If you're running an online insight community, be it project-based or longitudinal, you might experience times when the level of discussion is lower than you'd like it to be. When this happens, there are a number of ways you can stimulate conversation.

Here are some suggestions of the kind of conversations that rarely fail to get people posting with vigour. As you'll see, nearly all are 'about them' and provide a platform for them to talk about their favourite subject, 'themselves'.

What are the three favourite things you couldn't live without?

No matter what type of person or character they are, all members have products or certain things they couldn't do without, so it's an easy in and always get's a response. What's more, members love to look at what other members have said, so make it a public profiling exercise if possible

What is your goal in life?

Again, members are always keen to spend time sharing their goals and how far they have come in achieving them, so use this conversation at the start of your community to get people motivated.

Place the following items in order of preference

This could be musicians or bands, tv shows or personalities, for example. It never fails to attract attention.

Who do you most admire in life and why?

This is a very philosophical and thoughtful conversation, and is always a winner when looking to focus members on upcoming exercises that require deep thoughts and reflection.

Tell me about your typical day?

Good or bad, everyone likes to share their day with you, from the moment they get up to their journey to work. It's an easy-in and always provides unique response

To find out more about how Dub can help inject some life into your insight and innovation community, contact stephen@dubstudios.com or call +44 (0) 20 7247 3327

Categories: MROC.
Tags: conversations, exercises

At Dub, we help our global clients (brands and agencies) create private, invite-only online communities for the purpose of delivering game-changing insights, collaborative innovation and co-creation. This means helping bring together a brand and its customers, but also those who aren't yet consuming their products or services, or those that actively don't want to. These are often referred to as outliers or abstainers, and they are the people who can deliver the best ideas and the richest insights.

The insight communities we help create can be categorised as either Project-based or Longitudinal.

1. Project-based Insight Communities

As the name suggests, these communities are short-lived; typically a couple of days up to a a few weeks. They are tasked to meet a single project objective (research, insight or co-creation) and once this has been achieved, they are quickly disbanded.

Being focused on a single objective means that activity is over a shorter period but is likely to be intensive. Members of the community are likely be assigned exercises on a daily basis, and these can range from blogging, keeping diaries, roleplaying, group discussions, surveys and polls, and brainstorms. Unlike traditional research techniques, members have a much clearer idea as to what is happening with the information and ideas they share since the asynchronous nature of the engagement affords the Community Manager / Moderator the time to feedback. This in itself motivates participation.

In support of project-based insight communities, Dub has the leading platform called IdeaStream

2. Longitudinal Insight Communities

Brands like the opportunity longitudinal insight communities afford, since it's like getting a large number of their most valued customers together in a room and making them available to answer any questions anyone in the organisation has at any time, 24/7.

Because of the longer-term nature of these communities, different tactics and resources need to be deployed to keep them alive and active. This includes going behind just the task-based level of interaction seen in the project-based communities, and allowing members to go off-piste and start their own discussions. The community (and insight) will also benefit from letting members strike-up their own relationships, as it allows the brand to witness their customers talking about their products and services in the most natural, unfacilitated fashion.

To help you deliver successful longitudinal insight communities, Dub has developed the UpClose platform.

In addition to providing the best technology, Dub has a wealth of experience in how to find the right people for your community, how to engage and optimise your time with them, and how to ensure your members are motivated and rewarded over time. Dub can help you plan how long your community should be and give you guidance on how to deliver design effective online research.

To find out more about how Dub can help you fire-up your insight communities, make better decisions and be more innovative, contact stephen@dubstudios.com

Categories: Co-creation, IdeaStream, MROC, Online Communities.
Tags: ideastream, UpClose

If you've embarked upon the creation of a longitudinal insight community consisting of customers, non-customers, outliers and abstainers, then one of the challenges you might find is how to pro-actively fire-start new discussions around topics that are a) relevant to the community, b) going to get a good response, and c), most important of all, are insightful.

Take time to look around (outside the realms of your community) at some of the most actively engaged communities in the same topic area. Pay attention to the news and latest issues affecting consumers or culture, for example. Ask yourself if these discussions would ignite within your own insight community and consider kick-starting them.

Within longitudinal insight communities, you can create the topic areas and allow your members to add the threads within it, so carefully consider the construction of the topics to encourage this interaction.

