Getting Ready for 2010: A Strategy Foundation - Guest Post by Keith Prather

Keith Prather is Managing Director of Armada Corporate Intelligence, a corporate business intelligence firm that functions as outsourced members of corporate strategy groups and consults with companies of all sizes on strategy and implementation. Armada is sponsoring this week of posts on getting ready for 2010 planning.

I've known Keith for nearly a decade and have worked with him closely on a variety of strategic and market planning efforts. Today, I'm excited he's sharing his professional perspectives on getting a better understanding of your external environment during this period of dramatic global change in business and consumer markets:


A critical component of a successful strategic plan is a well-established strategy foundation – a compilation of information and intelligence covering your industry, global markets, customers, and the environment. Particularly relevant this year is the need to produce an accurate economic forecast with meaning and relevance for the business. And given the uncertainty surrounding the global economy, this can be a daunting task.

Following the most basic tenets, forecasters need to identify the supply and demand drivers for an industry, and capture meaningful data describing the condition and outlook for them. Sometimes though the most impactful elements on a business are not what we think. Going to the expense side of the income statement and understanding the biggest cost items in your business will help determine the real key elements of supply – those you rely on.

For instance, one client believed steel (which was one of the company's top expenses) was the primary input for its business, with countless hours spent monitoring, forecasting, and negotiating steel prices. Energy costs, on the other hand, were not considered to have a material impact, and were lumped into utility and overhead costs. In 2008, however, consumption of oil-based resources drove prices up significantly. As a result, oil costs had to be factored much more directly into forecasting models to improve their accuracy. By not anticipating this significant change to the company's business mix, however, it was caught flat footed.

On the demand side, the challenge is more complex. While providing future economic insights for clients, several fundamental items seem to be driving things developments. First, everything ultimately circles back to consumers. You and I, spending money, drives more than 70% of the nation’s $13 trillion in GDP. Watching consumer spending, consumer confidence, housing, and several other metrics tracking consumer activity are useful in helping gauge future activity. One great aggregator site for basic economic information is the US Census Bureau’s Economic Indicator page.

There are some other great free aggregator sites providing solid current economic news and explanations of some of the items driving current activity. One of my favorites is the RTTNews Daily Market Analysis. We also pay a lot of attention to the Financial Times, CNBC, Wall Street Journal, and Global Insight for forecasting information.

For manufacturing, the Institute for Supply Management publishes one of the most accurate gauges of manufacturing activity, the Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI), on a monthly basis. You can read about the PMI in simple, easy to follow prose at the ISM website.

Calculating risk is also an important component to a well-done strategy foundation. With a wave of new legislation floating around in Congress, it is important for companies to use scenario planning in considering impacts of various regulatory actions on the company. From health care to energy legislation, companies will be hit with direct and indirect risks as a result. Using a system such as the Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction (LAMP) can help in gauging which scenarios provide the greatest risk – and the greatest likelihood of occurring.

It can’t be said enough, a solid strategy foundation is the underpinning to a successful strategic plan. Woodrow Wilson once said: "We should not only use all the brains we have, but all the brains we can borrow." If you can’t build the strategy foundation in-house, it’s worth getting help to make sure that the business landscape is being accurately portrayed. Otherwise, you might be building a ship when what you really need is a bicycle. - Keith Prather

Creating Memorable Experiences

We wrapped up the AMA Marketing Research Conference last week to very kind words from a number of participants about the different nature of the conference experience.

The secret of great, meaningful brand events lies in a simple formula. Look for the strongest possible alignment on these 3 dimensions:

• Attendees' personal interests
• An event's emotional intensity
• A brand's visibility as the event's enabler

The formula works across many venues and event types. Recognize the enabling brand can be for business (i.e., an event sponsor), or it may be a personal brand (you and your spouse throwing a holiday party).

No matter what the event, consider and deliver on these three variables to see a difference in your audience's experience and reactions. - Mike Brown

Research Review Week - Keep Going!

Too many research reports are train wrecks of charts, arrows, and statements that simply play back the graphics, or even worse, regurgitate the detailed methodology with no forward looking implications.

