaning of the word. People in the panel business have an amazing opportunity to change the course of the market research – they can REDEFINE the value proposition. My humble request would be not to get stuck in the labyrinth of greed but make your earnest contribution in changing the face of the market research.

Now you have a choice. You can comment, share, or implement. I prefer if you implement, but I’ll appreciate all three – Akshay Kanyal

Professor Facebook

More connective tissue may make academia more efficient

Feb 11th 2012 | from the print edition

GIVEN journalists’ penchant for sticking the suffix “gate” onto anything they think smells of conspiracy, a public-relations consultant might have suggested a different name. But ResearchGate, a small firm based in Berlin, is immune to such trivia. It is ambitious, too—aiming to do for the academic world what Mark Zuckerberg did for the world in general, by creating a social network for scientists. And it is successful. About 1.4m researchers have signed up already, and that number is growing by 50,000 a month.

Non-scientists might be surprised that such a network is needed. After all, the internet was originally created mainly by academics for academics and Mr Zuckerberg’s invention, Facebook, got its start on college campuses. But though the internet has speeded things up, it has not fundamentally changed how researchers are connected. Academic communities are still pretty fragmented, frequently making it hard for scientists to find others doing similar research. And results often are not shared across disciplines.

To make things more efficient and interdisciplinary, ResearchGate wants to help the academic world to grow more connective tissue, as Ijad Madisch, one of the firm’s founders, puts it. As on Facebook, users create a profile page with biographical information, list their interests and research skills, and join groups. They can see what others with similar interests are up to and post comments. They can also upload their papers and create invitation-only workgroups.

The big question is whether ResearchGate will make enough money to keep its investors happy. So far, it is running on cash from Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital, two venture capitalists based in Silicon Valley. A third firm is expected to join them soon. But these people will want a return on their investment.

Some of that may already have come from the Max Planck Society, which runs many of Germany’s best research campuses and had ResearchGate build it a private network. Over the longer haul, the firm hopes to charge companies and universities for using it to advertise jobs, and to operate a marketplace for laboratory materials. It has no plans to post other advertising, though, nor to charge its users directly.

At the moment, most of those users are in their 20s. Their favourite activity is to ask each other questions about practical research problems, from DNA-sequencing techniques to statistical tricks. They are also busy reading each other’s papers: more than 10m have been uploaded. (Most scientific journals now allow authors to post their work on “personal web pages”, which includes profile pages on social networks, according to Dr Madisch.)

The service certainly saves these young researchers trial and error, and therefore time and money. They will probably also like a new feature ResearchGate is planning to introduce in April: a feedback system which lets users rate each other’s contributions. This would allow them to build a reputation other than by publishing papers.

Scientists whose reputations are established may be more hesitant, though, and not just because they are set in their ways. Science is not only about collaboration but also about competition. This limits what people are willing to share. But Dr Madisch is optimistic. Those who have grown up with Facebook, he says, know that sharing will improve their research. And their older colleagues will eventually come around—or retire.

An Introvert's Guide to Networking

I learned the critical importance of networking, and discovered my natural aversion to it, early in my career. I was a new college graduate working in the strategic planning division of a $10 billion company, and our business unit had been invited to a retirement party for one of the top executives. The gentleman retiring was someone I'd looked up to during my brief tenure, and I wanted him to know he'd made an impact on me.

While I wanted to attend the party, as an introvert I usually avoided these types of events because they made me uncomfortable. Knowing there would be a lot of senior executives at this party made me even more fearful. In the end, I tamped down my fears and went. When I arrived I found a relatively empty room save for the executive's friends and close colleagues. That night, because of the small turnout, I had the pleasure and advantage of engaging in one-on-one conversations with some of the company's top executives, an experience that would prove crucially important in advancing my career.

That evening I learned the importance of networking and realized I had to figure out how to engage in business events in ways that were comfortable for me. I went on to discover an array of strategies introverts can use, ultimately writing "The Introvert's Guide to Success in Business and Leadership". Because I figured out how to embrace networking I found myself in the plum role of leading one of the highest visibility company teams as a new marketing manager at the age of 26, and representing the company at a United Nations conference in Geneva. I went on to run a $750 million business and negotiate pharmaceutical contracts with top global companies, all in a way that worked effectively with my introverted preferences.

Here's what worked for me:

I learned to appreciate my introversion rather than repudiate it.

I have met so many introverts in business who talk about introversion as if it's a malady that one must get over in order to be successful. This is wrong. Introversion is simply a preference for the inner world of ideas because this is where we get our energy. By understanding and accepting this preference, introverts can optimize time spent with their ideas to refine them and recharge. This allows them to be as powerful and persuasive as possible when networking situations arise.

I recognized that one-on-one conversations would be my lifeline during networking. Generally speaking, business events — and particularly networking events that require engaging with groups — are demanding for introverts. An antidote to this, I learned, is to seek out conversations with one individual at a time. When I approach events this way I have more productive conversations and form better business relationships — and I'm less drained by the experience.

I stopped being afraid to be the one to reach out.

