The QuestionPro Blog

AskTheSpeaker.org Launched - Powered By IdeaScale

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:23:19 -0800

Jefferey Feldman from the Daily Kos just put out a blog entry launching AskTheSpeaker.org -- A crowdsourced question collection tool for a Q&A session with the Speaker - Nancy Pelosi.

What was cool about this launch?

Gina Cooper - The organizer for the event (NetRoots Nation) contacted me yesterday around 1PM PST.
We talked for about 10 minutes and realized that our standard offering of the URL (xyz.ideascale.com) will not work - We needed something more customized so that the IdeaScale portal can be hosted in a new/separate domain --in this case askthespeaker.org.
We helped her setup the DNS for askthespeaker.org and made internal changes so our servers start responding to that URL.
By 5PM yesterday we were ready.
The site was launched today and publicized on the Daily Kos in the morning.

In less than 24 hours of initial contact Gina and I were able to understand each others position and get agreement and launch a pilot project.

Here is one idea Gina suggested --

Being able to customize the "New Idea" button

If we get more requests for creating these "Ask The [Person]" portals, then we can probably come up with another template for such portals and make it happen.

Meanwhile, if you have questions for Nancy Pelosi - Go here and submit it. Gina and Jefferey will be moderating a Q&A with her and might choose your question.

http://www.askthespeaker.org

IdeaScale Updates - New Features

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:06:34 -0800

Wanted to share a few updates regarding IdeaScale with everyone.

Tagging Upgrade:

We've revamped how we do tags. Tags now display the total number of times users have used a tag, as well as the ability to click on a tag and search all entries related to that tag.

Pending Items:

Tag Cloud (or something that displays the leaderboard of tags)
Integrating tags with search

Personalized Messages:
Using Cookies to "Remember" your last visit to an ideascale portal. If you've visited an IdeaScale portal, and come back after a couple of days, you'll see a message like the screen below -- based on what has changed since you last visited.

Activity Charts:

Activity charts to give you a ballpark idea on how many users are voting up and down the ideas.

Twitter Integration:

Integrate your IdeaScale portal with Twitter.

Ironman Nice Update

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 05:00:00 -0800

I am happy to be back home in Seattle with the Ironman successfully behind me. It was a privilege to have the opportunity to compete in another country. The swim in the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean was breathtaking. The bike ride was the most grueling and beautiful experiences of my life climbing 5000+ ft through the Nice "hills" and cruising through rustic French villages. As expected, the run was both mentally and physically challenging, but the endless support of my family and friends kept me cranking along...with my sanity in check. I am looking forward to getting back in work mode and pushing QuestionPro to the next level. I am sure I will be in touch with many of you in the near future, but don't hesitate to contact me if you need anything. Cheers, Scott

Notes from CASRO Technology Conference: SMS Research

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:32:10 -0800

Lots of great presentations today at the CASRO Technology conference. One of the themes today has been SMS marketing and research. I culled out some interesting notes from all the talks that I thought you might enjoy: -Mobile phone market is exploding (presented with too many slides to make the point) -23% of US mobile subscribers say they have been exposed to adverts or marketing on their phone -Only way to reach people that don't have a landline (duh) -Phones are deeply personal - must be careful about contacting people -95% of phones can receive SMS/text messaging -SMS can be used for: alerts, info, messages, coupons, surveys -SMS research always has faster response times -Better to execute short SMS interviews over time vs long surveys over short time -Data plans are expensive and requires special hardware thus explains 20% mobile web adoption rate We've integrated SMS polling within MicroPoll.com for some time now. Its interesting to see the myriad of SMS market research projects that companies have implemented already. Do you have a need for some type of SMS research? Is there a particular feature related to SMS research that you need or are unable to find? Submit an idea today - we'd love to hear your SMS related feedback/ideas.

