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...as bad as you fear, or as good as you hope *. Wise words, or at least a good starting point for a feature on threats and opportunities for the research profession, overwhelmed as we sometimes are by hype and alarmism. This is the last of our seven features celebrating job ad no.100,000.
New techniques and technologies relevant to the research space are always coming along, but there do seem to be a particular plethora of them at the moment. In the following, we'll identify half a dozen main ones and look at some ways in which they promise expansion and excitement for researchers, and some ways in which they threaten to render us obsolete, reduce our margins or just leave us downright miserable.
An apology up-front - I can't be an expert in all these areas and my views are based on running the MrWeb job board and overseeing Daily Research News, in addition to my personal experience of research and continuing feedback from other researchers. Coverage of each area below is necessarily short. If they at least generate some discussion, they'll have done a job.
DIY Surveys
The ability to use tech such as online services or mobile apps to conduct one's own research quickly and simply - allied in some cases now to sampling software and pre-engaged panels - is often seen as a threat to the profession. The view that it will supplant traditional sources of MR is partly based on a misunderstanding about who has always been the main consumer of market research, as discussed earlier in this series - the larger organisations who are the main spenders on research are unlikely to move large chunks of their business to DIY for a number of obvious reasons.
Feedback from contacts through DRNO and the industry generally suggests few researchers are losing sleep over potential loss of business to DIY. My question would be, are we doing enough to exploit the opportunities presented by it? These lie in two areas: 1. Introducing new clients to the idea of research ('we've done some DIY research and that was useful... perhaps working with a research agency would be even more so?'), and 2. Providing us with another tool in that toolbox, for occasional use as part of a larger project - this could be a bit of lightning quant in a mostly qual project, for example, or could make research viable for clients who couldn't otherwise afford it. As an example of the latter, I worked on a number of projects for local business start-ups, funded by a government enterprise agency, in the 1990s, and always struggled to make the limited money available stretch to a decent project. If I'd had a DIY survey option, I might have combined it with my desk research and a few ftf / 'expert' interviews to create a more effective package.
Big Data
Technology is helping companies analyse huge new streams of data generated both internally and externally, pulling together unstructured and structured information from a variety of sources, in a variety of formats. Big data is in the middle of the upward curve at the beginning of its 'hype cycle', and as with anything, we would expect a period of disillusionment when it's realised you don't just 'plug it in and switch it on and out come the insights'. However, there's more substance than hype to the big data boom and it does represent huge new potential for understanding what's going on in the world / one's particular corner of it.
If we believed that clients have rigidly defined budgets for information and insights, even in the long term, and are close to the limit, big data would indeed threaten to take away some of survey researchers' slice of the pie: but this is not the case. Big data is already having new money allotted to it, and will take some of its funding from the IT pot. The more sophisticated the market gets, the lower the entry level price and the lower the price at which companies can buy some sort of half decent software to help them analyse their big data. They then need someone with skills in defining business problems, asking the right questions and finding the significance in data, to make good use of it.
Big data is a much bigger opportunity for us than it is a threat.
Social Media Research
In a sense, sifting through 'the billions of conversations taking place online each day' - as many a press release describes it - is a subset of the big data phenomenon, and like big data in general, it's an area of obvious and massive potential. But when we ask, 'Potential for what?' - there the debate starts. There are certainly many dozens - and I think hundreds - of companies basing their offer on the tracking and analysis of consumer conversations on social media, and making extravagant claims about how it renders existing research methods obsolete. To be honest, I'd probably be making extravagant claims for my product if I'd just been given $100m in seed funding by an eager and complimentary venture capital firm. [Which tropical island I might be making them from, is another question].
Many of the mainstream researchers I've spoken to about social media research are fairly dismissive: especially of those parts of it concerned with sentiment analysis, which is a very long way from being a fine art, they say, and often gets its interpretation of negative vs positive right in 'about 50 percent of cases', if one believes the critics. Such methods offer the grail of quick, cheap insights into the views of a very large number of people, but lack the solidity of other forms of research.
Nobody - nobody - is quite sure what portion of the whole population such conversations represent. Not all that long ago I read that about 6 percent of the US population tweet, and about half of these do so more than once a month - that ain't a big proportion - but this is only the start of the problem, with a handful of those 3 percent generating a disproportionate amount of the chat. As a b2b researcher I'm acutely sceptical, because one of the first things we learnt is that the keener someone is to give their views, on the whole, the less interested we were in them.
