The 2013 Insight Innovation Exchange, held this week in Philadelphia, is over-sold and already brimming with exciting and inspiring information by Day. Over 450 attendees crowded into the Marriott today to hear from speakers throughout the research and innovation industries from research buyers to emerging technology entrepreneurs.

The conference is practically paperless, relying on Bizzabo networking app

and an interactive Zoomcube, helping attendees to keep on track with the agenda.

QRCs in the audience were challenged as well as inspired today by:

• Charles Vila (Campbell Soup Company), who challenges his research vendors to get “digitally fit,” avoid buzzwords and to bring him new ways of engaging with consumers in meaningful and relevant ways.
• Charles Trevail (Promise), who challenged attendees to see pain points as possibilities and for executives to form relationships with customers to create value in people’s lives.
• Robert Moran (Brunswick Group), who emphasized the world of accelerating, discontinuous change we are all living and working in, encouraging the research community to stretch beyond capturing static “snapshots in time.”
• Ryan Smith (Qualtrics), who stated the need in the industry to change the way research is being done to enable “insight seekers” within organization – not just “researchers” – to access data.
• Jasmeet Sethi (Ericsson Consumer Lab), who discussed the necessity of being frugal in growth markets and how reaching consumers on their platform of choice can happen anywhere from a temple to an app.

Today’s speakers also put the following items on my radar:

• Whatsapp  – An intriguing app that has been used as a frugal research platform.
• The Lean Start Up  – A book that bring to life our world of continual, face-paced innovation. Where does research fit in this paradigm?
• Buycott – An app that allows customers to research the company behind products in their consideration set.

Emerging methodologies and technologies filled the afternoon sessions including the Insight Innovation Competition, in which six entrepreneurs had the opportunity to pitch their innovative concepts to the panel of investment judges. Each of these pitches resulted in vibrant Q&A discussions and animated post-pitch hallway conversations, so stay tuned tomorrow for the winner!

Pros, Cons and Tips for conducting research using Google+ Hangouts

Recently a client’s budget dictated that we find a non-traditional way of conducting remote interviews.  Since the client uses Google hangouts for its own internal meetings and the platform was cost-effective (aka free), we tried it out.  I have been asked many times how this experience – which I have repeated with other clients in similar situations – compares to the more traditional, hosted, supported research platforms.

Here are my lists of pros, cons and tips based on these conversations:

Pros

• Cost: The most obvious benefit is that the platform is free to anyone with a Google account.
• Accessibility: Setting up a Google account is easy for participants who don’t already have one.
• Google allows you to record Hangouts and create a private link to send to your team.

Cons

• Anonymity: Over the past year, Google has made it much harder to create anonymous account names.  A year ago, I could create an account named Cookware Research or Jean Study.  Today, Google will block your account if it is not named with a recognizable first and last name.
• Technical Difficulties: I miss having the kind of tech support that traditional online research suppliers offer.  I find myself constantly having to handle tech support and troubleshooting issues with respondents.
• Lack of Consistency: The Hangout platform, requirements and set-up steps are constantly changing.  Each time I employ this methodology I have to write a new guide for respondents to set up Google+ and join my circles in preparation for the interview.

Tips

• Conduct a pre-interview tech rehearsal with each respondent to make sure that they can log in using the computer they will use during the interview.  The rehearsal should take place in the location they will be in during the interview.
• Due to technical issues that may arise for respondents, make the recorded videos available to your clients after the research has taken place.  I have had too many clients try to watch the video feed live and been frustrated by the experience.
• When creating links to the videos for viewing, stay vigilant about privacy settings to ensure that no one else using You Tube can view the research videos.
• Ask your recruiters to select participants who have Google+ accounts as their first choice, and those with Google accounts as a second choice.  Only invite those with no Google account as a last resort.
• Check and double-check your “guide” to joining and connecting on Google+ before sending it to respondents for your next study.  Do not assume the rules have stayed the same as they were when you did your last study!

Since this is a constantly changing platform, I welcome comments/suggestions from other researchers who have used Google Hangouts.

It is a wonderful time to be in the qualitative research business, what with the social media explosion and the cultural behavior that has evolved, the advancement of technology such as widespread broadband connectivity and digital technology, and the propagation of online qualitative research platforms that have arisen and grown over this period of time. Surely, the research industry has come to appreciate and leverage the confluence of these factors that have driven down study cost and cycle times, and increased the amount and quality of qualitative data that researchers are able to collect by shifting methods from traditional, face-to-face (F2F) to online.