Categories: Community Management, MROC, Online Communities.
Tags: discussions, forums

This afternoon, our founder and CEO Stephen Cribbett will be speaking on Radio NewMR alongside Rosie Campbell and Lenny Murphy (Green Book, US) about where he sees MROCs going and what's going to make waves in 2012.

To tune in and listen to the debate, click here

Categories: MROC, Market Research.
Tags: newmr

As MROCs (or insight communities) continue to gather pace and mature as a methodology, so to does the way in which they are measured and the techniques used to manage them.

We've long been touting the benefits of small but focused communities where membership numbers are no more than 300. That's not to say you can't invite more people, but the quality of the participation and output will fall as you go much beyond these numbers, as will the time and cost of managing the community and analysing the output.

While there are still researchers and research departments that use the language of 'completes' when referring to the success of their insight community, we always push back and talk to them about 'engagement' and how you can get much greater value from a smaller number of participants, both in terms of their overall participation with the tasks and exercises but also their average number of contributions.

This metric becomes even more prevalent when you start to consider moving your insight community into a phase of co-creation where you are looking to collaborate with the leading 1% of your customer base.

Another reason why your community needs to be smaller in size and more focused is that consumers are now members of more networks and groups than ever before. To cut through the white noise is thus increasingly difficult, and puts more emphasis in the design of engaging, creative research and the need to make the intrinsic motivational factors (membership, connectivity etc) work even harder.

To find out more about how Dub can help you engage the top 1% of your customer base and build thriving communities for insight, innovation and cocreation, contact Stephen Cribbett on +44 (0) 20 7247 3327

Categories: Co-creation, Community Management, MROC, Online Communities.
Tags: cocreation, metric, MROC

We'd like to welcome you to the first in what we hope to be many posts from qualitative researchers across the globe that have used our software - IdeaStream, HeadsUp and UpClose - to deliver outstanding research. We very much hope that the series stimulates debate and discussion, and we encourage you to post your comments and questions back to the author.

So without further ado, please welcome Dr Alison Lyons from Counterpoint Research. Alison recently worked with Dub to deliver an study that looked into premium lager consumption behaviours. Being Scottish, Alison assured us she knew her subject and could hold her own in any forum, so we put her to the test. Here's what she had to say....

Say hello and introduce yourself to our readers, highlighting your online and offline experience.

Hi there, I'm Alison Lyon and I've been a researcher for over 20 years. My first job was lecturing in Research Methods and Education, after which I moved into commercial market research. I kept up an interest in new methods though, and established a qualitative telephone unit at Network Research, before setting up Counterpoint Research in 1991. We were one of the very first UK agencies to start offering online methodologies, so it's really exciting to see them incorporated pretty much across the board nowadays.

From your experience, what do you glean from online qual methods (communities, bulletin boards etc) that you don’t get from more traditional f2f methods?

Time, reflection and creativity. Face to face is brilliant for living in the moment, pushing respondents into uncomfortable spaces, in-depth conversations and visceral reactions. Online is much better when you need more time to track not only how people feel 'in the moment', but also once they've thought about it, talked about it with their friends/ family, changed their minds a couple of times and (usually) landed on a compromise opinion.

It's also great when you want to encourage a lot of independent interaction between respondents. Often the most fascinating discussions start when participants ask each other questions : questions you might not ask as a moderator.

The most often-cited advantage of online methods is that they don't require participants to be physically present all at the same time, in the same location, so it makes peer to peer interaction possible between a much broader range of the population.

When you choose to use online methods, what are the most common drivers?

Most experienced researchers will look at the research problem and consider what methods will work best, in what kind of combination - nowadays that should mean considering on and offline methods.

I'd say the most common reasons I have for recommending an online approach are :

- when the service/ product/ problem to be researched is also based online

- as mentioned above - when you need to give respondents time and space to reflect, look at the issues from another angle, talk about it etc.

- when you need a balance between the individual's story and group reactions (e.g. including diaries/ blogs/ journals as well as online discussions)

- and yes, logistics (geographically spread sample, professionals/ stakeholders who can't commit to being physically available all at the same time etc)

- when the topic is extremely personal, and/ or complex - so respondents will struggle to express themselves well without feeling under pressure in a face to face environment

What do you see as the difference, if any, in the way people express themselves online versus in person?