For senior executives, it means a confusing (and at best, boring) jumble of information – pointing in all kinds of directions without really saying anything.

If you have research responsibility, apply this maxim for great strategic thinking from Gary Singer, a wonderful strategist and former Chief Strategy Officer at Interbrand. His comment to me was:

• Good researchers go to the edge of the data and step back – to be cautious & statistically sound.
• Good consultants go to the edge of the data and stop – to be sure they’re on solid footing & that the client will buy off.
• Great strategic thinkers go to the edge of the data, formulate a sound next set of assumptions that the audience can comment on & agree to, and then keep going to expand understanding & get to revealing insights.

It’s a simple statement and hard to do, but done successfully, it promises incredible business results. Use it as your new strategic hurdle to clear! - Mike Brown

Remember to check out the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference website for updated tweets, videos, and articles from the conference. You can also track the conference at #amamrc on Twitter.

Research Review Week - Design Driven Deliverables

W5, a market research company based in Durham, NC is a strong proponent of “design driven deliverables,” defined as “any method of communicating research findings that goes beyond the standard research report.”

In a time when it seems like attention spans continue to decline, it's fundamental to be able to form research results into meaningful stories that carry an impact with your audience. Very often, if you're willing to push your thinking and spend some time on a deliverable, the right communication vehicle is anything but a standard research report.

W5 considers four types of design driven deliverables:

• Graphic – Results depicted visually in posters, booklets, stickers, note cards, etc.
• Sensory – Stimuli that engage the senses in various ways, including textures, audio, video, and smells.
• Experiential – An interactive presentation of results in ideation sessions, dramatization, experiential tours, immersion rooms.
• Installation – Physical environments that convey understanding, including displays, large scale murals, shadow boxes, and artifact installations.

You can check out more information through W5 white papers on this and other topics at company’s website. - Mike Brown

Remember to check out the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference website for updated tweets, videos, and articles from the conference. You can also track the conference at #amamrc on Twitter.

Research Review Week - Forging Strong Relationships

I'm tweeting and blogging the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference early this week. You can visit the conference website to see live tweeting, video interviews, and blog posts as the conference progresses. Back here at Brainzooming, we'll be running some earlier posts on market research to complement the new material coming from the conference:

It's vital to have strong, successful relationships with key market research partners. This “Ten Things” list is a helpful starting off point for forging a solid relationship. Feel free to use or adapt it with your marketing partners:

Ten Things - The Foundation to a Strategic Research Relationship

1. Be a “thought partner” with us. This is a two-way street – we’ve got to treat you like one before you can do what it takes to become one.
2. Your energy and passion for what you do (and your intellectual curiosity) need to be evident.
3. There’s a difference between researchers who think they’re researchers and researchers who see themselves as business people. It’s tough to explain the differences, but they’re readily apparent. We need researchers who think like business people if we are to be successful.
4. Understand our business more deeply than from just the numbers that you see. If not, we’ll never get to where we must go.
5. Bring creativity to questioning, analysis, and reporting (and any place else in the process). That means generating new ideas to produce breakthroughs on mutual efficiencies, high impact insights, easy to grasp reporting, and actionable recommendations.
6. We must put information into context. We can’t afford to just report numbers or even changes in numbers. We need to get to insights. What does it mean? What do we do about it?
7. We have to get beyond reports that show charts and have bullets that merely say what is on the chart. We have to offer our audiences relevant insights. That takes pulling information from various sources (including people) and analyzing, talking, and identifying relationships among everything we’re looking at.
8. Look outside our industry or outside research circles for ways to report information. Review Edward Tufte, Richard Saul Wurman, and others. Are there movie scenes that help us get our points across? Magazine ads? Always ask the question: “What’s that like?”
9. Communicate proactively - let’s make sure we talk and we’re all clear on things before moving ahead. That may mean a phone call instead of an email.
10. Exhibit strong attention to detail – that way we can get beyond fact & spell checking and spend our time on delivering insights.

If you can get to this point with your research partners, you’ll truly be doing COOL WORK that matters and that can change your company and your industry. WOW!!!