Truly as a result, the numbers of different reasons that force the conscientious research provider to recommend and depict in their proposals a F2F method over online are becoming increasingly threadbare. Instead, researchers have embraced the fact that people all over the world have become comfortable communicating in computer-mediated environments, have developed the skills needed to do so, have become more inclined to disclose personal information about themselves, and readily use PCs, laptops, tablets, and smartphones that enable them to augment what they text with multimedia-based forms of expression such as with photos, images, and videos.

Early adopters of “asynchronous online qualitative research” began their entrée into this new methodology about 15 years ago in contrast to standard focus group tradition which had been, heretofore, entrenched in the minds of marketers for decades. They started to use bulletin board platforms for their studies and, in the process, tried to simulate focus group interactions by requiring participants to login multiple times during each day when the study ran so that they could interact with participants in a “next best version” of real-time. However, this practice resulted in a poor approximation of live discussions and eliminated the benefit of convenience in scheduling, relative to the logistical challenges required by F2F methods. Furthermore, forcing the “semi-synchronous” set of conditions by moderators on participants prevented them from finding a convenient time of day to fulfill on their study-related responsibilities, and to do so when they may have been less distracted from the standard workaday commitments from job and home and family.

Worse than that, because of the design and user-interface of bulletin boards, moderators allowed themselves to change the way they conducted qualitative research which diluted their skill at getting people to open up and spill their guts. They did this by accommodating the tool rather than demanding the tool accommodate them. As the term “bulletin board” connotes, a space for a single question is provided and space below that is provided for an answer. Each question is tracked on a dashboard for the moderator allowing him/her to know whether each and every single question has been responded to by all participants. The end result is that the research itself becomes a series of open-ended questions that would otherwise appear in closed-ended quantitative surveys and not the same in richness and spirit of a truly qualitative study in which people tell their stories, describe their greatest aspirations and darkest fears, and provide a genuine, human experience that yields insights that marketers can leverage to make their organizations more competitive.

Visually, this bulletin board format appears to the participant as question space — answer space — question space — answer space, and so on. Each question space is shown and reacted to in terse responses rather than in essay or story formats that analysts harvest for hidden truths about the subject matter. Participants tend to see short questions and provide short answers; the moderator asks “why” and the participant answers “because.” The exchange becomes laden with forebrain material and never reaches the depths of participants’ emotional or reptilian brain responses.

So, as a group, we qualitative research professionals should take back the industry as ours and not let the tail of technology wag the dog of our industry’s best practices. To get the most out of your qualitative research:

• Begin with an online platform that resembles familiar social media sites (such as Facebook) because that is where people tend to openly disclose things about themselves, opine on some of the most sensitive and controversial topics and, in their own style, get their opinions across loud and clear.
• Avoid bulletin boards that are designed as glorified questionnaire-based platforms. One of the hidden secrets about bulletin boards is that they are created by IT programmers whose careers and legacy are in programming surveys. In fact, theirs are some of the most diametrically-opposed types of mindsets relative to right-brain thinkers such as qualitative research professionals and moderators who thrive in non-linear thinking and creative applications and look to “read between the lines” on much of what is evoked from participants.
• Avoid the need for real-time interaction in asynchronous qualitative studies. Using these platforms will not produce the optimal outcome for that need; instead, allow people to leverage the convenience of finding time in their day to sit down, relax, get comfortable, read the questions posted, think about their answers, and weigh in as heavily and as deeply as they can and want. Let the topic of study wash over them and produce lengthier descriptions of their views and opinions; let their stories be told when it is convenient for them to do so, usually at night when their home is quiet, nothing is vying for their attention, and when they are dressed in their pajamas and have their feet up, all comfy and cozy. Just make sure you instruct participants during recruitment the exact days when question guide content will be posted and what they need to do to fulfill their responsibilities and collect their incentives.
• Forget about tracking responses by all participants to every single question posed. That is unnecessary, laborious and distracting from the main goal of qualitative research, and way too anal-retentive in mindset. Leave that sort of endeavor to quantitative survey research. Instead, group sets of questions together and pose them visually, as a set, to participants. When they see that much text all together, they will be more inclined to produce lengthier stories and less “Tarzan grunts” that are highly rational, but only scratch the surface of how they feel.
• Go out of your way to interact with participants during the course of data collection. Without the benefit of physically being in F2F interactions, participants need to know that there is a presence monitoring their actions and encouragement in doing so. If a participant offers an answer that is at least up to par with what is needed, hit the probe button and submit a “thank you.” If a participant does something that is above and beyond the call of duty, tell them “well done.” Don’t just take in the data that are being collected and look for only those instances when a probe is needed to get the participant to elaborate or take the subject on some tangent.
• Always make sure you give participants an opportunity to do what they do really well – show their set of social media cultural artifacts whether in photos, images that represent, projective characterizations, and video-based examples of what they do, experience, and find interest in.
• Last, push back on IT programmers and developers that have reigned in bulletin board leasing for the past 15 years who will try to have you change the way you do things. For their own sake simply because they cannot create that which is not within their realm of thinking, they will make you alter your course away from the tried and true specialized skills that make qualitative research so unique and critical in understanding the human condition, and instead, have you do things their way. Instead, force them to develop software that accommodates you as the research professional and produces an optimal solution that leverages the social media culture of our society within which people show themselves in full view, and the advances in technology that enables them to do so in multimedia, text and other creative, artistic ways.