13th Annual CASRO Technology Conference

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:01:20 -0800

We are pleased to be attending the CASRO Technology Conference this Thursday and Friday. Personally, I've always been impressed with the issues/topics that come up at the CASRO events - I would recommend it to anyone in the market research industry. This particular event is very relevant for us, as it relates specifically to technology issues related to market research. Stop by our booth and say hello if you plan to attend!

Multilingual Custom Variables Imported from Excel file

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 09:18:21 -0800

We recently upgraded the Email List Management system to support multilingual custom variables (Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German etc).

The system supported the upload of multilingual custom variables via the web interface, but was not able to handle multilingual custom variables uploaded via a CSV file.

After doing some research, we found out that the CSV file import simply could not be used to upload multilingual custom variables.

The solution; we enhanced the import function to handle Excel files. This solution killed two birds with one stone; 1. Excel import is actually very convenient format for users 2. Solved the multilingual custom variables upload issue.

QuestionPro Sponsors Employee

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:00:00 -0800

Hi All, Some of you may know that I will be competing in the Ironman Nice - France race on June 22nd. Even better, QP has graciously sponsored a portion of the event. I really can't thank QuestionPro enough for this...being able to have the financial and scheduling freedom to train has been a huge privilege the past 6 months. This is just one small piece of how employees are treated at QuestionPro. With my responsibility of running Sales at QP...I am confident that this managing style resonates on how my team collectively treats and respects our existing and potential customers. That being said...here is how I will be representing QP on the 22nd. I told the QP Management team that I can't promise any measurable leads will come out the race, but rather I would consider this more of a EU brand awareness campaign. Cheers, Scott

BugLabs Using IdeaScale - Their viewpoint.

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:15:56 -0800

I've been working closely with the BugLabs "Marketing Guy" Jeremy Toeman - About IdeaScale and how they can leverage IdeaScale to gather ideas and feedback for the different systems and products they should focus on.

If you are unfamiliar with BugLab :

BUG makes it fun and easy to build any gadget you can imagine. Build familiar things like digital cameras and GPS locators or create new devices like a LoCamMotion or a GeoPhotoShooter or an Accel-o- Mailer or ... the list is endless!

From Jeremy's post:

Our goal is to have the voice of the community at large play a loud part in our product planning. This means we'd like to know how the ideas you are all sharing really rank with each other. One person's all-important laser range finder module is another person's worst. idea. ever. And the forums don't really let you express that very easily. Enter IdeaScale.

One of the things that we are learning as we push through this crowdsourced feedback model is that while technologies like Forum's and Wiki's exists, they are not the best suited for feedback. There is "too much chatter" in forums and it really becomes difficult to separate the apples from the oranges.

Check out BugLabs IdeaScale.

QuestionPro - Changes/Enhancements based on Feedback

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:54:20 -0800

We've made a few updates/upgrades to QuestionPro based on some internal and external feedback:

Grouping/Filtering + MS Word

http://questionpro.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/858-393
Location of the Save & Continue Button

http://questionpro.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/415-393
Mean to be included in the banner table reports

http://questionpro.ideascale.com/akira/dtd/407-393

We've also made a few changes to IdeaScale. I'll be posting a detailed blog post with all the updates and bug fixes to IdeaScale soon.

Focus groups - are they really dead?

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:24:52 -0800

Our friends at the clickadvisor blog seem to think that focus groups are dead. I know that a lot of Market Research companies and agencies use QuestionPro for quantitative research - what about qualitative?

Personally I would not use a focus group for anything we do here @ QuestionPro - why? - Well partly because I am in the software/service business - so our real cost of innovation (implementing new ideas) is actually not that high. It's not like CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods) - Kraft, P&G etc. -- where the the cost of failure is not really incremental but generally catastrophic (OK - Not catastrophic but lets say non-trivial.) In our case, if we implement a feature (that no one uses, or is really underused) it's not going to break the bank - In businesses that produce physical goods, there have high capital costs, untested/wrong product direction that can make or break companies.