Getting Ready for This!

Today includes a lunch presentation at the Fort Hays State University Business and Leadership Symposium. The presentation title is "Getting Ready for This," and it focuses on six vital success competencies for graduates coming into the workplace amid a dramatically changing business world.

The premise is that it's fundamental for new graduates to own skills in co-creating, contorting, and abandoning ideas and strategies based on what's relevant at any time. It's not so much "what" they know, as "how" to continually deconstruct and reassemble their knowledge in dramatically new and relevant ways throughout their careers.

It starts with several amazing factoids from the video "Do You Know 3.0?" recounting dramatic demographic, technology, and information-based changes worldwide. It's been viewed millions of times, and in the event you haven't seen it, take a few minutes to watch it.

As a brief overview and reference for the presentation, here are the six areas for educators and students to more concertedly embrace:

1. Knowing Answers Is Good - Knowing How to Find Answers Is Vital

Since facts change and information deteriorates, it's vital to be able to know how to seek and vet potential answers since no one can be expected to have a full command of all available knowledge.

2. Balanced Thinking Allows You to Be More Strategic

USA Today featured an article in July on retraining a left brained orientation to a right brained one in order to cope with a changing job environment. We talk plenty about the importance of knowing your thinking orientation, surrounding yourself with a complementary team, and the strategic impact of being able to work with contradictory points of view.

3. Possibilities and Emotion are Important in Business

From someone whose more natural orientation centers on facts and logic, this has been the most challenging of the 6 areas to retrain my own view. The best place to go on this topic is Benjamin Zander, who has been mentioned frequently here. As a homework assignment for attendees at the FHSU presentation, I asked them to watch these two Zander videos and get a genuine sense of the importance of emotion and possibilities thinking:

• Benjamin Zander on the Art of Possibilities


• Benjamin Zander on Emotion and Possibilities

4. You Have to Be Able to Communicate in Multiple Ways

Communication is in the top 10 topics addressed on Brainzooming so far because it's so critical to successful creativity, innovation, and strategic thinking. Students need to be pushed to go beyond the typical team presentation that summarizes a semester-long project. They need to be adept at using formats of varying lengths (simple recommendations, elevator speeches, tweets, etc.) and mediums (songs, video, acting, etc.).

5. Leadership Starts Day One on the Job

Leadership is about service, not titles. That means day one is the time for new graduates to start leading on the job. Taking on a strategic leadership role can be simple. You just have to be willing to do something about it!

6. People All Around You Are Making Decisions Based on Personal Branding

Personal branding isn't a meaningless concept authors dreamed up to sell more books. It's truly the driver behind why anyone gets hired, advances, and has intriguing opportunities develop. Step one is understanding your talents and exploiting them. Here are two great books to read on how to further develop and sustain a personal brand:

• "Radical Careering" by Sally Hogshead


• "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" by Gordon MacKenzie

I look forward to comments from those in attendance (and non-attendees as well) with thoughts on the topic since it applies to all of us as dizzying changes occur around us. Stay close to the Brainzooming blog for more on change and dealing with it in the near future! - Mike Brown

Storytelling to Frame Research Reports - Guest Post by Sean Buvala

I'm chairing the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference October 4 - 7. It's going to be a great event, with three educational tracks all tied back to theme, "Making Business Sense of What's Next."

Our main programming objective for the conference is providing ideas, tools, and networking to help researchers approach business more broadly and with a clear means to help lead their companies successfully into the future. Through the conference social media effort, you'll be able to track the conference's progress using the hashtag #amamrc on Twitter and on the conference website, where I'll be blogging along with others next week.

To give you an early sense of the conference tone and content, today's guest Brainzooming columnist is presenting a workshop this Sunday at the conference's start. Sean Buvala is an award-winning trainer who teaches businesses and nonprofit organizations how to improve their business results through the power of storytelling. You learn more about his work at www.seantells.net.

In this piece, Sean challenges researchers (and really anyone communicating in business) to better incorporate framing to fully realize the impact of great storytelling.