There are lots of differences, which obviously need to be taken into consideration when designing and analysing online content - but they also vary depending on who you've invited online.

For instance, elderly investors unused to having anything like a discussion online are much more like their offline selves. They take time and spell out all their words, include all the punctuation and get annoyed when they make spelling mistakes.

Young people used to social networking tend to express themselves much more emphatically online - their emotions tend to be bigger, and expressed very quickly. But they'll also change their mind more quickly and be open to others' points of view.

An enormous benefit of online with young people is that there isn't that difficult, awkwardness you sometimes get when you ask a group of strangers to come together, open up and be frank with one another.

What tactics and tools do you use successfully to manage the rivers of data produced in online research communities?

The best online platform/ software providers allow you to organise the content as you're reading through it to respond to it - I really like features such as IdeaStream's 'rating' and annotation facilities. They work really well and are brilliant visual 'breaks' in a sea of text.

It also allows you to analyse video / photographic / graphics content alongside respondents' stories.

BUT ... the absolutely golden rule is whatever happens in your life / work / relationship / library subscription (remember those?!), stay on top of the content. If you fall behind you will not catch up.

Do you think clients are more or less excited by online research communities than researchers, and why?

I've seen an incredibly wide range of responses to the whole online research offer from both clients and researchers. But it's rare that either researchers or clients have experienced online qualitative research without being excited by it ... and those who weren't were few and judging online options as "cheap" options. Which they're not.

What do you most enjoy about running online research communities?

Like with face to face research, it's the people. I absolutely love the way research participants will share their feelings, ideas, experiences, fears, aspirations in such a generous way. The difference with online is that we give them so many ways to explore and feedback - it's not just time limited and mainly speech-based.

I also love working longer term with participants and clients - that is incredibly fulfilling.

Finally, I enjoy the buzz participants get out of working in such cool and innovative ways, and being able to see what a difference they make as their ideas are acted upon.

How do you sell the benefits of online research communities to your clients, and what do you see as the ongoing challenges of encouraging clients that it’s the right fit with their objectives?

I talk about the frankness, the creativity and the depth they'll get from their participants, and about how involved they'll be able to get.

I also talk about the beautiful transparency of online approaches, and how they'll have a much closer relationship with their customers because of online communities.

I also talk about their responsibilities - if they're asking their customers to give so much to them, they have to think carefully about what they're giving back.

What participants do you think are the best fit with online methods and why?

Do you know, I've used online approaches with the least tech-savvy people and had absolutely fantastic results. But obviously the less the participants have been online, the more work needs to go into preparing an environment where they feel comfortable.

So I'd say don't rule anyone out, and don't automatically think that young people will always be right for online on every topic.

Do you have any examples of online tasks and exercises that have worked extremely well and exceeded your expectations?

I conducted a series of online forums on the topic of egg and sperm donation for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority recently. The target audience was the general public and those with an active faith. The forums took place over 5-6 days and were absolutely fascinating. By encouraging participants to talk with friends and family about the issues being raised in the forum we were able to understand attitudes on a much deeper level.

Participants also started interacting with one another in a fascinating way, sharing some very personal, private and difficult moments with one another, and providing support and encouragement.

At the end of the project I had received a mountain of personal emails from participants, saying how amazed they were that they were able to participate so easily and how perfect an environment online had been for exploring such complex, difficult and personal issues.

Whatever the task, the best online platforms make it fun, easy and quick for respondents to feed back what they've done in a creative, interesting and thoughtful way. It has to make them look good to keep them engaged and involved.

What are you most excited about in the world of online qual research right now?

I'm really excited about how online platforms are much more flexible, and how easy it is now to combine approaches: so a few key participants in a longer term community can be asked to participate in mini-focus groups, tasks can be analysed alongside forum responses, or blogs etc. In the past researchers had to decide on either a forum, or an online texting group, or a video-conference, or a community ... nowadays we can spec what we think is appropriate for different issues and participants, and the software/ platform can cope with it.

Categories: Community Management, MROC, Market Research, Moderation.