Recruiting

Recruiting is key to the success of any project, and mobile shop-along studies are no exception. During the recruit be certain the right “enlistment” communication is provided to clearly articulate to potential recruits about what will be in store during the study. Sometimes simply stating that the research is “for shoppers like you” isn’t enough and can lead to drop-offs once participants realize the scope – causing a scramble to find alternates and potential project delays.

Clearly indicate to potential study participants that they’ll be submitting videos about their shopping experiences both at home and during normal trips, and if you can share with them the likely dates you’ll be collecting shopping trip videos. Ideally have screened recruits submit a “test” response prior to the study to help you identify any technical issues. The added benefits of a test exercise are visual and articulation confirmation of recruits, and the participation in a test exercise is an added confirmation of their intent to participate throughout the study duration.

If respondents will be using a smartphone app – or if your partner is shipping flip cams – make sure to include guidance for participants via a Study Overview – whether in written form or provided via the platform you choose. In the case of a mobile app, ideally the software is project-tested and stable – and you are assured on-call tech support for users when necessary. No researcher I’ve met yet enjoys troubleshooting iOS or Android late at night (or any time for that matter)!

Assignments

Use discretion in how many distinct questions you incorporate into shop-along assignments. Too many details for participants to consider can impact the normal routine and behavior of a typical trip to the store. Rather, think about guiding participants to normal, natural situations, with concise direction to “voice every normal thought aloud as you go.” While you may direct them to a particular isle, or comment on a particular opinion in store, the objective is to illuminate the nuance of those experiences for insight vs. a laundry list of questions to answer survey-style. Let participants get lost in the research – rather provide you a glimpse of their normal thoughts and reasons for each routine. Sometimes if you over-do it with specifics, the irony is you’ll gain less of what you are really looking for.

Some mobile apps allow for the participants to view on-screen guidance (bullet points) in the app simultaneous to recording their videos. You might also consider a printable document such as a .pdf that participants will take with them on shopping excursions. Also related to studies in which participants will use their own mobile device, consider that video file sizes can be rather hefty – so optimally use a smartphone app that allows for the utilization of WiFi networks vs. mobile data plans, to avoid the potential burden of additional data fees for study participants.

In-Store

You may consider asking participants to recruit a friend or family member to join them on store trips. Some situations (e.g. trying on clothes in a department store) can be difficult for the participants if on their own. If it is important in the research to see participants’ hands, remember that your project can be optimized by another set of hands.

If your study participants are indeed encouraged to bring a partner along to help record, include additional instructions to ensure video quality since the respondent may wander away from the camera. For example, emphasize they stay close enough to be heard if necessary, and instruct them to speak loudly enough to capture their audio sufficiently (this can be particularly important in large store environments, where peripheral noise might cause problems).

If using smartphones, consider supplementing the video experiences with photo images and text notes. These tidbits can be key to capturing spontaneous impressions in between videos, and can be nuggets of additional feedback and content for the report to validate certain findings.

Consider providing participants a “research purpose” letter they’ll take with them in case they are approached by a manager or store personnel. It should include your company name, the purpose of the research, and contact information where you can be reached with additional questions. Make sure the letter is printed on your company letterhead, and often your client will be happy to provide a research purpose letter on their letterhead. These letters provide everyone involved a sense of comfort.