The more esoteric your work, the more you need storytelling in your job. Those of you in research, I am talking to you.

Sometimes it is hard for others to understand the ins, outs, and mysteries of research. By using the power of storytelling in your communications, you can create "frames" to highlight, carry, and explain bigger concepts.

Every house I have ever been in has place filled with pictures of family and friends. Rather than just glue these pictures to the wall, the pictures are placed in frames that help draw the eye to the subjects within. In the most artistic homes, frames surrounding pictures have been carefully chosen to emphasize the content of the pictures. More important pictures (the "everybody in the family" type) have the most expensive and sturdy frames. Done well, frames are an extension of the pictures.

Just like picture frames in someone's home, framing complicated and important data in the context of a memorable story protects and carries your message to your listeners. Here's an example.

You could talk about the collection methods used to complete a survey and how that proves the validity of the data. However, folks want results first. So, instead of talking first about how the data means you must completely drop an ingrained and "sacred cow" program from your company, you could start with the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk," (JATBS) emphasizing how Jack's mother was furious with Jack for trading her sacred cow for a few magic beans. In the end, however, Jack ends up with a goose that lays golden eggs, giving Jack and his mother more than they ever dreamt.

You'll still present your data, but after you tell your version of JATBS, showing the data that correlates to your conclusion. Then, you might lead a discussion based on the data asking, "Just like the mother in JATBS, what do we fear in what the data tells us? In what ways is this data like magic beans for our company's future?" Finally, end your presentation with a recap of JATBS.

Now, you have framed your data (which is important and needed) in the center of a very familiar and comfortable story. I can assure you the first time you do this you will wade through some discomfort and come out with a presentation that will cement the conclusions into the minds of your listeners.

Here are three things you should know about story and narrative as framing tools:

1. People just want to know, "What's in it for me?"

Co-workers aren't as interested in you job's mechanics as you are. I know you have gone to school to learn how statistics work. However, the people you work with haven't. For most of them, how you collected the data is not nearly as important as what the data means for their work. Storytelling lets you talk about benefits of research, not just mechanics.

2. Stories remind you to speak in the language of the people: your fellow employees.

Although stereotypes of overly detailed researchers may seem unfair, there are those in your company still slightly afraid of you. When they know you will speak understandably, they are more open to hear what you have to say. When you share the story of how others have benefited by what you are proposing, they will feel better about providing tools and time to fulfill your projects. It's far better to talk to others about how Susan at the other office was twice as successful after incorporating research results you reported. In a sense, storytelling allows others to know you are "on their side."

3. Your CFO approves funds for results not information.

Most people hate the process of change. Results are better than promises. Stories are frames that carry results. You will get much more support for a project when folks know how others have benefited from your proposals. How the office across the city became so successful that they now have doubled sales is 100% more effective in getting results than any presentation mired in how the research was conducted.

Your work in research and statistics is vital. Even more vital is your ability to communicate the benefits of your work to the rest of your company. Information framed in the context of story, information carried by understandable narratives, will stick with your fellow staff members much longer than data alone. Take a chance and frame your next presentation in a story. - Sean Buvala

Lessons from Kansas City Infobank - Secondary Research Techniques

Secondary research was the primary approach at Kansas City Infobank for completing projects. We informally defined secondary research as "finding what you're looking for among answers to questions that had already been asked and answered by others."

Secondary research was ideal for me since it was similar to school (which I always enjoyed) and required a strategic, problem-solving approach that's been valuable not only in business, but in many other situations. There are several keys to secondary research effectiveness including strong skills in anticipation, visualization, detecting clues, and making sound assumptions. Here are some principles Bill McDonald taught for doing it that I still use all the time:

1. Start by anticipating what your ultimate answer will be. Approximate the answer and its form: If it's a prediction, what's it likely to be? If it's a recap of something, how extensive will it be? Approximating what you're looking for helps you know when you've found the answer and aids directly in step 2.
   
2. Anticipate what components that could make up the answer will look like and where they might be found. Rarely do you find the exact answer; instead, you need to piece it together as you would a puzzle. Start by thinking through what the "puzzle pieces" look like: quotes, number, expert names, trend information, news, etc., then map out where the pieces will likely be located.


