According to the author of this blog, new social communication channels will not only lead to changes in the ways companies market products, but they will also lead to changes in the strategies and operations companies use to develop products – including less privacy and more input from consumers.

I would advise caution to those companies excited about using social networks to gather consumer input to innovation. We’ve already tackled the question of customer-powered innovation – concluding that following innovation leads from mass-market customers results only in incremental improvements.  Most customers simply don’t have the perspective to provide breakthrough ideas. Real breakthrough innovation comes from involving specialist users.

The rise of social networking technology offers a tantalizing promise of easy and quick incorporation of consumer feedback and input into the innovation cycle. And the engagement benefits of doing so, while hard to quantify, are also hard to dismiss. But how helpful will their input really be to innovation – and could it even be misleading?  MREB’s research on social media listening explains how using general social media data can undermine the generation of true insight – based on the inability of Research to identify who is contributing the data and whether what they say reflects their actions. This realization only increases the caution that companies should take when using social technologies for product innovation.

MREB members – learn how to engage lead customers for innovation and find passionate online communities whose feedback will be more useful for innovation and insight generation.

By Anthony Bell

A recent study found that outsourcing customers and providers tend to focus too much on basic service-level activities and not enough on business outcomes. Outsourcing is one of the primary means by which companies attain cost reduction, but most companies fail to capture their full savings potential and incur many unanticipated costs due to inconsistent vendor performance. Leading companies ensure that their vendors are able to meet performance objectives, are motivated to fix process inefficiencies, and are flexible enough to adjust to internal organizational change and new requests.

Our Resource and Organizational Benchmarking Survey found that Research functions dedicate 70% of their total spend to suppliers. With this greater reliance on suppliers, comes greater expectancy of contribution. The MREB has described three areas where progressive companies distinguish themselves and get the most value out of their research suppliers:

• Portfolio Strategy
• Supplier Selection
• Supplier Performance Evaluation

While Market Research functions have made significant advances in managing vendor relationships, our focus on outsourcing management may cost us opportunities to strategically in-source certain activities that create competitive advantage. The MREB explored this in-house vs. outsource decision in our research brief, When is Insourcing Research the Best Option. The brief aims to help Research:

• Determine the competitive advantages of research activities.
• Build a compelling business case for adding in-house research capabilities.
• Breakdown the costs of hiring or training to conduct work in-house versus outsourcing it.
• Assess the risks of outsourcing particular research activities.

Additional Resources

• Supplier Onboarding Protocols
• Risk Based Resource Allocation
• Maximizing Supplier Contribution

How big is your research department?

A logical response to this question would be to tally up the number of staff, or describe how large your budget is. But the heart and soul of a research department is its insights and information. And research departments have A LOT of information!

The best research departments regularly package and repackage their information into synthesis products, bringing together information from a variety of sources to create a cohesive story.

But the wealth of information is also a challenge. How do we know what we know?

4 steps at the beginning of a synthesis project:

1. Start Broad: Research has a lot of information available, and though there may be a temptation to limit ourselves to “popular” findings, or the newest projects, the initial stages of an information pull should center around going as broad as possible – it would not be unusual to pull an average of 40 sources and a researcher may pull as many as 80–100 sources in a synthesis sweep. Not to kill ourselves! A practical tip is only reading the project summary.
2. Skim and squint: A good synthesis reads paints the forest more than the trees. The “skim and squint” approach notices the details but focuses us on the broad understanding. It’s never too early for the big picture.
3. Ask Around: Looking to subject matter experts outside of the research department allows for diversity of opinion and information.  GM developed an informal network of experts, identified by auditing existing relevant reports and seeking candidates in relevant functions.
4. Prepare ahead of time:  Research departments that have already organized their information for publication to the business in a research portal will have an easier time finding information for their own purposes. Adobe Systems Inc. organize their Goldmine research portal into 13 supertopics and the relevant subtopics and tagged projects by more than 1,000 topic areas.

Related Resources:

• Increasing the Effectiveness of Synthesis Efforts
• GM’s Informal Intelligence Network
• Adobe’s Goldmine Research Portal

Related Blogs:

• Don’t Be Right – Be Interesting

By Kate Camp

Don’t you just love checking an item off your to-do list? It’s a great feeling to know that you’re done.

Unfortunately, I’ve been hearing from our members (especially in the pharmaceutical industry) that just because a project is done, you’re not necessarily finished. That’s because sometimes business partners request similar (or in some cases even the exact same) projects your team has already completed.

