Book Reviews:

“Having been in design education since 1966, I have a particular perspective on Adriano’s work that reflects on the transformation of the Industrial Design profession’s focus on form and styling to one that now has a new position of power at the strategy and development table. Adriano’s book brings a lasers’ focus to four important product development issues: highly compressed development cycles, complexity of products and systems, confluence of multiple technologies and how companies often fail to understand users’ interactions as key to the development of user-based product architectures. His approach is an important work for anyone invested in a deeper understanding of systematic methods to insure the creation of products that will better serve their intended audiences. Educators, engineers, product managers and designers will find this work of great value.”  Dale Fahnstrom

“This book is a must-read for corporate managers who are often challenged by the need to make decisions related to product design without following the necessary steps to collect and analyze user requirements. Adriano’s new methodology allows designers and non-designers alike to effectively map out user interactions and translate them into product solutions without the need to spend an extensive amount of time and resources in user research and analysis. “  Ruben Ocampo

To read more reviews of Adriano’s book or to purchase your own copy, visit Amazon.com http://tinyurl.com/3jdvv3f.

Do you find that as a moderator you need to make any adjustments depending on region or culture?

Not particularly. There are obviously differences in accents. In the south, let’s say Marseille, that accent is quite different from Paris. And of course the climate is different — Marseille is on the coast of the Mediterranean — so that might influence what people eat or what leisure activities people have. But generally, no.

One thing that has come out in recent news related to France is the whole Dominique Strauss-Kahn incident, which has been played up greatly here in the U.S. While I know the French of course have a reputation for romance, I was actually shocked to learn there was more of a penchant for sexual harassment in everyday business settings than I was aware of. Any perspectives on this?

It is interesting, because the whole “DSK” affair, as we say here — well, it’s been so fascinating to see the way people react. It’s true now that in France, it has finally provoked a discourse about the problem of a chauvinistic society and men’s behaviour. And what is now being said more openly by women is, “Yes, I’ve been in a situation in France, whereby men in the workplace behave in an offensive and a harassing manner” … and a lot of women suffer from it! At it’s worst extreme, it can be an offense akin to rape and at it’s least extreme, it can just be a sexist remark. But some men here just can’t seem to stop themselves from making a comment on the size of your backside or your breasts — they just can’t forget for more than five seconds at a time that you’re a female. And I think this is still very widespread in France. They like to say they’re “Mediterranean,” in other words, southern Europeans and “Latin lovers,” as if it’s acceptable to behave in that manner in the workplace. So yes, I do think the Frenchmen can be extremely sexist, but fortunately, they’re not all quite as bad as Strauss-Kahn. They can also be extremely courteous — which is not a characteristic I necessarily associate with English or American men!

You conduct quite a lot of all-male B2B focus groups in IT in particular. In fact, that was the case for the projects you and I have worked on together. Have you ever experienced a negative situation there — or are men in focus groups too intimidated because they know there are people behind the glass and they’re being video-taped?

[Laughter] No, I’ve never had that problem when I’ve been moderating.

But there is in France — certainly more than England (which is a more Puritan kind of society) — this idea that I’m a man and you are a woman, which is at it’s nicest a very tiny little undercurrent of flirtiness you have to acknowledge. You have to give it a little smile. I’ve often found that French men like to be charming — they like my accent (which unfortunately I still have, even after all this time in France!) and I’m often given little compliments on my French. They’re not trying to pick me up or seduce me. It’s just a kind of repartee or banter. It happens less in focus groups, because, as you say, they’re in a more formal situation.

But France is still quite a macho country and women get paid less than men for doing exactly the same job. And women can be hired or fired basically because they are attractive or not.

While it varies from country to country certainly, the status of women in business and in society seems to be a somewhat universal problem. We’ll have to fix that! This has been a lovely interview and I thank you for your insights and candor. Keep us posted on your new book.

I look forward to our next study together!

Me, too. Thanks, Caroline.

“Postcards from the Edge of Global Research” is a series of blog posts from Sylver Consulting about the challenges and rewards of orchestrating global and multi-cultural research. Next up in the series – “Interpreting the Arab World,” an interview with Dima Anbari of Tanweer MENA in the United Arab Emirates.

Photo by Nebojsa Mladjenovic

Can you tell us any stories about things getting lost in translation while you were moderating?

What very often happens is that we get messaging and other stimulus materials that have been badly translated — not because the translator is incompetent, but because he or she didn’t understand what was being said in English in the first place. Some IT companies in particular tend to use terms which only they understand and when the content is then translated into another language, it’s often even less comprehensible than when it was in English. That can be a problem!