My inner introvert used to think that making the effort to introduce myself was risky. I worried that my target would not be interested in talking with me or that I would make them uncomfortable. I learned over time that when I extended my hand with a smile and an introduction my effort would be reciprocated, even when I approached executives above my rank.

Social media makes this is easier than ever. Reach out via LinkedIn, Twitter and even Facebook to people who will be attending conferences or networking events you're going to and let them know you're looking forward to meeting them. This pre-introduction leads to a more relaxed and productive in-person connection. By reaching out, you open the door to potentially rewarding business collaborations, and you do so on your own terms.

I learned to prioritize time to re-energize.

While it can be tempting to go from a networking lunch right back to work, or from a networking cocktail event right to a dinner, if you're an introvert and you do that you won't be able to bring your best self to your next commitment. Take the time to recharge, whether by walking from the lunch back to work, or by finding 30 minutes alone between cocktails and dinner.

Introverts who avoid networking are making a critical career mistake. Being an adroit networker is non-negotiable — and not as hard as it might seem.

If you're an introvert, what networking strategies have you found that work?

Stop the surveys, please!

Stop the surveys, please!

According to a recent USA today article, you could be hurting brand loyalty by asking your customers to fill out “another” customer satisfaction survey. Consumer fatigue issues should have us all rethinking how we measure brand loyalty. Here are a few consumer quotes to highlight consumer complaints:

• “I can’t remember the last time I bought a fast-food hamburger or a sandwich without seeing a request for a survey on the receipt. I don’t always have that much to say about a purchase.”
• “I resent the assumption that I’m interested in helping this company beyond making a purchase. Giving them your money is enough”
• “When the survey-taker can’t veer from a ‘totally satisfied, somewhat satisfied, not satisfied’-style script, its impossible to see how they could ever be of any use.”
• “I don’t mind being asked for input on such a big-ticket item as a car or a cruise. But ‘my goodness, after an oil change?’”
• “It often makes more sense to comment on (travel) sites than to take surveys. ‘This way, both potential customers and management can benefit.’”

At the heart of the issue is a gap between consumer media habits and data collection trends. Consumers are reading and posting feedback at their favorite websites or engaging in brand discussions via social media; while researchers continue using traditional survey methods and struggle with social media technology and inaccurate data mining tools.

Here are three ideas on potential new approaches for customer satisfaction feedback:

1. Use the approach Godaddy took on a recent call. They simply invited me to provide comments via email, website or social media and even provided me a specific person to contact. Even better if they would have offered an incentive.
2. A new beta-site called suggestionbox.com allows customers to provide feedback in a suggestion box format. Customers can select a specific retail location to post to. They can also view comments from others and companies can review and post if/when a suggestion is implemented.
3. For more in-depth information, we’ve found great success recruiting panels customers to participate in a private Facebook group. Participants find it easy and enjoyable to provide feedback, and a panel can be set up for multiple weeks so consumers can move beyond transactional feedback to competitive comparisons or even co-creation of new and improved product or service solutions.

What do you think companies should do to better approach brand loyalty and customer satisfaction measurement?

Ethnography Matters

January 13, 2012 | Sam Ladner | 19 Comments

Does corporate ethnography suck? A cultural analysis of academic critiques of private-sector ethnography (Part 1 of 2)

Ethnography Matters is happy to start the new year with a series of posts from guest writer, Sam Ladner. In this piece, Sam examines the different temporal conceptions of ethnographic fieldwork in industry and academia.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Sam’s discussion where she discusses how corporate ethnographers can avoid compromising research.

Sam is a sociologist specializing in the social aspects of technological change. She mixes private-sector consulting work with academic research and teaching. Primarily an ethnographer, Sam is founder and principal with Copernicus Consulting, a social research company that consults on digital and industrial product design, organizational change, and consumer culture. She is also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ted Rogers School of Information Technology Management at Ryerson University in Toronto. She has published in peer-reviewed journals such as Time & Society and The Canadian Journal of Communication. She is currently managing the Mobile Work Life project, which is investigating smartphones and work/life balance.

Part 1: A cultural analysis of academic critiques of private-sector ethnography

Corporate ethnography’s emergence ignited criticism that its quality and rigour was not as good as the ethnography practiced by academics. Academically trained social scientists have argued that private-sector practitioners are often not trained in anthropology or sociology, much less in the actual method of ethnography. Academics have argued that using ethnography for marketing and advertising is just more evidence of underhanded marketers attempting to dupe people into consumerism (Caron & Caronia, 2007).

And they are right.

Much of private-sector ethnography is as banal as it is ironic. In its bland quest to “understand the consumer,” it reduces culture to mere consumerism and thereby fails to achieve its own stated goal of understanding. This cynical veneer of cultural research disregards the truly transformative effect of “going native,” which is the first step to deriving both deep insight and innovation. Private-sector “ethnographers” are frequently ignorant to what ethnography actually is. The real essence of ethnography is the study of culture or as Geertz would say, the “webs of significance” or the meaning individual social actors ascribe to objects, events, or people. “Ethno” derives from the Greek word “ethnos” meaning folk or culture, while “graphy” derives from “grapho” or “to write.” Most corporate ethnographers neither study culture nor write about it. Instead, ethnography is simply as “on-site research,” such as an in-home interview, and “written up” as a series of meaningless video clips or as the truly stupefying Power Point presentation.