I obviously am biased against using focus groups to determine product direction (given that we peddle IdeaScale every chance we get) -- but I am curious what kind of requests market research companies out there are getting from your clients? -- Are you still getting requests from your clients and stakeholders to conduct qualitative research using focus groups?

I wish organizations like CASRO or AMA or even magazines like Quirks put out reports on share of research types and usage (on an aggregate level.) -- Most MR companies are members of CASRO or AMA, and a simple survey to all the members can give a decent snapshot on where the mindshare is headed.

Here is another (old) BW article slamming focus groups.

On a side note check out the YouTube Video about a focus group here : Pretty funny (Embedded below)

If you are in market research and have a story to share (about focus groups) please feel free to leave a comment below or if you have a good case-study (either pro or con) regarding focus groups please free to contact me directly blog [at] surveyanalytics [dot] com -- I'll compile a collective list and publish it in the blog for everyone else.

Seattle Times - Coverage - Business and Technology Section

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:10:29 -0800

So - Today we got profiled in the Seattle Times -- Under the business and technology section. We've been covered on blogs a few times, but getting profiled on a physical newspaper actually makes me feel a lot more important?

Anyways, here is a link to the coverage:

Making Valuable data quick work

Fun times!

Funny back-story -- I had to scramble to Sears Portrait Studio to get a Head-Shot -- All the other photos that I had were cropped images from regular (friends and family) photos. I barely got the photo in time for the publication.

New Ideas from QuestionPro Feedback via IdeaScale [May 22, 2008 - May 29, 2008]

Thu, 29 May 2008 23:40:10 -0800

Date Filtering For DropOut Analysis

Vote On Idea

As I make changes to the survey in response to the Drop Out Analysis, it would be nice if I could filter by date so that I can determine if the changes are effective. Currently all of the responses are grouped together...

Comments (0)Posted By : erich.price on 05/29/2008 under Reporting Tools

Survey Dropdown Box

Vote On Idea

In the top right corner of QP the current survey you are working with is displayed as you navigate through the various features - often I have to perform the same task (reports, send reminders, etc) with several surveys at the same sitting. Could the current view of just the name of the current survey be modified to a dropdown box of active surveys?

Comments (0)Posted By : erich.price on 05/27/2008 under Reporting Tools

Customized User Homepage/Dashboard for Question Pro

Vote On Idea

I find myself typically using the same features over and over - and having to click through several levels of menus to get there. If it was possible to build a customizable dashboard where users could put QP links that were important to them or used frequently it would certainlty save a lot of time.

Comments (0)Posted By : erich.price on 05/27/2008 under Reporting Tools

Spanish version

-1

Vote On Idea

Do you plan to offer your system in Spanish in the foreseeable future? Otherwise it would be useful if the administrator can personalize the tags / interface (as is the case with the Home page) to accomplish this.

Comments (1)Posted By : hector.pereznieto on 05/24/2008 under IdeaScale

International users

Vote On Idea

If I post non-english characters (e.g. accents) they get published as junk. Extremely few users would know the HTML / ASCII codes and have the time to write using them. I would guess this is a database encoding issue.

Comments (0)Posted By : hector.pereznieto on 05/24/2008 under IdeaScale

Allow user to change the answer width on a multipoint scales/text input question

Vote On Idea

Before the recent upgrade of the survey design interface, the QuestionPro user was able to change the width of a text input ANSWER for a multipoint scales question.

I used this feature in several surveys before the upgrade. It is still an option presented to the user. However, changing the answer width modifies the question width instead of the answer width.

This is a feature I very much need returned to the survey design process.

Comments (0)Posted By : elkin on 05/23/2008 under Survey Development

Alltop - human powered smartness? Powered by Twitter of course

Tue, 27 May 2008 21:20:04 -0800

I just got introduced to Alltop - It basically is a "starting point" of all things -- primarily happening in the blogosphere. Unlike most other aggregators it's neither "crowd" powered (like Digg) or "algorithm" powered (like Google News etc.) - it's human powered!

