And this is where my brain exploded
Half-way through a serious-minded survey on Internet use by a terribly reputable research provider, I reach this question. Reproduced here in its entirety. Which one of the following statements best describes how you use the internet to express opinions or share information with other people? Please select one only. Quick, at the back, HOW MANY problems can you spot with this question? … 1. Asking two questions in one 2. Giving twenty-five options 3. Many of the options don’t relate to the questions (how can ‘listening to a podcast’ be classified as...
Read MoreMaslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: a quick critique and rant
Or, Marketing’s Need to Hear Simple Stories. If there’s one theory of motivation that everyone has heard of, it’s good old Maslow and his pyramidal Hierarchy of Needs. It’s the basis of many other theories, including the simpler concept that motivations can be divided into the essentials (hygiene factors) and motivators to action (motivators). I came across Maslow yesterday while reading a report on public consultation approaches, by someone who is using a Maslow-based system to segment the general UK population according to their values. These segments, it is...
Read MoreSpecial Google Buzz rant edition
Google Buzz came to my Gmail account yesterday. I am beyond angry with Google right now, as well as with the other developers of social networks who seem obsessed with recreating their own smug worlds of urban white male 20somethings geotagging their coffee bars. Vaguely coherent reasons for hatred: 1. Appalling usability – options and their effects are completely unclear; the actual interface is not intuitive; and when I logged on this morning, I found that Buzz updates arrive in my Gmail inbox as well as the Buzz one. That’s not going to fly. 2. An apparent inability to consider...
Read MoreThat’s why it’s called ‘research’
A wee rant. I came across this conversation about online communities on Research Live. There is a discussion of the pros and cons of research-based online communities, branded online communities, and right at the end a commenter who says that all this community talk is ridiculous and simply listening to internet buzz (via networks like) Facebook is the way forward. Listen, my children. Many many years ago, I was a wee trainee research manager for a company that did a very boring thing. We made the fragrances that go into washing powders. We did not think this was at all dull. We...
Read MoreCan market researchers have an opinion?
Robert Bain of Research Magazine has a blog post today about the way that business people pick on market research as a way of underlining their modern business credentials. He quotes a piece by Marc Babej, a marketer writing in Forbes magazine who fixes the passing blog reader with a flinty stare and declares: ‘You burned big bucks to collect scads of data. Too bad much of it is meaningless.’ Babej’s article is less a research hatchet job and more about ‘smart’ research investment: after all, he has a proprietary technique up his sleeve. It got me thinking...
Read MoreOn hating Ryanair: We hate to serve and it shows
Back from holiday. I’ve been sceptical of the whole value of the ‘brand conversation’ movement for a while now, and if my recent holiday taught me anything, it’s that brands are about the harsh (or sundappled) reality of the brand experience… So. Ryanair. Is there such a thing as a toxic brand? Ryanair seems to embody the modern fuck-you brand: it is supposed to deliver low prices etcetera etcetera, yet it does so in a way that frequently alienates and enrages the end customer. I don’t suppose Ryanair does qualitative research (ya think?), but if...
Read MoreManifesto
Some of us find it quite simple to put our real organisations and authentic selves online.
Others - well, let's just say that some of us can't bear to look at our own websites.
My mission is to help you transform your online presence so that other people understand and appreciate what you really have to offer. So that you can achieve what you want - whether that's better engagement, more readers, or more sales.