Generally the laws favor the ability to film inside stores, however you should seek legal guidance if you have particular concerns. We always recommend that researchers inform participants that if they are approached, offer no resistance and agree to not record video if an employee is uncomfortable with collecting footage inside the store. For those participants asked to stop recording, you can advise them to continue their shopping exercise, and record their thoughts as soon as possible after the shopping activity, even if it’s outside in their vehicle.

Lastly, remember that the “before and after” videos and blogging assignments are important “book-ends” to the project – allowing you to delve deeper into key conceptions, thoughts and experiences within the shopper journey.

Data Expectations

In shop-along studies, be ready for a lot of video data. The upside of mobile video interaction is that you’ll receive a wealth of in-store vignettes upon which to base your analysis. The potential downside is that you haven’t accurately anticipated the level of effort to view, organize and analyze the output.

Incorporate a credible multiple for review and analysis time (that is, an assumed number of hours of analysis and report writing as a ratio to the number of raw video hours anticipated). If you’re interested in more detail on expectations, 24tru can share calculations for what to expect, such as typical recording duration for archetype recordings (exploratory pre-shopping questions, mobile shop-along videos, etc.) and multiples utilized for analysis based on report type. You’ll want high confidence in your anticipated time commitment (and margin!).

Analysis

Think about structuring codes up-front – rather than only reacting to the video submissions and creating codes “on the fly.” For reference, codes are simply the virtual buckets of unanswered findings, or the data structure you’ll use in analysis. Certainly new codes will emerge as data is reviewed as nuggets of “new” angles that often drive the most valuable insights. However there are benefits to creating these codes up front.

Structuring the basic code structure in advance is a great means to optimize assignments and flow, and can be a key efficiency gain during analysis. Codes help you keep the in-store experiences focused on key objectives, and at the same time minimize the risk of missing key points crucial to your client’s needs. Since mobile ethnographies are an asynchronous method, rarely do you get the chance to send participants back for another shot at it, and pre-structured codes are a means to ensure the key questions are articulated and addressed.

On the backend, pre-structured codes are an efficiency life-saver when poring over raw video responses. You’ll be able to more efficiently organize your data during the first pass, and the resulting codes provide an organized view of the shopping experiences across your sample. This level of organization helps you stay focused on the key objectives amongst the rich data, plus illuminate the “unexpected” for initial theme development.

Since shopping data is so rich – the resulting videos include feedback that is important however beyond the specific project scope. Accordingly, shopper video data will likely be requested later by client teams as other questions arise. This is another benefit of coding your video data, as codes provide a structured framework allowing fast retrieval of particular consumer experiences throughout the shopping journey.

Think about how the video output from your mobile shopping study will be preserved as a data mine, accessed easily, and searchable. These considerations can create long-term value for your research efforts, and ensure your work considers the long-term value of shopper insights for yoru clients.

Summary Snapshot:

New mobile qualitative technologies are a virtual innovation diving board into the pool of shopper insights. If you’re thinking about adding mobile projects to your firm’s toolkit, consider these tried-and-true best practices to optimize your studies.

Recruit

• Clear communication during recruit means clear success in-field
• A Study Overview helps keep participants on-track and focused
• The app you use should be time-tested and stable

Assignments

• Less is more; don’t over-do assignment details
• Use the on-screen stimulus in app or document of guidance for the in-store experience
• Video files = big files, make sure app can ensure WiFi-only uploads to avoid participants data fees

In-Store

• Consider another set of hands – the “friends & family” recruit
• Add text and images to increase in-store feedback
• Provide participants with a Research Purpose letter for inquiring store personnel
• Don’t forget the “bookends” – the before and after video sessions

Data

• Expect a lot
• Make sure you’ve done the math on the “raw video to analysis time ratio”

Analysis

• Codes created during design can save time during analysis, and help identify new angles
• Codes can also help focus assignments, and ensure you get what the client is looking for
• Think about how your data will be stored, structured, and searchable – creating long-term value to shopper insights work

KS:  As a qualitative researcher who has been using Revelation since its inception in 2006, I consider Revelation’s core equity to be the one-on-one interview. Revelation|NEXT is clearly about group interaction. Help us understand what led Revelation to go in that direction, and why now.

Being born of a more ethnographic approach, Revelation indeed started out as a tool focused on enabling researchers to dig deeper into individual experiences, but we also recognized the value of group interaction. We always felt that it can be very powerful at times to have participants engage with each other, build community and increase learning from shared experiences, and we were always searching for the right way to make this happen in an elegant way. With NEXT, I believe we have really hit the mark in blending one-on-one depth with group interaction. In fact, with push notifications integrated into the mobile apps, it takes group interaction to a new level as in the moment engagement is now in the participants’ pockets.