3. Armed with hypotheses on the answer and its pieces, begin quickly searching and scanning information sources. Having imagined the information upfront allows you to get through a search more quickly, i.e. if you need numbers to develop a forecast, it's easy to look at articles online and see right away if numbers are included. The key is grabbing as much information as appears relevant early on and leaving heavy analysis for later.
   
4. When you've captured these first sources, review them for more clues on where other information may reside. Are there sources or experts mentioned you haven't explored but need to? Where are they located and how can you get to them?
   
5. While scanning sources, start piecing the answer together. Ideally, you should be able to begin constructing the answer in parts, even if it doesn't look like the final form. Doing this effectively means making sound assumptions to start filling in the answer. This is where your initial hypotheses come in handy as a springboard for constructing the answer and providing a check on how the pieces are fitting together.

There's certainly more to be written about secondary research techniques, but these five tips will help you be more successful whenever you have to find out an answer online or in printed material. - Mike Brown

Lessons from Kansas City Infobank - Get on the Phone

I’ve done several posts on strategic mentors who've fundamentally shaped my thinking and approach. In an early one, I mentioned multiple posts could be filled with lessons learned from Bill McDonald when I worked for him at Kansas City Infobank. The next few days will feature several great lessons I'm sure you’ll benefit from as much as I have.

Get on the Phone and Ask Your Question

Bill had an amazing ability to phone total strangers, chat with them, and prompt them to share incredible information through asking questions. Listening to these calls made a strong impression on me about the value of directly asking great questions of knowledgeable people. I've never matched Bill's skills, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate the gift he has for conversation and questioning.

Today, however, since it’s so easy to email someone a question – type a few lines, hit send, and wait for a reply - fewer people seem to phone directly when they need information or something resolved.

But just because you sent an email doesn’t mean you really asked a question. That implies the recipient actually read the question, and is in a position to adequately respond without ongoing dialogue.

Despite the apparent ease of email, it's often a much better alternative to pick up the phone and call. If you can talk live, you’ll at least know they received the question, find out if your question prompts questions for them, clarify any confusion, and engage in a dialogue that could provide a much richer understanding.

So put down the Blackberry or push away from the keyboard and call with your question! - Mike Brown

Radio, Radio - Brainzooming on Hot Talk 1510, Friday, August 21

I'm substitute hosting again for Kelly Scanlon on her Hot Talk 1510 AM "Eye on Small Business" radio show at 9 a.m. CDT Friday, August 21. The topic is "7 Ways to Better Understand Your Customers," and the guest is long-time friend and colleague Barb Murphy, President of Strategic Spark.

We'll discuss ways that small business owners can use both primary and secondary research to identify the changes taking place within their customer bases during these challenging economic times.

You can listen live on the internet, and if you want to tweet a question, use hashtag #kcsmallbiz. I'll try to monitor any questions and incorporate them into the program.

BTW - Barb will also be doing an opening day seminar at the American Marketing Association Market Research conference October 4 - 7, 2009. I'm chairing the conference, and it's a great opportunity for those involved in the research field to develop professionally, expand your knowledge of new research techniques, and get set for the future.

Register by September 4 to get the early bird rate. And follow the conference on http://twitter.com/amamrc for market research updates from across the web!

Do You Even Agree with Yourself?

A previous post on Powerpoint talked about covering a slide image and seeing what the headline says, then covering the headline and seeing what the image suggests to look for message agreement between the two.

The same approach is valuable in analytical work as well.

If you've created a chart or table, cover it and see what the explanatory text or headline conveys. Then cover the text and ask yourself if the chart backs up your point. Ideally they'll match. Often though, unless you've really pushed the analysis supporting the table/chart, it will show irrelevant or misleading data that compromises or confuses your main point.

Using this technique recently showed that instead of showing a long timeline to depict daily fluctuations, the key point was made much more directly with a stacked bar chart demonstrating a month over month change.

Another twist on the technique is to actually describe aloud the primary message of the analysis as a further check to see if you really agree with and support everything you have on the page!

