I had the honour of spending three days with some of the market research industry's leading brains recently in Malta, at Merlien Institute's Qualitative Consumer Research & Insights 2011 conference. Among those attending were MR legend Ray Poynter, Di Tunney of Live Insights, Frank Geers of InSites, Jochum Stienstra from Ferro Explore! and Will Goodhand, Juicy Evangelist from BrainJuicer.

You can see a selection of the presentation here for yourself, and in particular I'd draw your attention to a fantastic presentation and discussion lead by Aaron Reid of Sentient Decision which centred on 'free will' and the science of neuroscience, an area that is clearly becoming much lauded within MR circles.

My presentation is also here for you to see in glorious technicolour (below). As you will see, I challenged the role and approach of MR agencies as the onslaught of social media led methodologies continues to encroach on old-world techniques. Tell me what you think, join the debate....
Research communities an agency proposition or brand asset

Clients can be strange creatures at the best of times, not least when they ask for login details to see what’s going on in real-time within their online research community or bulletin board, but then never actually turn up! We’ve been asking the question ‘why is this happening?’, and have come up with some answers that may help overcome the apparent lack of engagement.

We believe that clients fail to logon as often as hoped for, for one of the following reasons:

1. They are incredibly time-poor
2. It’s not high on their priority list
3. They are asking for login details simply to tick a box, but never intend to logon in the first place
4. They are afraid of the technology and don’t get the right training and support
5. There’s so much data for them to observe and interact with that is scares them off

At Dub, we believe that online qual can deliver a new level of client engagement with the research if handled correctly. We’ve made steps towards supporting this, and have developed a new product that, when deployed alongside other techniques, will get them more engaged and, in turn, more insightful.

To begin with, here are some top tips - things you can do to get them more engaged:

1. Brief them thoroughly on the approach you are taking, the nature of the study design, and what the output will look like.
2. Schedule time to involve them in training on how to use the software, as without it they’ll feel alienated and afraid (your software vendor should be able to provide this support)
3. Keep the client training light - they don’t need to know how to do everything, just to observe and review the output
4. Send them regular digest reports - by email, telephone or whatever the most appropriate method - and include the most colourful, rich conversations and discussions posted
5. Give clients the opportunity to co-design a task or two towards the end of the project, thus  retaining their level of engagement throughout the project

Dissecting the points highlighted above, you’ll spot the need for some smart tools (technology / social software) to help deliver some of these methods. At voila, Dub has derived a number of new tools that can provide the client with a curated view of the latest and the most valuable conversations taking place. Despite not yet having a name (please feel free to make suggestions), the product provides an easily navigable web-based interface that removes many of the controls required to ‘run’ the project on IdeaStream (our online qual software). This clearly makes the interface more efficient and easier for the client to use. It can be customised and also allows the client to enter into conversation with the researcher via a commenting tool as well as being able to quickly share content with colleagues. Content presented to the client is easily curated by the researcher via IdeaStream.

A second new web-based product that Dub are developing is a Project Insight Management & Collaboration platform that allows the research project team (clients, researchers and other stakeholders) to seamlessly share information, collaborate and build ideas online, without the need to be ‘in the room’ or ‘on the phone’. It will run independently of IdeaStream, and will be licensed on a project-by-project basis. If you’re interested to learn more about either of these products, please contact Stephen Cribbett.

Stephen Cribbett
stephen@dubstudios.com
+44 (0) 20 7247 3327 /
m. +44 (0) 7973 663867

Added Value - part of the WPP marketing services group of companies - is the world’s leading brand development and marketing insight company with some 25 offices worldwide and a global client list that spans all categories.

 Dub have been working with Added Value for over three years, developing and enhancing a leading-edge digital insight and innovation tool that helps them to source the latest ideas, insights and opinions from consumers and experts around the world, without the need to bring together contributors - an activity that can prove costly and inefficient.  By both providing the social software and helping the client with some of the finer points of building and managing online communities, Dub has helped Added Value win more pitches, delivered more creative multimedia insight, and cemented its positioning as one of the leading industry innovators.

The platform, designed to support Added Value’s work - known as AV-id - makes use of micro-blogging, IM, forums, bulletin boards and media-sharing technologies, and harnesses the latest social networking behaviours to support live and ongoing dialogue among leading-edge consumers and experts from around the world. Added Value consultants are empowered with a unique moderation toolkit that allows them to interact directly with the community whilst sharing their thoughts and ideas with other members of the project team in both local and remote offices.