KS:  How would you summarize what Revelation|NEXT is and what it does?

At its core, Revelation|NEXT is a mobile and web platform for capturing and understanding customer stories. It gives researchers the tools in both technology and methodology to capture behaviors, emotions and context, as well as helpful media and text visualization tools. Revelation | NEXT supports diaries, mini-documentaries, projectives, retail adventures, Pinterest-style visual sharing, and is used for all parts of the innovation cycle. It’s all encapsulated in an elegant and simple social interface.

KS:  Today, consumers expect fluid experiences across their devices (computers, tablets, phones), and Revelation|NEXT makes that possible. How does that impact the way researchers design a study in Revelation?  

When consumers can answer via both mobile and web, there are a couple of areas of impact. First, researchers need to think through which activities make the most sense on the web. When in the moment understanding is the goal, mobile is the clear winner.  When deep thinking and expression is the need, web is the better way to go. Second, you have more options for participant-to-participant engagement. How do you want people to build on each other? What activities are shared? When do you want people to be private? When do you want them to share? It’s an exciting time because we are still learning and discovering new possibilities.

KS:  What can be done now, or done better, with Revelation|NEXT versus the prior version? And why does that matter?

There are quite a few things that NEXT improves on over the prior version of Revelation. First, the mobile capabilities are hugely expanded and improved. We’ve brought the feel and function of a social app to qualitative research. Video can be streamed in both directions.  Participants can engage, comment on and/or like each other’s posts right on their phones via a social feed. Push notifications let people know when something has happened. We’ve also provided offline capabilities in case participants lose signal. On the web, we’ve brought Pinterest-style visual sharing that makes Revelation|NEXT feel much closer to a social app than a research app.

KS:  Please tell us about your plans to offer Revelation|NEXT in other languages.

Revelation|NEXT will be available in the majority of the 20 languages we support by early June, with a few more to come after that.

KS:  Finally, online qual has come a long way since the 1990′s. Considering that, finish this sentence with something from outside of the research industry:  The launch of Revelation|NEXT is like________.

The launch of Facebook.  Not because we presume NEXT is gong to have that kind of huge impact, but because Facebook successfully synthesized a number of key elements from previous social sites in new ways to create something unique and addictive. It blended the individual spaces of MySpace, the viral strategy of Plaxo and added its own twists – a simple feed design and an underlying algorithm. Whether you love or hate Facebook, the result was something very special. In designing Revelation NEXT, we were very thoughtful about building on our core capabilities and taking things from the social web that we hope will engage and inspire.

KS:  Thanks for sharing with us Steve!  For those interested in learning more, go to www.revelationglobal.com. 

Teens can be one of the least reliable when it comes to conducting any kind of qualitative research and online qualitative is no exception.  Hours can be wasted trying to track them down to complete a series of activities in a quality fashion.  The key to all of this is bringing the activities to them.

One thing we do know is that teens are online – all of them, all the time.  They’ve also never known a pre-internet (and smartphone) world, so communicating online is as natural for them as talking.  But just knowing they’re online isn’t enough.  We need to understand how they communicate, where they communicate and what motivates them to communicate beyond the normal monetary incentives.  It’s as equally important to recognize their limitations.

No surprises

Without giving away too much about the research, teens and their parents should be given an overview of the activities and what’s required at the recruiting stage.  This prevents people from over promising when they’ve got too many additional commitments through school, sports or other activities.  It also allows them to plan if you need to see them in action with their friends or family.  Research projects fall down the list of priorities when real life competes.

Social activities: a great way to share and connect

Teens with similar interests are eager to connect with each other and comfortable in online forums.  They are used to conversations that are presented as threaded.  That said, satisfying a research goal isn’t going to be their primary motivator.  They will want to present themselves, see what others have to offer and how they stack up against their peers.  Consider making all activities, that aren’t sensitive in nature, social – but only let them see what others are saying after they post about themselves.  This can easily be accomplished with online blogs and discussion boards.  If you tell them they will be able to browse through other posts, videos and comments after they complete their activity they will be more motivated to complete.

Why won’t they finish the last three activities???