7 Tips to Improve Conference Call Presentations

How comfortable are you doing presentations?

How about presentations over the phone? Since you’re not looking the audience in the face, phone presentations are even more challenging because body language is removed from the range of cues available to convey your messages and gauge audience reactions.

Having seen some challenging presentations delivered recently via conference call, here are 7 tips for presenting over the phone:

• Never miss an opportunity to speak in the first person (we vs. you). Take advantage of opportunities to put yourself on the same side as the audience, particularly with controversial topics or unfamiliar audiences.


• Check in frequently to solicit comments or verbal acknowledgement on the depth, pace, and content of the presentation.


• Silence is okay – don’t be nervous about it or try to fill it up unnecessarily. Give audience members time to think and absorb the content.


• If someone wants to cover something out of sequence, go ahead and cover it; don’t say you’ll cover it later and go on. It’s no different than when a customer’s ready to buy - you need to close the sale.


• Try to interpret the real meanings behind questions. Without visual cues, you have to be more perceptive than normal to understand a question’s origin and the answer being sought. Answer what the person’s really asking, even if it’s not what they asked directly.


• Don’t over answer questions. Instead, answer briefly, check in verbally to see if you’re on target, and get “permission” to continue the answer if necessary.


• If you haven’t heard from an audience member on a reasonably sized call, specifically ask for comments and reactions before getting off the phone. Don’t let any participant off the hook without saying something, even if it’s to say, “No comment.”

Try these out and call to let me know how they work!

The First Day of Gifts - My Mom - Being an Incredible Listener

Strong researchers share a variety of characteristics, including:

• Asking open-ended questions
• Being attentive, active listeners
• Patience
• A healthy dose of skepticism
• The ability to distill information and provide solid advice

To the extent I display any of these traits, it’s a gift from my mother, whose birthday is today.

At the core, my mother is an incredible listener. From as far back as I can remember, we always had a steady stream of people, mostly relatives, stopping by our house, grabbing a chair in the kitchen, and proceeding to unburden themselves of their joys, pains, and dreams while Mom (on the right) patiently listened. She’d ask questions, probe for information, challenge some of their pre-conceived notions, and often, provide advice for their life situations.

I’ve had people tell me my mother is a great conversationalist. She’d probably laugh at that, not seeing herself as one. But people seek her out because she does the two most important things people want: she asks questions about them and patiently listens to what they have to say.

That’s a great lesson for all of us, whether we’re researchers, or just hoping to be more effective in our interpersonal relationships. Thanks Mom for those early, consistent lessons on how to sincerely care about others. Happy Birthday!

More Highlights from The Market Research Event (TMRE)

It’s wrap-up day for The Market Research Event (TMRE). Here are a few highlights from a various sessions this week:

• Interesting quote on changing business dynamics from Doug Cottings, Executive Director Marketing Research & Analysis at UBS – “Financial markets are changing over the weekend, which never happened before.”
  
• We’ve talked about businesses going after your market share not always looking like your company. Karen Gryson, Director of Global Knowledge & Insight at The Coca-Cola Company provided a great confirmation of this when covering its extensive work on needs-based segmentation. She highlighted that Coca-Cola competes with candy, snack chips, and even cigarettes on a sensory needs basis.
  
• In our Monday session, a participant from a major CPG marketer asked what’s next in ideation and strategic thinking. I mentioned the IBM Jams approach that lets widely distributed groups exchange ideas. Technology is in place that enables theme analysis and prioritization within these broad discussions. On Tuesday, James Newswanger from IBM talked about IBM Jamming in a session on Corporate Reputation measurement. He identified two epiphanies from these experiences: the Internet can transform relationships between employees and the company, and the size of these online events breaks down intra-company silos.
  
• Kelley Styring, head of Insight Farm and author of “In Your Car: Road Trip through the American Automobile” did a great overview of the work for this upcoming book. Her approach is a very cool merging of qualitative research (and ethnography specifically), quantitative analysis, and ideation to identify enhancements that would make cars much more functional for how people use them. How else to generate ideas ranging from a food warmer (for cooking items in a sun-drenched car during the day) to a separate temperature protection module (to keep all the HBA and medical solutions we keep in cars cool and protected from spoilage).