Driving actionable insight

By assigning members of the niche online communities structured tasks and activities, (of both a qualitative and quantitative nature), a stream of rich, multimedia insight and consciousness flows. Data visualisation tools such as tag clouds help strategists identify trending topics and emergent themes, and subsequently used to spot issues that require further investigation and probing.

Idea generation and collaboration innovation

Recognising that traditional research techniques can sometime be a one-way street, we worked with Added Value to develop a number of collaborative tasks and techniques that allow members of the communities to generate and share ideas, and then select winning ideas. This co-creation technique is widely accepted as a new paradigm that brands are quickly latching on to as they seek to enhance their innovation  capabilities.

Usability, training and adoption

Today,  many of us use social software in our own private lives, but relatively few are adopting them in the workplace to enhance productivity and, as in this case, support greater insight and connectedness.  Knowing this, we worked in partnership with Added Value on a rigorous education and adoption program for key Added Value stakeholders, including a regular series of global webinars and inspiration sessions. These sessions also provide the opportunity for valuable debate that feeds into the platform's ongoing development program.

The AV-id platform and  methodologies it supports are being deployed around the world everyday by Added Value, and in languages including Spanish, French, Polish, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, Korean and Italian.

As well as being used to engage consumers and experts, AV-id is equally at home engaging internal stakeholders - marketers, R&D teams, designers etc - and creating internal innovation communities.

For Bel - a global food company - AVid was deployed to help marketers, R&D professionals and designers come together to create new ideas and innovative solutions to everyday problems they face.

To-date, brands including Pepsi Lipton International, Meetic, Tefal, Reliant Energy, and Barilla among others have embraced the AV-id approach.

We've talked about internal communities and using social networks to power business before, here, on this blog, and time and again we get pressed about the risk that these new informal, more open structures present, over and above traditional command-and-control models. Most commonly, people want to know about how they can tackle their security concerns and whether or not letting employees loose with social media will result in a reduction in productivity.

We've said before that by building an internal culture around trust, creativity and greater freedom will in fact enhance productivity, and allow people to shine. However, it's vitally important that you engage and educate your people first, then set some clear guidelines that they can follow.  This creates the right environment for people to thrive and a framework that supports better work practice and efficiency.

In support of these discussions are a few useful resources that we've come across. StopBlocking.org is a resource for those that vehemently believe that the benefits outweigh the risks.

Here you'll find a new report by Cisco Systems carried out among medium-to-large enterprises across ten countries. The establishes out that more than half of organisations sampled prohibit use of social media or collaborative tools, but that half of the end users admit to ignoring company policies prohibiting use of Social Media, with a further 27% admitting they change settings on corporate devices to gain access!

And finally, this is a great post containing Five Reasons Why Companies Should Not Block Employee Access to Social Networks. It speaks for itself really.

If you're still struggling to make the right decisions, why not drop me a line and let's get our heads together to determine the best approach for you and your organisation.

Background
The Lexi Cinema is one of the most innovative and state-of-the-art micro-cinemas in the UK. As well as being one of London’s newest arthouse cinemas, it’s also a Social Enterprise, raising funds for the The Sustainability Institute's activities in South Africa.

Objectives
Not only were the Lexi’s management team in the dark about social media, they were unclear as to what it could deliver for their organisation. Having approached them with an open mind (and open ears), we quickly came to the conclusion that they needed help demystifying the world of online social media. In turn, it was identified that some basic social media campaign work that could increase occupancy and help spread the good word of the team’s efforts, their fantastic venue and the awe-inspiring program of films and events.

Solution
Our starting point was a series of managed workshops and engagement sessions with the management team. Stakeholders were presented the opportunity to ask those awkward questions they always wanted to know about Social Media, but were too afraid to ask. Detailed show’n’tell sessions ensued, allowing the team to get hands-on with social media services, thus removing all fear of failure!

With the basics out the way and the team knowing the difference between a tweet, a troll and a tag, we set about developing and implementing a social media strategy. The focus was to engage two key audiences; local cinema-goers and content producers. With very tight budgets and minimal resources available, the solution needed to adopt free and open social networking platforms. We set about building a Lexi community of cinema-goers on Facebook, and focusing more on niche producer networks using Twitter and it's in-built monitoring tools. Hashtags proved invaluable when igniting conversations around specific films and cultural events such as the live stream from The Met in New York.