In order to stem this overwhelming flow of requests, it’s important to keep your partners up to speed on what your team has already accomplished, so they can ask better questions. Here are a few ways members have successfully pushed information out to the broader organization:

1. Create a “wiki” style site. There’s a reason Wikipedia is so popular. It’s simple to use and makes finding specific information on a topic quick and easy without overwhelming the reader with too much information. Learn how one pharmaceutical company created an easily-searchable foundational knowledge platform to keep business partners in the loop.
2. Publish an internal magazine. Let’s face it: Newsweek gets to the point a lot faster than War and Peace. You’re much more likely to engage a senior executive if you ask for only a few minutes of his/her time to read your synthesized findings than if you attempted to present the entirety of your data. Keep it short and sweet. Synthesizing information around key business initiatives captures business partners’ attention.
3. Facilitate an open exchange of information between Research and internal partners by redefining team roles. By separating the research team into 3 distinct roles (primary research, consultant, and synthesis) your team will build stronger connections with other functions and receive more strategic project requests.

By Anthony Bell

A new study ranks the top 20 companies with the most difficult job interviews, based on the user comments of companies’ interview practices. The toughest firms give job candidates difficult technical questions, brainteasers, and case study analyses, and their interviews last for several rounds. Meanwhile, one author recently listed 20 of the most bizarre interview questions that top companies ask candidates.

In today’s uncertain economic environment, where attracting and retaining top talent is essential for sustained growth, rigorous interview processes can help companies select the best candidates. Our friends in the Research & Technology Council advise all interviewees to focus on these five things: 1) being confident, 2) making the interviewer feel comfortable, 3) learning to argue why you are the right person for the job, 4) telling stories, and 5) asking questions. Here are some tips for a more successful interview.

So where do we help? Members can take a look at some of the questions research executives are using when screening for candidates.

Related Resources:

• Sample Market Research Job Descriptions
• Hiring Market Research Talent

A recent HBR blog points out the difference between a group and a team, stating that managing a group of people does not a true team make.  Authors note that collective work and mutual commitment are two key elements of a team, and that focusing on managing the team as a unit rather than its individual members can unleash its true potential.

To diagnose whether your group truly feels the impact of “we,” the blog outlines a few issues to consider:

1. Mutual Commitment-Do folks in the group know not just the tasks being performed, but also who benefits from the work?
2. Goal Clarity-Are you pursuing clear goals based on your purpose?
3. Process Clarity-Do all group members know how the team works?  The roles and responsibilities of all team members?

Making sure your team has full commitment to Research’s goals not only can improve the engagement of researchers but will also improve the quality and actionability of your work.   Spending time making sure everyone knows who benefits from your work and why is key to matching research output to decision markers’ needs. 

Kimberly-Clark helps junior researchers deepen their business understanding by having them document brand strategy and tie it to the annual research plan.  This change in research planning and management allows everyone on the team to incorporate strategic thinking into their day-to-day workflow.

We have also found that researchers work to create better insights when they see those around them taking risks, pushing for creativity, and encouraging them to do the same.  The social dynamics of the team have a huge impact on individual motivation and performance, so encouraging and rewarding principled risk-taking can go a long way toward building a more effective Research function.  MREB members can access our Research Team Focus and Culture resource center to learn more about creating an environment conducive to insight generation.

Related resources:

• Kimberly-Clark’s Strategy Internalization Process
• Research Team Focus and Culture resource center
• Creating Team Support for Risk Taking and Creativity

Most of us want a collaborative relationship with business partners. Unfortunately less than a third of business partners see us as a strategic partner. It is not that market researchers are bad partners, but that we don’t understand how business partners really use information.

Lost in Translation

We asked business partners to state the importance they place on various channels and how they go about seeking new information when making decisions. We then asked market researchers to tell us what they believe business partners would do. In a true partnership, MR should be able to estimate fairly accurately, yet the results give us pause:

Researchers over or underestimates the importance of most channels, especially the importance of ourselves and that of formal meetings. The role of subject matter experts and customers are especially underestimated.



** Numbers in the graph represent the point difference (on a 7 point scale) between importance scores assigned to the same channel by MR and business partner, respectively.

Business partners just don’t spend much time with formal information channels like meetings, reports, or us! At least not as much as we think they do. Instead they prefer informal but seemingly trustworthy sources – customers themselves, “experts”, and colleagues – categories we systematically miss.

We want to be more consultative but learning influence skills is a different animal than learning to analyze surveys or generate insight. It is much more about people management.

Stay Tuned…

We know that good data come from good respondents, so, if you haven’t already, take our survey “Communicating with Internal Business Partners”

Look for more from this data in the coming weeks as we work through the variables. As one researcher to another, this is a journey we are taking together.