These are just a few of the insights and idea starters. We’ll cover more in the future, along with an update to the ongoing series on what poor presenters should stop doing.

“Design Driven Deliverables”

The standout presentation Tuesday at The Market Research Event was from W5, a market research company based in Durham, NC. The session was on “Design Driven Deliverables,” defined as “any method of communicating research findings that goes beyond the standard research report.”

This topic has been of great interest to me; it’s unfortunately often met with blank stares. As Steve Kulp and Lisa Broome from W5 discussed expanding the range of media used to communicate research results, my thought was, “Maybe I’m not as crazy as I thought, or at least they’re crazy in the same way I am!”

W5 considers four types of design driven deliverables:

• Graphic – Results depicted visually in posters, booklets, stickers, note cards, etc.
• Sensory – Stimuli that engage the senses in various ways, including textures, audio, video, and smells.
• Experiential – An interactive presentation of results in ideation sessions, dramatization, experiential tours, immersion rooms.
• Installation – Physical environments that convey understanding, including displays, large scale murals, shadow boxes, and artifact installations.

They showed examples that demonstrated meaningful, story-based depictions of research data going beyond simply reporting statistical differences. Check out more information through W5 white papers on this and other topics at company’s website.

Follow-up note - here’s a recap video shot right after Monday’s strategic thinking session. It’s posted on YouTube!

The Market Research Event – Day 1 Recap

Monday’s IIR Market Research Event agenda included pre-conference sessions. I did a strategic thinking seminar along with Lori Schade in the morning. Thanks to all the attendees who asked questions and offered comments throughout the very interactive session.

I attended Holly O’Neill’s seminar on turbo charging new product ideation in the afternoon. She is president of Talking Business, a California-based marketing firm. Her session included 9 exercises intended to help participants grow in facilitating ideation sessions. Her comments were a reminder about ideation session fundamentals that are easy to overlook. Among these:

• Create an ideation platform upfront – a clear documentation of the session’s objectives and topic breadth
• Use an initial mind dump to let people share ideas already on their minds
• Get people standing up and moving around often to keep energy levels high
• Consider an inspiration table – a collection of objects designed to spur creativity on the topic being considered
• Structure exercises that allow people to build off of one another’s ideas
• Have participants sketch out ideas to help bring them to life

As time permits, I’ll provide additional updates throughout the week on relevant topics.

The Answer Is Blowin in the . . . a) Wind b) Data c) None of the Above

“Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.” - Wernher von Braun

“Generalizations are generally wrong.” - Butler Lampson

“Beware of the man who won't be bothered with details.” - William Feather

“If you torture the data enough, it will confess.” - Ronald Coase

“Lies, damn lies, and statistics.” - Mark Twain

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw

Creative Freakout

My dad managed the TV station in Hays, KS where I grew up. His job was the source of an amazing number of cool experiences. One of the best was in 1975 when Topps sent him 3 cases of baseball cards. So what did I do all summer? I opened pack after pack of baseball cards. And 1975 happened to be a year with two rookie cards for future Hall of Famers – George Brett and Robin Yount. I still have 6 or 7 each of these cards!

Another very cool experience was getting a copy of an audio cassette called “Creative Freakout.” All I knew until recently was that it was done by the Heller Corporation in L.A., and that it has a hilarious story line right out of the late 1960’s, featuring some of the most memorable advertising jingles I’ve ever heard.

Poking around on the web, I found this link with more background on the recording and an audio file that contains (unfortunately) only the first half of the program. Take a listen, and you’ll find that it lives up to its title – prepare to freakout at these advertising protest songs!

BTW – For whatever reason, when somebody else has already answered a question for which you’re seeking an answer, it’s called secondary research, as if it’s less important or relevant than “primary” research. To someone who started life as a “secondary” researcher (me), it feels like a huge disservice (okay, it really feels like b.s.) since the knowledge and skills to be successful may be different, but are just as demanding as “primary” research.