But these critical academics are also wrong.

Academics frequently criticize corporate ethnography simply as “too short.” But this is just as shallow an insight as is the idea that culture=consumerism. Academics, of all people, should know that culture drives practice. The rapid pace of contemporary corporate life clearly and reasonably demands shorter time horizons for any research project. It is more than obvious that time differs in academia. Time is what Kluckhohn (1953) calls a fundamental “value orientation,” or a universal feature of all cultures. A culture can be past oriented, meaning it reveres the past through symbolic gestures and everyday behaviours. A culture can be present oriented, by focusing on what is immediately temporally present.

Academia is a past-oriented society, with its obsession with paying homage to past greats of the literature and constant “reviews” of what others have previously found. The private sector, by contrast, worships the present (though it may portray itself as future-oriented, this is often stymied by a relentless focus on the near future). Both “cultures” mark time differently, making it completely natural to do rapid research in the private sector, and perfectly ethnocentric for academics to criticize such research based on normative assumptions of “appropriate” time frames. Symbols of time in academia are typically longer, not “better.”

Take the notion of a “year,” for example. “September” is a perennial ritual in which streams of undergraduates and graduates begin their studies at universities. It may indeed explain the obligatory one-year’s fieldwork unspoken guideline in anthropology. The typical rationale for one year is that so the ethnographer can witness the entire season, but in effect, it may be because it conveniently dovetails with the academic year itself.

There is no equivalent to “September” in industry. Work begins again when the accounting department “closes the books” at month-end. It begins again when a new directive from the C-Suite sends the organization scurrying. It begins once more when a new email arrives. Life in the private sector has nothing like “September,” much less the luxury of thinking in terms of a full year. This shorter time cycle is evident in the tenure of executives. The average CEO is at the helm for just 6 years. The average tenure of a Chief Marketing Officer is even shorter — just 28.4 months (Kirdahy, 2008). This is not to say that “one year” means nothing in the corporate context, but just that it means comparatively less than it does in the academy. Academic social researchers may judge these shorter time horizons as lacking in rigour, but it may have more to do industry’s normative assumptions of time reckoning. Instead, it is more a rejection of the calendar year than it is a rejection of rigour itself.

In my next post, I will review methods to match this shorter time horizon in the private sector, without compromising the quality of the research.

Market research: When to do phone interviews over focus groups

Market research, such as market sizing, target marketing, market segmentation, product positioning, pricing, and customer satisfaction research, requires good data for the results to be credible. Obtaining reliable customer or prospect data needs good data collection.As a start up or an expansion stage company, if you’re wondering how to do your primary research and you are trying to decide between collecting data through a focus group and phone interviews, the following situations will help you determine when phone interviews work better than focus groups:

Phone interviews are better when the type of research you’re doing is complex: If you’re doing a study that requires your respondents to answer multi-step questions (e.g., implementing an enterprise application), it’s easier to walk each respondent through the set of questions on the phone. In a focus group environment, this will get confusing and chaotic. Phone interviews provide you with a “cleaner read”: In a focus group, respondents’ thought processes could be very easily influenced by other group members. Since phone interviews are one-on-one, respondents’ answers are less biased and more their own.Phone interviews are more “anonymous” and are better for gathering sensitive and in-depth information: With a phone interview, you can keep the respondents’ answers confidential. Respondents don’t have to answer questions in front of a group of strangers, which might hold them back from being open. The one-to-one relationship with the interviewer on the phone can help solve this. Phone interviews make it easier to reach your target audience: Maybe there aren’t too many of your target customers in the location/region you’re running your focus group. Phone interviews allow you to “cherry pick” prospects from across the country, and even the world. You have limited time and want to get started with your research right away: With phone interviews you can start interviewing as soon as you have your first recruit. You won’t have the time lag that you’d otherwise have with getting a group of respondents together, deciding on a location, a moderator and planning an entire event; you can do your phone interviews by yourself. Better participation from respondents: Since respondents can take phone calls from anywhere, they can be more flexible, which increases the chance of participation in the study. Also, the same faces tend to show up at focus groups; phone interviews allow you to talk to new people from new markets. So, with phone interviews, not only can you get more participation, but you can also get better quality participation too. Phone interviews are much cheaper: In-depth focus groups can get very expensive. Not only do you have to pay for the moderator to lead the session, you also have to pay him/her for summarizing the data and presenting it to you. In the case that you want to attend the focus group yourself, you have to add in the cost of your travel, lodging and other expenses, along with the financial incentives required to pay respondents for their participation. Conversely, if your phone interviews are short enough, a lot of times you can get by without paying anything. I’d be interested to hear your thoughts or counter arguments.