As those of you involved in social networks and online communities will know, it's the intrinsic factors that often motivate people the most, for example 'connectedness', 'membership', 'sharing' and generosity'. However, a fascinating and recent study by two economists, Xiaoquan Zhang and Feng Zhu, examined contributors to the internet phenomena that is Wikipedia. For those of you not familiar with Wikipedia then it can be described as an online encyclopedia that can be edited and managed by literally anyone. What's more, Wikipedia is a collaborative site that stores details of all of the edits ever made and by whom, and there's also a live chat environment where contributors can discuss and collaborate.

What they found was that contributions from regular users (editors and authors) strangely dropped by around 40%. As the normal rules of participation would have it, these contributors should be 'more' active in order to get the work done since they care enough about Wikipedia to cover the downtime caused elsewhere. The conclusions that this episode has drawn are that contributors are also motivated by the notion of someone watching them. Why contribute when nobody is watching? To back this up, it happened to be those contributors that regularly access the live chat pages that were most disengaged.

Categories: MROC, Online Communities.
Tags: contribution, motivation, wiki, wikipedia

We've built and facilitated over a hundred online communities purposed with delivering fresh insight, eureka moments and relationships, and we're constantly impressed by the energy, enthusiasm and creativity extolled by consumers. Not only does the convenience of these methods facilitate better results (than traditional research techniques), it brings out the creative best in people since the rewards and value is a combination of the emotional, social, physical and financial.

We talk to our clients about the merits of 'narrative journeys'; the creation of a beginning, a middle and an end to the story that results in co-created value. Give consumers room to manoeuvre and a multitude of ways in which they can express themselves, and combine this with the ability to continually iterate the exercises and you've got a melting pot of insight and ideas.

The most successful insight and co-creation communities are those that are led by skilled Community Managers - a new breed of research moderators. Community Managers are story tellers, conversationalists and relationship brokers, and they display bags of passion in order to inject enthusiasm and energy into the community. It's a fun and interesting role that many researchers new to the discipline and quickly falling in love with as they really get to 'know' their community as people they are and not just as 'respondents'.

One strategic intent of your insight and co-creation community should be to fish out the top 1%. These can be your leading advocates, the most creative, the most digitally connected etc. Finding them is critical, and this is where we move from research into co-creation. We must drop the argument about bias and representation and look further forward. As researchers we need to be part of the creation process as well as helping clients understand what went before.

Create the right environment within your community and the ideas and insights will flow, rapidly! Build relationships and your community will be engaged and motivated to co-develop new ideas without the need to financially motivate them. Listen carefully, talk clearly and remain open, honest and transparent and you'll do well. Goodbye focus groups, hello future. It's a brave new world we are entering into as researchers, but the future looks bright. Our skills and craft are not lost, they are developing and increasing in relevance.

Categories: Co-creation, MROC, Online Communities.

We've just received a lovely quote from a moderator that has just completed an online study using our IdeaStream platform. Here words were...

"I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the platform is so easy it saves a heck of a lot of time, encourages the participants to work much harder, and makes the moderator's job much easier"

Not sure what we can add to that, other than if you haven't experienced our online research platforms for yourself, your missing out!

Get in touch with stephen@dubstudios.com to find out more.

Categories: Community Management, Online Communities.
Tags: ideastream, Moderation

If you are planning your first MROC and are unsure as to how your members will respond, worry not. This is a common concern among budding research community managers, and one that can reigned in by reducing risk and starting small.

Hand pick only a small number of participants that fit your the criteria and invite them to join your community. Your first few activity should always be to engage them, but don't fell pressured to engage them straight away with research activities. Start slowly by building some profiling exercises and ask your initial members what would motivate them to participate in the communities activities, now and into the future. Not only does this technique get them talking about themselves - something we're all seemingly happy to do - it will help you understand their motivations for taking part and provide valuable information you can use to derive a strategy for incentives as the community grows and you look to build participation.

When your members start to become active contributors, you know you're doing something right and rewarding them in the right way. Remember, online research communities provide simple and convenient ways to share some of the insights gleaned with your members, so keep them informed and they'll reward you with greater levels of focus, interest and contribution.

Get the rewards and incentives right in the early stages and your community will thrive. And as a guide, think about not just cash incentives, but look into some of the softer rewards such as status, knowledge, responsibility and social connectivity.

Categories: Community Management, MROC, Online Communities.