Nevertheless I'm going to say that there are multiple threats and opportunities inherent in the widespread use of social media research. For certain types of study it will indeed prove the grail, exposing traditionalists' over-cautious and over-scrupulous approach to getting something 'representative' and substituting something which is practically effective / 'good enough' at straw polls of public reaction, for example - or great for generating ideas. Conversely, and also threatening, for other purposes it will get wrong results which discredit the whole notion of research. I would two years ago have added the fear that research professionals will be distracted by its charms to the extent that new entrants to the profession will not learn to do things properly - but I think we're past that stage now, and the fear was groundless.
And as an opportunity - well, see above re proving the grail. Have it in the toolbox, and on certain projects it will be much the best option.
The Economy
Nobody said all the threats and opportunities had to be technologies or techniques, and probably the biggest threat on most researchers' minds at present is the state of the global economy. There are plenty of places you can read about the general implications of the downturn for business, so let's concentrate on where the research profession is better or worse off than others.
Clearly we're not recession-proof, but seemingly we are a little more resistant to it than some other industries - see previous articles for some justification of these statements. Arguably, because we're not used to periods of retrenchment like some other trades (construction, retail, travel... most of them really), we may either have a harder time coping with this difficult new world, or at least panic more about it. And with things in such flux - all these new techniques and changes in what's expected from us - just as budgets are being questioned like never before, there is perhaps a danger that research will implode. Some also say the downturn is an opportunity, and it's true that good things come out of adversity, but on the whole it's undoubtedly something to be weathered.
How to do so? I would say the key thing is to embrace and learn about the new possibilities, making many more options available to clients and fighting for shares of new and existing markets around the edge of our current focus; but at the same time, not to lose confidence in or abandon what we already do - don't leave the homeland empty. If you want a good pep talk on the continuing relevance of classic research skills, see the recent article by our contributor Paul Griffiths of Simpson Carpenter.
I actually think some of the big agencies are getting this about right - I know it's not fashionable to say nice things about big agencies but I have to commend people like GfK, Ipsos and Millward Brown for sensibly integrating elements of neuroscience and social media research into their offerings; and TNS for example for a very healthy approach to the potential of big data.
Neuroscience / Biometrics
Another one that's been touted as the thing that will render existing research obsolete. However much it may eventually redefine the way we tap the views of respondents, I really don't think it's a threat to research professionals, partly because I can't see it moving in on traditional research territory fast enough to unseat them - they will adapt and build it in with relatively little trouble. In this case, I think it's partly a question of fear - respondents and society as a whole feels as much threatened by the sci-fi / big brother aspects of EEGs and fMRI as we do by its potential to disrupt MR. Society doesn't always move wherever technology leads it, and when it does it follows at its own pace. When I talked to Deputy Editor Graham Lawton at New Scientist I found him sceptical about the speed with which such techniques would be widely adopted, and in two and a half years since, his sensible view has been borne out.
Having said this, neuroscience and biometrics are making their move into the mainstream of MR, and will take an increasing part of the overall pie, if never a dominant one. Nielsen's purchase of sector pioneer Neurofocus in 2011 was one early indicator of this - another came just 6 weeks ago when Millward Brown announced a major expansion of its Link and Facial Coding technology, backed by major commitments from two of its biggest clients, Unilever and The Coca-Cola Company.
In certain areas of the profession - the obvious starter being advertising and media research - these techniques are undoubtedly a huge opportunity, 'though doing it properly will take considerable resources and this may be why the best examples are big companies. For a smaller company that doesn't have these in its toolbox, I can't see it being a calamity in the near future.
Mobile Technology
The biggest change, and the biggest opportunity of the lot. The passively collected data - including location information - and the survey data on offer via mobile hold out huge potential for data professionals. There's no reason why it should really be a threat - it's as much a new platform for doing most of the old things, as it is a gateway to altogether new kinds of research. We're already looking into the potential effects of the ongoing mobile revolution, in the appropriate section on MRT and will add a lot more soon.
Left Field
In addition to a few areas I've not touched on, such as behavioural advertising and micro-targeting, online communities and custom panels, 'netnography', gamification, co-creation and crowdsourcing, no doubt there is something else huge just around the corner. Recent years, to my mind, have brought far more opportunities than threats for the research profession, and I've no reason to think the next generation will be any different. If, like the elevator in Hitch-Hikers, you are afraid of the future and find yourself sulking in a basement, try and consider each new thing that comes along in the following terms:
'If it's anything more than hype...
All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.
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