So the mini-rant is in tribute to secondary researchers everywhere, but one in particular, who’s leaving our staff today to move to a really cool new project that’s at the heart of bringing online access to communities across the US.

Deb – you’re truly a unique talent, and it’s been an honor to work with and learn from you! The best of everything! And let’s do Crave, home of grilled cheese and tomato soup - a real creative freakout!

How Close Are We Forecasting Here?

Forecasts and size estimates shown with multiple decimal points are scary because they invariably imply a phony level of precision. When you’re estimating something, understand up front how precise the answer has to be, and present the result accordingly.

Doing a near-term estimate for a production forecast is one thing. But if the question relates to a market’s size to gauge relative market share or reasonable long-term growth expectations, it’s probably appropriate for your answer to be a range, and maybe a pretty wide one (2x or 3x differences between the low and high end may even be reasonable).

Also, rather than investing all your efforts in one estimate, approach it with multiple methodologies or sets of inputs to create credible boundaries for your estimated range. That’s “precision” that’s more valuable than any level of phony decimal places.

Guest Blogger Brad Barash - Taking the Queasiness Out of Research Reporting

I'm excited to have Brad Barash from Decision Insight in Kansas City as the first guest blogger. Brad and I worked together for a number of years, and he was the creative force behind a video called, "How to Kill a Business." It remains one of the best examples I've ever seen of portraying research insights in a fun and incredibly memorable way using video. So when it comes to expertise in communicating research reports in unique, impactful ways, he knows from where he speaks!

When Mike asked me to write about communicating research results, one word quickly came to mind:

Regurgitation.

What a great word. So vivid. So unmistakable in its connotation.

I cannot think of a better word (unfortunately) to describe the typical research report. Too often, the “writing” in reports is simply regurgitation of the data on the slide (“17% of respondents _____”). That’s not delivering insight. That’s dumping data. (Regurgitating, dumping… may be coming from different places, but the result is the same!)

Our job as researchers and marketers is to tell a story, not report data. We should be writing the column on the sports page, not simply delivering the box scores.

There is a reason most reports don’t feel like a cohesive story. Researchers are too quick to create charts and graphs. Then, the charts and graphs are put in “chronological” order (i.e. question 1 on slide 1, question 2 on slide 2, etc.). When you do this, you are confined to a structure that is rarely conducive to telling the best story.

To go from data dump to story, use what I call the “note card puzzle” approach. First, scour the data, and write every key finding on a separate note card. At this point, it is OK to simply regurgitate the data point onto the card.

Then, physically put together the cards that “fit” together, or those that point to a consistent theme.

From there, come up with no more than 3-4 key themes, or big picture “insights.”

Next, re-sort the note cards across the key insights as follows:

• Support one of the key insights
• Contradict one of the key insights
• Spurious (do not support or contradict any of the key insights)

Ideally, there are few contradictory data points. If they do exist, first find out if they truly contradict the insight. To understand how to sort through meaningful data interpretations, check out this article by Richard McCullough. (This should be required reading for any researcher!)

If there are meaningful contradictions, then the key insights likely need to be revised. Most often, however, you are left with some spurious data points that should be buried in the appendix. And, with the “supporting” data points, you have a structure that makes telling the story simple. Key insight 1 is _____, and here is the data that supports that; key insight 2 is ______, and here is the data that supports that, etc.

One final trick to telling a story: do NOT use statistics or data in your headlines. Quick Example:

• Page 1 - Key Insight: The Jayhawks are a solid pick to win the National Championship this year.
• Page 2 - Headline: They are a veteran team.
  Support charts/graphs: % of upperclassman relative to other contenders
• Page 3 - Headline: They have won big games already this year.
  Support charts/graphs: # of wins vs. ranked teams
• Page 4 - Headline: They are balanced, so they can overcome a poor game by any one player.
  Support charts/graphs: scoring averages of starters relative to other contenders
• Etc.

Here’s hoping this example does not make any non-Jayhawk fans regurgitate! But, notice how there is no statistic in any insight or headline. The data that is reported simply supports the writing. -- Brad Barash