Which generation has the most discretionary spending power, leads all generations in traditional media consumption and technology spending, stands at a population of roughly 76 million strong and will account for an unprecedentedly large community of people 65+ in 2050?  That would be the Baby Boomers, a unique mix of Alpha Boomers to Zoomers aged 47-65 who are simultaneously the most influenced—and influential—generation in recent American history. Once dubbed “The Me Generation,” Boomers today have morphed into the “The Everybody Else” generation, raising young kids, funding college, nurturing grandkids, and helping aging parents.  To keep it covered, Boomers are still “workin’ it” by scaling careers, planning semi-retirement, and launching small businesses of their own, coming into their second act with no intention of fading away. As lifelong doers, do-gooders, learners and buyers, they’re worth getting to know again as aging adults who will re-invent themselves and every category in the process.

On July 21, Iconoculture will host a deep-dive into the Boomer market, bringing observational and psychographic insights to guide action for reaching this cohort during their next stage of life. During the session, we’ll examine the financial shifts, health solutions and tech innovations shaping their expectations, and we’ll explore the social and emotional relationships that influence them. As Boomers brush the dust off their changed financial outlooks post-recession, we’re tracking their new views for the epic life and all it may hold with Iconoculture trends such as Leading Hedgers, Simply Perfect and The Exponential Experience.

In addition to exploring trends shaping Boomer behavior, we’ll also share implications that will help brands apply insights to their Boomer marketing strategies. We’ll look at best practices for ensuring cultural resonance, and examples from brands that are successfully exhibiting these trends in the market today. Council members can register to join the conversation on July 21 by clicking here and read more about recent trends and observations of Boomer consumer behavior on the North American Trends page.

There’s no greater feeling than seeing your work eagerly consumed.

And there’s no worse pit in your stomach when good work goes nowhere. I’ve had a few of these and, happily, a few more of the first ones.

With proactive synthesis the problem is really tough because we need to guess the right topic – a report they didn’t ask for but deeply want. No problem – I have my Ouija board here somewhere (did you know it is a registered trademark of Hasbro Inc.?)

I’ve been talking with people who’ve hit the nail on the head in selecting synthesis topics (and a few who’ve learned from near misses). And I couldn’t agree more with this:

“I am increasingly of the view that very few people read anything… [therefore] you need to start off with a message that helps them do their job.”

-          Research Director, Johnson & Johnson

The complete answer is in Increasing the Effectiveness of Synthesis Efforts. Here’s a few highlights:

1. Be Strategically Tactical:

Synthesizers like Alticor find topics that are important to the company but immediately applicable to mid-level people. Often it is C-suite strategy making its way down to various parts of the business.

2. Don’t Be Obvious:

The best research refutes common misconceptions, resolve debates, or explains the inexplicable. So companies like Johnson and Johnson use an information inventory template to determine company-level known’s and unknowns and developed a work agenda around unknown topics.

3. When in Doubt – Ask:

Friendly business partners are a great source for feedback on proposed synthesis topics. Levi Strauss used a structured interview process to monitor stakeholder beliefs from a major segmentation project.

Additional information can be found in Increasing the Effectiveness of Synthesis Efforts and Internal Issue Partner Diagnosis

By Aaron Field

Like most researchers I am intellectually curious.  So in college I tried a book about Wittgenstein. The first two sentences were fine. After that…

But research has a lot to learn from those ancient Greeks. It turns out that the most insightful researchers have Socratic relationships with their bosses.

Funny thing. Open avenues to our bosses create exactly the risk-taking environment we need to be our creative best. Managers will get more out of their teams by following these four tips:

• Get personally involved; employees invariably respond well to personal interaction.
• Understand how engaged your team members are. You will have to depend on your employees to deliver results, and will need to understand their readiness to do so.
• Spend time communicating the right goals. Projects will never succeed unless the teams involved understand exactly what is required of them.
• Show team members why their jobs are important; it is imperative to maintain positive communication and engagement as projects unfold and issues arise.

Funnier that the most cutting edge conference (SXSW Interactive Festival) recently reminded us of some very old truths. T.A. McCann of RIM and Gist delivered the secrets of good management. He believes the key to effectively managing others is simply “letting go.” Managers should enable teams to tap their own ideas and expertise, avoid micromanaging their employees’ responsibilities, and allow teams to build their own organizational standards.

Astonishingly they amount to Socrates’ old trick – think with people and not for them.

Turns out I’m a better historian than philosopher. What’s old is new again.