That’s another thing which I think is a shame, but I can understand why it happens these days — research has become so international, but it’s conducted within such a tight time frame. Clients are literally flying in, watching a few groups, and flying out to the next country the next day. There’s very little time to actually analyze what was said in the groups or maybe to discuss things a little bit, because everybody is so tired. By the time you’ve gotten through two B2B groups — which you can’t start earlier than 6.30 p.m. because people stay in the office late here — it’s 11 o’clock at night and the U.S. clients probably flew in that morning and they’re just completely knackered and the moderator is pretty tired because she’s just gone through back-to-back groups. It’s a pity, because I think sometimes everyone’s taking what’s said at face value over the course of the evening and they don’t take a step back and analyze it in the way it should be. They take things that the respondents have said literally. But in a way, that’s not the way to do market research. The way to do market research is to interpret and analyse what respondents have said and maybe also take into consideration what respondents have not said.

In the old days when research was more of a new thing, it was fantastic having clients in the backroom, because it was often absolutely the first time they had ever sat in on a focus group and heard their customers or their users talking about their products — so they were really entranced and everything was very satisfactory for all concerned. These days, it’s gone the other way. I get the impression they feel they have to be there, looking through the glass, almost like they’re policing that the research is being done with the right respondents in the right way.

I wonder if this is, in fact, a result of being more multinational in research today. As you mentioned, global research teams are travelling the world from city to city to city with not much time to spare. In the established research destinations like France and especially with experienced recruiters, there has always been a certain amount of trust that you’re going to get the right people in the room the vast majority of the time. In some of the emerging markets, it can be dicier with last-minute changes to the recruit, which can leave you feeling a little less than confident. You can’t help but think that this might make clients and global research coordinators feel a bit more on edge in general. Any thoughts on that?

Yes — that’s a good point, you probably need to keep a close eye on who is being recruited in emerging markets — although once again, I’d repeat a point I made earlier on — do make sure you are in touch with that researcher in that market before you finalize your research proposal, so that you are not asking her to recruit “five-legged sheep” — as they say in France.

I don’t want to suggest that us local researchers don’t want the commissioning agency to be there — on the contrary, it’s important to have a thorough briefing on the background to the project and to moderate the group knowing someone is there on the other side of the mirror! But the people I’m sometimes worried about are the end clients — fitting international market research into their crowded schedules, spending their days on planes and their evenings in a viewing facility!

Aside from Paris, which cities in France do you visit most often for research?

Lyon is the second largest city in France and it’s a good way south. It’s quite a contrast to Paris. Having said that, it is still a fairly affluent city.

The problem with France is that it’s centralized in terms of economy and industry. So it’s quite difficult to do business-to-business research anywhere other than Paris and Lyon and Marseille, because the companies just aren’t located elsewhere. There are always going to be SMBs (small and medium businesses), but large companies tend to be concentrated around Paris and if you try to find them in the other regions, you’re not going to find the decision makers. Even if there’s an IT guy based in Lyon, he will probably just be carrying out decisions made in Paris.

For healthcare and consumer goods, there are obviously hospitals and consumers all over France, so I would say for that kind of research, it would be Paris, Lyon, Marseille and then Lille, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Tours. Now, we are starting to get some reasonable facilities in all of these towns. Twenty years ago, you’d have to use a hotel and hire a camera man. There were no facilities. But now, there are good quality facilities with the equipment that you need in quite a few towns.

How far are people willing to travel to participate in a focus group or interview in France?

One difference I can think of compared to London, for example, is that all of the research facilities in Paris are centrally located in the city. In London, there are a lot of suburban viewing facilities and you can move out into the suburbs and you can pick your area depending on which socioeconomic classes you’re looking for. So depending on the group you want, you can probably find a local facility in the London area that fits.

In Paris, that doesn’t exist. And that can sometimes be a problem. If you want certain people who are not likely to live anywhere near central Paris and you’re asking them to take part in groups in the evenings, it can just be harder to recruit them and persuade them, because they’re having to travel quite a long way.

I know that in America, people are often happy to jump in a car and drive 100 kilometres to get to a group. But here in Paris, there is a lot of traffic congestion and public transport, good as it is, may not be the ideal way of travelling home late at night

This concludes Part 2 of our three-part interview with Caroline Baker. Join us for Part 3, posting Friday, August 26 or jump over to Part 1, if you happened to miss it.