One frustration I hear about constantly is the loss of interest from teen participants.  Halfway through the project, response rates dwindle and no amount of money seems to be able to change that.  While discussing how to approach this, one researcher suggested launching all activities (or most activities) at one time – allowing them to chose the ones they want to complete and in what order they’d like to do it.  They’re told upfront that they must finish three-quarters of the exercises in order to receive their incentives.  This puts them in control.  She indicated that more often than not, all respondents ultimately end up completing all the activities.  This idea seems to make sense if you are flexible with how you can structure your research.

A teen and their phone – The love story

It’s no secret a mobile phone is a teens best friend.  From texting, tweeting, organizing friends and sharing media, phones provide a way for teens to reach out to their inner circle and to the masses.  Current platform technologies allow us to reach into their worlds with similar ease.  Not only does mobile allow you to capture ‘in the moment’ insights but it removes barriers to getting information form them in the form of text, video and pictures.  Whether they are sitting in their room at night, on a break at school or out with their friends – we can reach them and they can reach us.  Don’t be afraid to ask them to get creative with these tools – use them in conjunction with other technologies and most importantly – make it fun!

Using sequencing as an incentive

People like immediate gratification – especially teens.  You can build a reward system into your research through sequencing.  Consider locking special games, polls or privileged information behind an activity you really need them to complete.  Response rates shoot way up when a perceived reward is available immediately.

At the end of the day – Kids will be kids

Teens are more independently minded and have greater purchasing power than ever before, but alas they are still kids.  They live in a world where their attention is being competed for by any number of outside sources – so patience and perseverance is key.  Hopefully some of the suggestions we list above can make this road a bit less bumpy for you.

New technology brings note-taking to the next level

No one welcomes the moment during in-person research when you turn to the stack of folded, sticky flip chart pages filled with your not-so-lovely handwriting and start strategizing about how to fit them into your luggage.  Even worse, when you get back to the office, you need to begin the painful process of transcribing the drawings, notes, lists and feedback into a separate document to send out to the research team.

It has always concerned me that valuable insights get lost in this process.  I worry my circles around parts of concepts won’t translate well to a text document.  Or that the vitality of the discussion and the passion around certain ideas is represented better by the voracity of underlinings or x-marks on the original flip chart pages.

During a recent San Francisco QRCA chapter meeting, I encountered a way of taking notes during focus groups, interviews, concept evaluation or ideation sessions that offered a solution to these concerns (smarttech.com).

Tragon, a workspace and facility in the South Bay of San Francisco, has added SMART Boards to their discussion rooms, allowing moderators and facilitators to project any image (concept, attribute list, prototype etc.) onto a white board, take notes on the projected image with electronic markers and save the image with the notes included.  This saved image can then be directly emailed to the collaboration/research team.

As Steve Willis, Senior Sensory and Consumer Insights Manager at Tragon, says:

“You used to have to take pictures of your notes in the board or use huge sticky notes to take them with you.  Now all you have to do is write on the board and send that document to yourself.”  He cautions that “some people tend to be afraid of them because it’s a technology that many people haven’t seen” but “it’s great for collaboration and the team here uses the SMART Boards almost everyday.” 

SMART Board technology allows multiple interactive displays to support collaboration by enabling teams to amalgamate information from different sources and work together on multiple files, at the same time. The company’s usage instructions explain more about how the process works.

While SMART Boards are being used in a number of educational settings, I would love to see more qualitative research facilities install this system!  Ask your favorite facilities if they have heard of SMART Boards and if not, spread the word.

On January 21^st, ActiveGroup (the US-based company that provides videostreaming to the market research industry) introduced a new tool described as the first mobile app built for qualitative researchers to allow the capture of video, audio and images from the field and enable easy sharing with clients and colleagues.  Currently, the app is available for the iPad, with work underway for mobile phones.

I had the chance to interview David Nelems, president and founder of ActiveGroup,
and to see a demo of Capture.  As a result, I’m going to be upgrading my iPad to the newer version with the built-in camera to take advantage of this new tool (and am thinking the iPad Mini to be less intrusive).  Capture may replace my Flip Video camera and LiveScribe pen as two of my digital field tools; I wonder if I will want to keep using my iPhone (once that app becomes available) or if I will like working with the iPad?  Time will tell!

Here’s the interview:

KS:  What was the inspiration for developing Capture?