Local audience groups were invited to join The Lexi's Facebook page, where they received regular film updates and could swap their views and opinions. We trained the client in the fine art of Community Management and sat back and watched the conversations flow. For The Lexi, the ability to get direct feedback from the horse's mouth proved invaluable!

Twitter was then used to engage with content producers, and other cultural thought-leaders in order to spread the wider word.

Results
With an online community of over 1000 connected people, our Social Media Strategy has almost doubled The Lexi's subscriber base in little over 6 months. More importantly, bums-on-seats have increased and brand awareness is at a high thanks to the multitude of online conversations taking place daily. Those that joined the community are more likely to visit the cinema on more than one occasion, and traffic to the website has seen a significant increase - along with online ticket sales.

But don't take it from me, here's what the client says;

I wish we had a working relationship with all our suppliers and service providers, like the relationship we have with Dub. They just get it!

Results: significant increase in bums on seats in our cinema (!), significantly increased traffic to our website, the establishment and maintenance of two flourishing and engaged communities through Facebook and Twitter, people mentioning our Facebook and Twitter communities at the bar in the cinema, significantly improved search ranking and an in-depth but clear and simple consultation document on the best way forward for our business, online and in the area of social media. We are very lucky.

From the outset, Stephen and the team at Dub understood the challenges facing a local social enterprise micro-cinema with a less-than-ideal physical location and a minuscule marketing budget.  Energy, enthusiasm, the ability to really listen, the intelligence to quickly appreciate strategic and operational context, and, of course, the patience to explain the finer points of social media marketing to the, er, shall we say…less technologically aware – Dub have these qualities in abundance, not to mention the more prosaic qualities of responding quickly to queries and delivering things when they say they will.  If our plans for cinema world domination come to fruition, I’m sure it will be in no small part down to Stephen and the team at Dub.

And finally, The Lexi Cinema has a blueprint with which to extend their estate in the future, so watch this space...

The opening day of the Social Media World forum was a mixed bag;  eager attendees and interesting talks, underpinned by appalling organisation.

For me, the underlying theme of the day was around integration and ownership of enterprise 2.0 tools. Helen Farrar of Virgin Media presented an interesting case study of their strides to embrace social tools over the last three years. Her statement that e2.0 tools MUST be fully integrated into existing company systems and processes to succeed really resonated with the audience. It was a point that was echoed by almost everyone who presented.

I asked her what the greatest challenge was in getting internal buy-in and she was refreshingly candid. Simply put it was fear. Fear of technology, fear of loss of control and fear of disruption. The solution she gave was equally simple – show people they’re being listened to and show that top brass are behind it.

This point was reinforced by Sonia Carter of AXA UK who gave a fascinating insight into the AXA e2.0 journey to date. As a toe in the water, they developed a vBulletin forum to act as an idea engine and to develop learnings across their three distinct businesses units. Adoption was slow until they put the CEO and another top exec into a live 2-hour Q&A session. Participant numbers rocketed, a server melted and this is now seen as the single most successful piece of internal engagement in the company’s history.

The thorny issue of compliance also raised its head here. The first incarnation of the community was developed at low cost and therefore rapidly implemented 'under the radar'. However, with its success came the need to expand and the need to adhere to corporate policy and create user guidelines. This took 12 months and cost over ten times the original community!

Which nicely epitomised the key take-outs of the day for me. To create a sustainable and successful internal social programme you need to:

• Spread the ownership - if only one department owns it, it will surely fail
• Engage stakeholders early and engage them often
• The objectives dictate the success metrics
• Look beyond the bottom line to measure ROI - think engagement/knowledge transfer/retention

Overall it was well worth attending and as with all of these events – you get out what you put in.

I don’t know the exact number of organisations that have experimented with social software or social media for internal communications, but from those that we’ve connected with and listened to it’s clear there are a large number of them that didn’t get the results they wanted because they didn’t know where to start or were unsure of how to build adoption. So if you fall into one of these categories, here are a few pointers that you may find useful.

