Author: RegBaker
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Is mobile finally ready for takeoff?
Not that I claim to have read them all, but the one thing that most of the year end MR prognosticators seem to agree on is that 2012 will be the year in which mobile finally takes off. But will that takeoff be more reminiscent of the Wright brothers or the Saturn V? Larry Gold…
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The (wireless substitution) beat goes on
To no one's surprise the gold standard on wireless substitution in the US, the NHIS, reports that the proportion of wireless only households keeps growing. As of July, 2011, it was 31.6%. That's a 1.9% increase since December of 2010 and translates into 30.2% of all US adults. Just eyeballing the graph below it does…
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Tracking at the speed of light –or thereabouts
I have this Epson projector and the bulb is getting flakey. So yesterday I went online to order a new one. I looked around to get a good price and visited a site by a company that seems to specialize in such bulbs: Pureland Supply. But I ended up buying direct from Epson. Today I…
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A butterfly flaps its wings . . .
My head is still spinning from having just read Lenny Murphy's quick analysis of the SurveyMonkey acquisition of some of the assets for MarketTools. In his piece he describes MR as an industry under siege, in a state of chaos that ultimately may dump the industry into the "dustbin of history." Three things about this…
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Eric Salama on Radio NewMR
This morning I listened to an interview of Eric Salama, CEO of Kantar (and now TNS as well), on Radio NewMR. I know Eric Salama by name only and was interested to hear his take on the future of the industry. Overall his message seemed to be that our industry should focus on its strengths…
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Plus ça change – Part 1
Sometimes it feels like if you are around this industry long enough you begin to see things recycled, old ideas dressed up in new clothes and paraded out as the next big thing. That’s how I’m beginning to feel about big data. I find myself increasingly reminded of the twin next big things of the…
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Thinking or just plain stumped?
Last night I had dinner with an old friend who also is a world renowned and widely published expert on questionnaire design. We chatted some about what's happening in MR and I asked for his take on the industry's obsession with speeders, i.e., respondents we decide have answered questions too quickly. Or, more specifically, does…
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What skills does a market researcher need?
My inaugural post on this blog was on August 28, 2005. I started the blog as a way to share information inside my company. In those days posts were almost always true to the tagline and focused on surveys. But times change and today the MR industry is nowhere near as focused on surveys as…
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There you go again!
One hears lots of silly things said at MR conferences and one of the silliest and oft-repeated refrains is that you can't do surveys with probability samples any more. There are even those who say that you never could. As often as I get the chance I point out that that's total nonsense. Lots of…