My wife Janelle, who has been a qualitative research consultant for 18 years, was my inspiration.  I saw her struggle with the technology when doing research in non-traditional locations.  She could capture video but then it was too hard to share that video with anyone else.  Moving the content from the camera to the computer, then editing that video down so you could email a 3 minute video clip (if the email did not reject the attachment).  Or trying to get FTP access to upload a long video.  It was all so cumbersome and frustrating.  When she had technical issues, she would always ask me for help.  After I got involved I thought, “There has to be an easier way!”  That easier way is Capture.

KS:  How would you summarize what Capture is and what it does?

It is a tool that allows professional researchers to capture video, audio and images and easily upload and share that content in an integrated system with interested viewers.  Never before has the experience of watching your customer in the field been so easy to Capture and so easy to share.  It allows you to tell a rich story.

KS:  Most mobile app developers in the market research space have focused on the consumer.  ActiveGroup led with an app designed for the qualitative researcher.  What led you to launch in that order?

I have a full service marketing research background.  My father started his MR company back in 1972 and I grew up in the industry.  When I looked at the apps available for research, specifically qualitative, they were all based from the consumer point of view.  Obviously that is important and a consumer-based app is something we are working on.  But I felt there were not any tools for the professional qualitative researcher.  While self-directed interviews and DIY is fine for some projects, there still needs to be a focus on professional researchers that can conduct research.  People that know the questions to ask, that can read the non-verbal clues and subtle signs that a respondent is giving off.  To probe and clarify.  To find the answer.  While I am a proponent of more research being done whether it is through professionals or something like Survey Monkey, the more a company knows about their client the better it is.  However I don’t like the idea of my wife and her colleagues being replaced by “QualMonkey.”  Hence Capture.  An app designed for professional qualitative researchers to allow them to do their job more efficiently in a more mobile world.

KS:  What are some of the ways you see Capture being used and by whom?

Any type of professional researcher can use Capture:

• With a doctor at their office
• In a mall or restaurant
• Shop-a-longs
• Drive-a-longs
• Ethnography at a respondent’s home
• Interviewing in developing markets
• In-depth telephone interviews (you can record a telephone audio track)
• Photos from the field of anything related to the project
• At meetings and conventions
• Wherever you need to conduct research 

KS:  Tell me about your plans to bring Capture to mobile phones.

The iPhone version is in development now.  Because of the smaller screen size, certain elements of the user interface have to be scaled down and simplified.  We have known this for awhile.  We also wanted to release the iPad version first, get feedback from users and see what improvements we can pull into the phone version.  I’m excited to see how Capture will evolve based on what we learn from users.  There will also be an Android version eventually.

KS:  What do you suggest for researchers who want to learn more about Capture?

Go to our website.  We have a lot of resources from short how-to video tutorials, to FAQs and quick start documents.  I also love doing demos. Let me know if you want one via a screen share.  Our demo process is really slick.  It’s all real time, no smoke and mirrors, no static screen shots.  You see the whole process in real time.

KS:  David, thanks for building a tool to help out qual researchers as managing all those video files can really be cumbersome.  I’m looking forward to giving Capture a try and will definitely share an update with you and our readers.  And those of you reading who try out Capture, please share your feedback too!

Rocky and rough or sunshine ahead? Consumer social media commentary helps assess the landscape.

Social media research is an ideal technique for understanding a product or service landscape through the consumer lens.  If you’re asking, “what are existing or potential competitors doing today, and how is it being received?” there is often ample evidence in the social media space.  This type of research is usually very informal, but is perfect for scenarios that don’t involve high financial risk and give guidance for areas to further investigate with other forms of research.

How to assess the landscape via social media:

Step 1.  Establish a framework to work against.  For example’s sake, let’s say I decide to use this ATL framework from Michele Levy in Inc’s How To Conduct Competitive Research, with these italicized builds:

• Elevator pitch (Brief answer to the question “Who is this company?”)  Who do their consumers say they are?
• Mission (If it exists.)  What do consumers say they’re in the space for?
• Products/services offered (with pricing)  What do consumers think about the products and services, along with their pricing?
• Strengths (What is the competitor good at?)  What do consumers say they’re good at?
• Weaknesses (Where does the competitor fall short?)  What do consumers say their unmet needs and pain points are?
• Key brand differentiators (What are the messaging, product/service offerings, etc., that set the competitor apart from their competition?)  And, what do consumers say sets the product/service apart from competitors?