More than just push messaging tool
First off, social tools (wikis, forums, tagging etc), and more importantly social networking behaviours, can be deployed to help information flow more freely, enhance knowledge sharing and internal collaboration, activate deeper employee engagement, and even has proven results in achieving staff retention. They shouldn’t necessarily be viewed as a replacement for those things you are already doing, and they should be seen as something more wide-reaching that simply a communication tool versed with message pushing!

Command and control no longer
The days of command & control are numbered as social tools place greater emphasis on people at all levels by providing everyone with a voice, whether they choose to exercise it or not. Therefore, their is no such thing as ownership - it is owned by everyone, and more so by those with a hunger, passion and willing to participate and contribute. This is heightened by the fact that there are less rules than before - but guidelines are vitally important nonetheless, as leaders seek to engender adoption.

Social networks are a solution, not a problem
There are a lot of organisations and business leaders out there banning the likes of Facebook and other social networking sites from the workplace as they see it as a threat to productivity. I question, is technology the reason that people want to do something other than what they are paid for within the workplace? Perhaps job satisfaction should be studied very carefully, as should the behaviours that are now commonplace among staff in their private lives, for it is this which needs to be harnessed in the workplace.

Host the conversation, it’s taking place anyway!
Business also fears that their workers will talk negatively about a range of work-related issues. To this I say embrace it, listen carefully, and if it becomes such a problem then let the community themselves report it and deal with it in a way they deem relevant. By offering these controls, you will find such negativity rare indeed! What’s more, these conversation are taking place elsewhere, so better to be able to gather them and respond to them in the best way possible.

Don’t be afraid to experiment (and fail)
When considering the use of social tools within the workplace, don’t be afraid to experiment, and we advocate starting small. Invite a number of people whom you believe will be early adopters, and allow them to spread the word. Make them champions within the business, and they will help culture the guidelines and behaviours that can achieve your goals. Social tools are by their very nature flexible and cost-effective, so create a playground, sit back, watch and learn.

A range of business applications and solutions
And finally, developing social tools for internal communications isn’t an initiative that should be led or driven by your IT department. Why? Simply put, they exist to implement now out-moded command and control systems, and are much more focussed on the ‘tech’ rather than the all important behaviours.

Wrapping up, social tools can help you with a plethora of business cases, including the following;

• Internal collaboration
• Knowledge sharing
• Business networking
• Learning
• Internal communications
• Resource management
• Sweating knowledge capital
• Sales support
• Customer service

If you’re asking yourself how you can achieve some of these points, and want to learn more how social tools can benefit your organisation on the inside then drop me a line, I’d be happy to help, advise, guide and get my hands dirty.

Socialising Best Practice and Lessons Learnt

The Design Council, a UK Government-funded strategic body, promotes the use of design through the UK.  They help business be better at doing what they do by instilling design thinking and by helping designers be more effective and public services more efficient.

Having embarked upon the development of The Designers’ Business Knowledge Base (DBKB) - an essential Best Practice resource from which design professionals, design buyers and design educators can seek inspiration and guidance - the client required a strategic overlay describing how the DBKB could be delivered as an interactive communication and collaboration tool.

The core of our work saw the development of a Digital Framework for the DBKB focusing on how users could submit and extract experience-based stories and case studies. Insights were by way of formal submissions and more conversational stories of the kind designers of all ages and experience could submit using simple, easy-to-use social software tools.

The  framework was constructed on four pillars; The User Model, Content Model, Business Model and Sustainability Model.

• The User Model proposed a variety of benefits and rewards for each of the stakeholder groups, including those of a social, emotional, financial and experiential kind.
• The Content Model explored how the resource would harness user-generated content to provide insightful and inspiring best practice examples.
• The Business Model looked at and made recommendations as to how The Design Council could monetise the service
• And finally, the Sustainability Model took inspiration from what we believed to be some of the more forward-thinking online services around, and how the DBKB could integrate their behaviours in order to be more future-proofed.

The crux of our strategic recommendations was for The Design Council to harness its existing offline design practitioner network connections for traditional push messaging, but also to engage them in more dynamic and ongoing online conversation in order to trawl for ongoing insights and knowledge around design best practice. The development of best practice guidelines in a traditional sense had proven to be expensive, and often the outcome would date very quickly. Digitally captured knowledge could be kept alive, nurtured and extended by the community, and knowledge shared over time to the extent that the community became self-helpers.

Our recommended process and methodology is currently being developed ready for implementation.