Month: October 2010

From “Marketing Research” to “Marketing Information” in 2020

In his blog post of October 24, 2010, Ian Lewis talks about his vision for marketing research in the year 2020.  He believes that the continued growth in technology will result in the “digitization of everything” which will result in a “paradigm shift” in marketing research tools and techniques.  And in 10 years the “leading-edge companies will address 80% of their marketing issues by ‘fishing the river’ of information.”  Fishing, as in mining clicks, blogs, communities, videos, anything and anywhere people virtually connect.

Fishing is a great metaphor because it captures the spirit of what Lewis is talking about.  In this world of 2020, research will be about looking for Read Full Text

The Complexity of Contexts & Truths in the Focus Group Discussion

I find myself often thinking and writing about qualitative research design because, well, there is a lot to think and write about.  While there is a multitude of books, articles, experimentation, debates, and forums on the efficacy of various quantitative approaches and techniques, there is very little on applying quality principles to qualitative design.  This partially stems from the fact that there are some qualitative researchers who dismiss the idea of design issues, resting their case on the notion that a focus group discussion is simply an informal gathering of people where any “tool” that elicits a response is good and where design principles have no place.

Fortunately, there are researchers who have investigated the design implications of their research.  Jocelyn A. Hollander, a sociologist from the University of Oregon, is one such person.  Dr. Hollander published an article in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography in 2004 titled, “The Social Contexts of Focus Groups” where she argues Read Full Text