Check out some of the cool categories :

http://marketing.alltop.com (marketing related blogs)
http://startups.alltop.com (for startups etc.)

Just goto alltop.com and check out any category for yourself. Want to add your blog to the list -- here's a secret -- Follow @guykawasaki on twitter and then tell him to add your blog to the list! -- Yes, it _could_ be that simple! I'll try it out and let you know!

(or your could promote alltop in your blog and then as Guy Kawasaki to give you some love back?)

Need a researcher to help you with your survey?

Mon, 26 May 2008 01:20:58 -0800

You've conducted your survey, collected your data and would like someone with a deep statistical background to explain and interpret the results? -- I've been recently chatting with Scott Gingold of PowerFeedback. They are a full-service market research firm and we are in a pilot phase of a partnership with them.

If you need some "full-service" advice that can take a look at your issue and then suggest solutions, ranging from how the design of the survey should be, to how to best structure the survey -- This may be one way to go. You can check out the researchers that PowerFeedback has here :

http://www.powerfeedback.com/team.html

We at QuestionPro usually do _not_ engage in full-service work unless the agreement is strategic for us. We've in the past done end-to-end work for select clients (where we design, execute and present results) of the survey -- only in strategic circumstances -- when we are developing new products and solutions or if we believe a joint project is actually beneficial for us (other than stuffing our pockets with cash.)

I've talked to a few of our clients and many of you have mentioned that one of services that Questionpro could provide is deeper human research services - more full-service oriented services. While I understand the need, I do not actually think we are best suited for this -- We'd rather partner with an existing agency (or a few) to provide this service than do it ourselves -- PowerFeedback is our first initiative in this direction.

There were two things that attracted me towards PowerFeedback:

Scott - himself is a very down-to-earth and straightforward guy. No BS and no long winded talks -- we agreed to pilot this over the phone and got on board.
The PowerFeedback Team -- Obviously the Bio speaks for itself.

If you think you need end-to-end project help or need a researcher look into your survey and give pointers feel free to contact Scott Gingold at sg [at] powerfeedback [dot] com.

Oh yeah - Happy memorial day everyone!

Telephone surveys - inching to the to the deadpool?

Fri, 23 May 2008 21:43:10 -0800

The National Center for Health Statistics put out some numbers on surveying -- The general conclusion is that using "landline" only methods for data collection will skew the analysis. Here is a direct link to the report.

The key findings are :

1 in 6 homes (~15%) are "Cell Phone Only" -- that is they simply DO NOT have a landline.
1 in 8 homes (~13%) receive "almost all" calls on their cell phone even though they have a landline

If you just look at those two numbers, ~30% of households essentially rely on cell phones as their primary voice communication device. And this is the last 6 months of 2007. I can only imagine, the first six months of 2008 this has only gone up, especially with the launch but both Sprint and At&T for "unlimited" minutes. I can also say from personal anecdotal evidence, I finally convinced my wife what we really don't need a land line -- so my own residence does not have a landline anymore. We were getting too many telemarketers anyways.

The other paradigm shift that is happening is that businesses (brick n mortar) are accepting emails as the preferred communication model -- Eastside Bavarian where I change oil emails me and I can email them to request an appointment -- they even send me a survey after every service! I hardly ever talk to my mortgage broker or banker anymore -- we simply rely on email to communicate with each other.

The third component that is facilitating this shift is the "Smart Phone" market is expanding rapidly - Blackberry, iPHones etc.  -- All these phones are becoming communication assistants rather than being a phone. I use my iPhone for email, text and phone (in that order.)

Now, what does all this mean for research? -- The big issue is that of sample bias. Traditionally online research was considered as an after-thought to phone based research. Now with potentially a 30% sample bias error, phone surveys will become increasingly difficult to conduct and more importantly pass the sample bias validation test. That is the general conclusion of the report also.

UPDATE:
Here is another interesting blog post from one of my competitors - Check it out. It addresses the same issue.