Here, I’m talking with Caroline Baker, founder and managing director of European Market Research Associates (EMRA) in France. Born and raised in the U.K., Caroline is a top-notch qualitative researcher who moderates in both French and English. I have had the privilege of working with Caroline several times in Paris and wanted to explore some of the language and cultural issues she has observed over the past 28 years that she has been living and working in France.

So, Caroline, tell me about your research background and how you found yourself in France.
I started in market research in London, where I worked for an agency which grew quite considerably during the time I was with it. It was mainly a qual agency. I was in the B2B section.

But I’ve always had a close connection to France. I lived in the southeast corner of England, and France was just the other side of the Channel. I had a close friend in France who I came to see a lot, a pen friend from college. So I had a particular interest in France.

While I was working in London, I persuaded my boss to send me to commercial French classes and one of the sessions involved writing a CV and a letter to go with it. I sent mine off — and to my surprise and delight I was offered a job by a market research company in Paris.

I was with them for 13 years, then I started EMRA, which stands for European Market Research Associates. As the name suggests, we conduct pan-European research, although our primary focus is on France. I mainly work in B2B, but I brought in an associate who specializes in healthcare research, so we do that, as well as some consumer work.

To differentiate our services, I’ve always tried to put an accent on being cross-cultural. What I enjoy is trying to explain the French to the rest of the world and also sometimes explain the rest of the world to the French — whether that’s eating habits or general consumer behavior or attitudes about finance. There are quite a few areas where you see some big cultural differences and I think that’s what makes market research interesting.

There’s a certain amount of thought out there that we’re becoming more and more like each other in today’s world. But there are still quite important differences in the way people think, the way people behave, the way people spend their money, the way people react to advertising. My background is in sociology, so that’s what interests me.

I’m in the process of writing a book called “Observing the French.” It’s based on my observations since I came to France back in the early 1980s.

What advice do you have for researchers coming to Europe from America or other countries to conduct a study?

One of the things I would say to a researcher in the process of putting together a proposal for an international project that includes Europe is: ideally, try to talk with your local research companies before you finalize that proposal.

What I often find is that by the time we are contacted in order to provide costs — and perhaps there’s somebody else in Germany and somebody else in Italy and somebody else in the U.K. — all sorts of things have been signed and sealed before we’ve been brought in. Methodology for example: perhaps the American researcher has suggested focus groups to the end client, whereas we might think IDIs (in-depth interviews) would have been a better approach in France. They might have decided to do the study in Paris and Lyon, but we might think it would be more appropriate to do it in two other towns. So, sometimes I wish that primary researchers would come to us earlier in the day. They seem to think they can only come to us once they actually need a quote. But we’re always very happy to share market knowledge and provide advice much earlier in the process.

Another thing I’d add is that some American end-clients tend to have a kind of homogenous view of Europe. It’s as though they almost forget that, no, we’re not the United States of America. We’re actually separate countries with separate languages. Often the schedules are such that Tuesday is Paris, Wednesday is Munich, Thursday is London and then they’re off to Rome. You kind of feel like they’re whirling through and they don’t have much time to take it all in. And they’re having to listen to simultaneous translators, which tends to render things slightly bland because it’s just one voice.

Are there any particular language or cultural issues specific to France that researchers should keep in mind?

Well, the French don’t very much like talking about what they earn. This is to such an extent that if we have a screening questionnaire that asks annual household income — which is such an embarrassing question to ask — my recruiters will inevitably frame it differently either by giving respondents quite big categories so they can say which they fall into or even establishing what they must be earning based on the jobs they’re doing. There are ways to ascertain income without actually having to ask the question so directly. Because it’s sort of impolite. The French wouldn’t talk about that sort of thing.

Another thing you’re not likely to speak openly about in France is your home or your lifestyle. You wouldn’t hide it, but it’s not something you’re flashing around.

There’s a saying in France: “Vivons heureux, vivons cachés.” It means “Live happily, live hidden.” So it’s almost the opposite from the impression we sometimes have of the States, where people might like to show off what they’ve got.

On the other hand, French people are generally good at expressing themselves orally compared to people from some other countries. I think that’s partially because the French educational system includes oral exams. For example, in England, the only reason you’d do an oral exam is if you learned another language and you needed to show proficiency. Otherwise, there’s no occasion where you’d be expected to stand up and actually talk for five minutes.

But this is the case in France and I think that may be one reason why French people are sometimes less nervous about taking part in focus groups. I often think that they take less time to get warmed up, because talking in front of other people comes slightly more naturally to them.

