The Survey Geek

Author: RegBaker

  • Déjà vu all over again

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    RegBaker
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    It seems like everywhere I turn the last week or so there is another call from CMOR (The Council for Marketing and Opinion Research) for input to a definition of market research. (Note that if you click the CMOR link it will actually take you to the MRA site, but that’s another story.) On the…

  • A public service annoucement

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    RegBaker
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    A colleague has sent me a link to a survey and I feel obligated to pass it on.  No need to worry, we are all supposed to pass it on.  It's one of those.  What we used to call snowball sampling. To be honest, I don't care for the survey much but I'm passing it…

  • Giving shape to the formless

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    RegBaker
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    A couple of months back Katie Harris down in Australia posted a comment referring to an entry in her blog–Zebra Bites.  It's a blog worth reading and I've added it to the list on the right.  The content is interesting and it's a much better looking blog than the one you're reading right now. (I…

  • And now, for a little pointless rambling

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    RegBaker
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    I've never been one to spend a whole lot of time agonizing about the state of the research profession or the kinds of people we should have in it. But a few weeks back when I posted something on eye candy in Web surveys it attracted a comment from Chris Ryan that raised the more…

  • Finally, the real issue?

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    RegBaker
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    This month's Research Business Report has two very interesting and related pieces. In one the editor takes the ARF ORQC to task for their somewhat languid reporting on the results of their Foundations of Quality initiative as well as the usefulness of their findings, or at least those findings that have been released to date.…

  • More thumbs down on eye candy in surveys

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    RegBaker
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    The current issue of Inside Research has a short note on some work done at DMS looking at respondent reactions to rich text and graphical interfaces in Web surveys. It’s hard to go to a MR conference these days without seeing someone present a passionate argument for the use of Flash or various kinds of…

  • Waiting for mobile

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    RegBaker
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    There is a nice little piece in the June issue of Research that tries to put interviewing on mobile phones in perspective. I’m not talking about something as old fashioned as calling people, but rather administering surveys on these little buggers by SMS, by Web browser, or by a special app you download that then…

  • Who really is worrying about online data quality?

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    RegBaker
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    The indomitable Simon Chadwick has a a little piece in the June issue of Research World in which he reports on the results of Cambiar's annual survey of the research industry–clients and suppliers. (You can get a topline of  the report from the Peanut Labs site here.)  One of the ongoing themes of this survey…

  • Day 2 PM: CASRO International Conference

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    RegBaker
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    Back from lunch. CASRO conferences always seem to have great lunches! There is just one session this afternoon that the co-chair promises will get us out of future pie-in-the-sky stuff and down to the basic blocking and tackling we need to know to do well in today's world. The first presenter is Kate Southwood from…

  • Day 2 AM: CASRO International Conference

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    RegBaker
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    Back for Day 2. Mike Cooke is kicking us off again. He is arguing that we have come to rely too much on quant and that the whole social network thing is a reinvention of the older qual methods. He sees quant as "the industrialization of research" and believes that in the process we have…