Step 2.  Social media commentary that demonstrates the consumer point of view on each of the above areas are “tagged” as such, by exporting commentary into Excel, re-posting onto a private Tumblr blog, or any other way of gathering and grouping comments and “coding” with the corresponding area.  So, a comment about x competitor that says, “I love this brand because it doesn’t peel or crack over time!” might be “tagged” as a strength for competitor x.  Explore relevant consumer social media channels and repeat this tagging process.  I’ll pause here to say that aggregation platforms that provide historical data offer a significant advantage here because all of the verbatims are in one place and the researcher doesn’t necessarily have to scour the web (although, it’s still often necessary as not all relevant social media channels are always scraped by aggregation platforms and often there’s some great insights in non-verbal videos or images.)

Step 3.  Group comments for each ATL framework area together visually and re-read.  Ask yourself:

• What knowledge gaps exist?
• What are the outliers and why are they there?
• Where might more information need to be gathered from?  Go do it.

Step 4.  Put a report together for your team that outlines your findings.

Yes, it really can be that simple.  Of course, there are lots of other things that can be considered to make this much more formal but if your team is looking to do a quick and dirty directional take from social media commentary, this can be extremely helpful.  Clients have utilized such reports to inform new white space territory and new targets, for example. •

What are the ways that you’re using social media research to aid in assessing the landscape? 

In this era of over-sharing, curated storytelling is imperative.  While many of us own and use smartphones as cameras, it’s a challenge to remember to do something with the pictures and videos that we capture with these devices.

Many of us love to capture pictures and videos on our phones, and more often than not, we try to publish the most irresistible moments in our social galleries. (There’s an undeniable sense of accomplishment when I can share my stories and memories—perhaps you can relate.)

This is no different for our market research projects. If anything, it’s even more important to share key pictures and videos from our projects to help tell the story across clients’ reports and presentations.

Whether we want to make an album, an elaborate scrapbook, float it all in the Cloud on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or deliver an outstanding report or presentation that really gets to the heart of the story with consumers and clients—most DIY options can be overwhelming, expensive, and for some, it can feel like a chore.

It is time to rethink the way we share mobile pictures and videos—and consume other mobile media—and look for tech-savvy time-savers.

Recently, I was excited to run across a bunch of new, free iPhone apps with robust movie-making and storytelling capabilities: Qwiki, Givit, Magisto, Viddy and Splice. These tools allow anyone with an iPhone to turn pictures and videos into a brief movie that you can share in minutes!

Again, I got that research-geek thrill to uncover how these tools could potentially benefit all areas of market research:

• Introductions/Warm-up
• Homework
• “On-demand” Movie/Video Collage Activity
• Reporting
• Presentations

Our participants are able to capture so many timely moments for us on a variety of mobile devices (smartphones, iPads, digital cameras, you name it!). It’s really up to us to deliver a system that organizes and focuses all of this data.

Qwiki is my favorite app of the bunch, as it automates the picture/video selection process into a one-click movie. The app works by automatically stitching together media from the iPhone camera roll and creates a 30-second to one-minute mashup from a certain day or album.

Song selection for the Qwiki occurs from the phone’s music library or from “soundtracks” preloaded in the app. Perfectionists and those of us with additional interest can easily play around with media configurations and change the audio track, which gives us an even deeper look into the mood of the visuals.

To give you a feel for the output, here’s a sample Qwiki video collage (pics and videos) of advertising around Chicago:

Indeed, video collages and movie mashups can bring impressive creativity and flexibility to qualitative research:

• Introductions/Warm-up: participants share a brief video collage or slideshow of their family, interests, typical day
• Homework or “On-demand” Movie/Video Collage Activity: participants create video collages and movie mash-up from experiences captured on their phones
• Reporting: Integrate a video collage (that we’ve created) of participants’ key pictures and videos for a quick debrief/recap
• Presentations: Show a similar video collage to get the discussion started, bringing the project to life!

The seamlessness of such videos add richness and energy to our stories in all of the ways above, as well as any others that we can dream up.

The days of our Creative Departments and contracting with a video editor are by no means “over.” These apps lack the ability to output a professionally designed highlight reel with exact precision, multiple formats, or perfect image resolution, and its related audio effects and capabilities are limited, at best.

Still, these new apps are remarkably efficient, and we’ve certainly found another cool solution to elevate our perceptions of the smarts in our smartphones! Telling a great story is even easier as we ramp up our use of video collages—and make them faster, better, cheaper with today’s mobile capabilities. ◙

What are your suggestions and feedback around these new apps? How are you integrating videos into your current market research efforts? Post a comment to share what you think!