Another thing about the French, at least from my perspective, is that they are very creative — well, let me qualify that — they are very creative in terms of ideas. When conducting product development research in France, we often come up with things which have not been mentioned anywhere else.

There is an interesting contradiction here: French focus group participants can be creative in terms of ideas, but creativity in terms of putting together collages, finding images or symbols, doing drawings, seems to really stymie them here! I think again it’s a reflection of the educational system, because basically France has a very Cartesian sort of education. There’s not much creativity. They don’t do art. They don’t do theatre. They don’t do anything that would allow them to express themselves in that way.

Be sure to join us for Part 2 and Part 3 of our interview with Caroline Baker, posting Friday, August 19 and Friday, August 26, respectively.

Continuing on your successful roll, you agree to facilitate a study with another group. Like always, you get the study set up and start scheduling interviews and meetings with the study participants, but on Day 1 you call your first participant and he/she is not available. Hmmmm. Curious. You call your 2nd participant. Same thing. Not available. Now there’s concern. Next thing you receive is a frantic email from your first call wondering where you are??

Stop. How could this happen?

You check your communications and you did call at the right time.

How could things have gotten so messed up?

Better yet, how are you going to fix it?

Here are 3 things you need to make sure are in place when you are scheduling interviews with participants.

1. Be mindful of how your participants might generally interact when it comes to meetings. In other words, do they generally meet with people locally or are they accustomed to speaking with people all over the world. If they are only used to talking to people in their immediate area, they may not even think to look at the time zone indicated in their communications. Make sure that time zones are clearly marked in any emails or letters to them. It’s also a good idea to show them their appointment in multiple zones (e.g. 4:00pm EST/1:00pm PST).

2. If you are using a scheduling program or software, be sure that it converts time zone based on the participant. You need to be able to input your schedule in your home base time zone, but it needs to be clear to the participants which one they are scheduling in.

3. Confirmations are critical. Many systems are set up to do automatic confirmations by email. However, you may want to consider doing a phone confirmation. This human touch is generally better received than an impersonal email but also can confirm that the participant knows the exact time and time zone.
Have any other tips for avoiding scheduling disasters? We welcome your comments here!

Partners:

Not Blind Advantages: There are definite advantages to being open when recruiting partners. When recruiting partners, you are approaching a group that already has an established relationship with you and therefore increased trust and loyalty. In most cases, you will also probably find that people will be pleasantly surprised to learn that the organization they have chosen to work with is investing in research at their organization. They will respect that they are being asked to share their opinion.

Not-Blind Disadvantage: There is a possibility that if your participant knows who is sponsoring the study that their responses will be biased and alter your study outcomes. However, you can avoid this by setting up the conversation correctly and by hiring a third-party affiliation to facilitate the interviews for you. This offers comfort to your clients/partners that they have the freedom to answer questions openly, without fearing that they’ll hurt someone’s feelings.

Non-Partners:

Blind Advantage: Since they do not know the sponsoring organization, you are likely to get pure, organic feedback from the interview that will contain no biases.

Blind Disadvantage: Since the participant will not know who they are working with, they may be leery in agreeing to participate in your study. One great way to overcome this disadvantage is to reveal the study sponsor at the end of the interview. This will enable the sponsoring organization to get some additional “impressions feedback” on their company/brand. In addition, the participant now knows that this company values their opinion, often making them a bit more encouraged to investigate the sponsoring organization’s offerings further,

These are just a few items that you want to take into consideration when determining whether your study should be blind or not blind. As you can see, either approach has advantages and disadvantages. You need to determine which works best for the outcomes you are seeking.

Download your FREE copy of the full article here!

• Access
• End-user skill
• Compatibility

• Access:  When determining whether or not you will incorporate social media platforms to your project, you will be choosing a platform in part based on the demographics of your study. If the demographic group that you need to observe does not have easy access to the platform you would like to use then ultimately that is not a good application of use. You must consider varying degrees of access including access and possible power issues (which is usually something you cannot prevent but making sure there is a backup in place is important for project flow). You also will want to drill down your demographics. For example, if your general demographic is 20-25 year old females but it’s more specifically focused on a rural mountain area, then Twitter may not be appropriate. Yes, the general demographic is a fit but the specific location demographic would have limited access.
• End-user skill:  This is a huge factor to consider. You may determine that Skype is the easiest for you to connect with respondents from your perspective. This is definitely a technology that is readily available to most anyone with a computer and an Internet connection. However, if your respondents are unfamiliar with the technology then you either need to be prepared to train them to use it (including how to install it on their end) or figure out a different method of data gathering.
• Compatibility:  We’ve already discussed making certain that the platform itself is compatible with your particular project. To take this a step further, you need to make certain that the data that you can gather in that social media venue is pertinent to the data you need to work with in your project. If you are looking for data in a specific format, you’ll want to make sure that the social media channel you choose can provide the output you require.

One of the first keys to leveraging social networks/social media for research is to first acknowledge that not all social networks are created equal. There are multiple types of networks and they not only serve a different function but they also cater to a different demographic. Understanding these differences up front will help you target your research efforts much more efficiently.

What types of social networks are there?

Before you start using social networks in your research process, you first need to understand that there are dozens of different networks and each one has a unique function. As the photo illustrates, social networks encompass more than just the “Big 3” of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You are probably familiar with many of their names, like Flickr, Blogger, and StumbleUpon but you may not have recognized them as part of the social media catalog.
So, which platforms are best to use for research. Reality is, you can use all of them…just not together.

So, here are a couple of tips on how to choose which social media platform might be the best fit for you and your project.

1. Recognize what the unique functions/qualities are of each platform. Familiarizing yourself with each platform’s individual functions will ensure that you are using the right network at the right stage in your research timeline. Networks like Facebook and LinkedIn are the more traditional social networks that are used for sharing updates both personally and professionally. Whereas a platform like Skype, Gtalk or Meebo will be more useful for conversational activities. Publishing platforms are better known for their blogs and while Twitter might be thought of by most as merely the 140-character status update, it’s actually considered a microblog when it comes to categorization of social media.

2. Decide which platform is most appropriate at your current stage of research. You will quickly realize that using more than one social media platform is likely to be useful but also that not all networks will fit together in the same cycle of research. This could be due to the vast differences in demographics where one platform may host a demographic that is completely out of your research parameters. It also may be that networks host identical demographics thus leading to redundant data. You may even find that while the demographic in a particular network is a match, the interests, and therefore the insights may be completely irrelevant to your project.

The bottom line is that social media platforms certainly can provide a vast amount of information and support to researchers in almost any project. The key, however, is to carefully consider the scope of the project as compared to the landscape of the social network to make sure that the two are compatible.

References:

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics

http://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/so-how-many-people-are-actually-on-twitter_b6183

There are many interesting companies out there applying Future Thinking, but Apple might just be the best example of an organization that can think ahead cohesively and create systemic, repeatable plans for the future.

In 30+ years, Apple has recreated entire industries and transformed business models. But their global success only exploded with the iPod, back in 2001.  Since then, they have made it big with music (15 billion songs sold*), ebooks (130 million downloads), mobile phones (108 million iphone models sold**) and portable devices (25 million iPads sold), according to their timeline. And now their newest innovation, the iCloud network, will take some processing and traffic burdens from wireless carriers’ networks and therefore make iTunes even more powerful and useful for end users. The new service will let people listen to their song collections without having to transfer individual tracks manually to a music player. Apple announced iCloud yesterday at the Worldwide Developers Conference - WWDC.

Courtesy of engadget

The common theme found in all these products is Apple’s ability to monitor trends very closely and put a laser focus on anticipating needs and improving the user experience. Once their new offerings hit the market, the company always follows their adoption, how well they are performing, and then uses that information to improve and perfect the devices. For example, the iPad 2, with two useful cameras and lighter weight, is a much better device than their first touch screen tablet.

But Future Thinking is only part of the story. Apple not only keeps an eye in the future, but also applies Design Thinking and is extremely coherent as company. It concentrates all its resources and collective intelligence, and marshal all of them in the service of a well-aligned group of products and services with a focused strategic direction. This strategy allows Apple to be efficient in their activities and disciplined about new product releases, pricing structure, and, more importantly, differentiated in the eyes of consumers.

So, how can you infuse Future Thinking in your organization to improve your own products and services?

Most successful organizations have a “Future Thinking” approach in place, using foresight tools and methods to plan for and anticipate the Future. Learn more here how Sylver can help not only anticipate the future but proactively prepare for it by uncovering growth opportunities, creating scenarios for the future, and finding ways to incorporate scanning techniques into your business practices…all of which will help you to define organic growth opportunities for your organization.

References:

* http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/wwdc-2011-apple-ios-5-integrates-twitter-sports-new-notification-menu/50005

** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone