I had a really good laugh when i read this hilarious account of a "focus group mom" - for whom focus groups are her desperate attempt to be heard [link via Ideas Bazaar].

Some excerpts :

"..... i discovered an ugly little secret about myself: I need people to listen to my opinions. A 3 year old who wants to know whether a snail can escape from the compost pile, or why it's not OK to pretend to his younger brother that drinking bathwater is fun is insufficient."

".... so i became "focus group mom".  Focus group mom isn't exactly me, but she's enough like me that I can pull her off."

".... It wasn't long before I got my first assignment: Evaluate a revised exhibit at a children's museum. Sitting around the table, eating a free veggie sandwich and drinking a diet soft drink, I became an expert in museum planning. It was up to me to tell the group coordinator that it didn't matter to most parents whether the exhibit had interactive play elements or presented the risk of lead poisoning, as long as it had parking, clean changing tables and cost less than $20 for a family of four. Furthermore, I told him, if the museum made us cross any of the Bay Area's costly and crowded bridges, it had better entertain the kids for more than an hour, or there'd be bigger demand for refunds than Super Bowl tickets. A tape recorder was rolling. A camera had been set up. There was a two-way mirror. The curator, architect, director - and, for all I know, the 10 biggest donors to the museum - were all going to see me and hear me telling them how I thought they should run their museum. They wanted my input. I was their public. I didn't have to know beans about museums. I just had to know what it would take to get me to go to theirs. I got family passes and $80. It was instantly addicting."

" ......I learned how to respond honestly, while also tactfully eliciting information from the interviewer about what kind of group they were looking to assemble and who would qualify. I tried to place myself among those I imagined would be the most desirable participants."

On a more serious note - this is an issue qualitative research in India is facing today. We call them 'Professional Respondents' here.  The problem with "professional respondents" isn't only that they attend many groups, or are just there for the gifts (we don't give money here as its considered rude in our culture - unless it is groups among youth for whom money is a huge motivator to attend) refreshments and the opportunity to step out of the home, be heard and feel important.  The problem is in the danger of lieing and fabricating answers, they know the process and know just how to respond to meet your "perceived" needs. And the industry loves them because they are just so adept at qualifying and articulating their responses.

When i started my career as a qualitative researcher almost 15 years ago, it was a nascent industry here - as part of my training in the first year, i remember having to go out into the field, along with recruiters, knocking on doors, often having the door slammed on my face, then administering the recruitment questionnaire, and having to 'terminate' interview after interview as we discovered the respondent did not fulfil the criteria.  A very very difficult, time consuming task, and quite unfulfilling. Still, the quality of respondents we finally got into the groups was really good. 

Today it isn't.  When i ask respondents if they've attended a group in the past, they all tend to say "no". So many things tell me otherwise.  I could be doing a group among users of Brand X one week - and have the same respondent in a group among users of Brand Y the very next week (it has really happened to me).  Today, i have to do very little by way of warm-up - respondents seem to look bored during my introductory spiel, suggesting they've heard it many times before.   When i get them to personify a brand - earlier - we'd tell them stuff like "imagine i'm a magician - and i've done magic and transformed Brand X into a human being - and its come alive in front of us - or walked into the room - now lets describe this person"  - today before i can complete my sentence (forget about the need for an example or any probing) i have responses like "a 26 year old woman, newly married, upper income, outgoing and cheerful" or one-step further into an instant analogy with a filmstar - which would earlier have been elicited only after one more level of probing.

Although the market research industry has advanced so much in other areas, we do not always have online databases or centralised files of potential respondents here - its really all under the control of the field force. Most research companies in India, despite having structures for varying levels of quality control, use external field suppliers for the actual recruitment - and these tend to be a more-or-less common pool across research and field services companies.  These recruiters, armed with the recruitment criteria, look into their 'network' and recruit people from them.   Or from their families, friends, neighbours or fellow recruiters' networks. 

When i was at my earlier company, and we realised the growing problem of professional respondents, we conducted a small study among recruiters for focus groups to try and understand the problems they face, the shortcuts they take, the criteria they find most difficult to fulfill, and so on. That was really revealing.  Among other issues, we realised that 'repeat respondents' is a reality and here to stay - one of the outcomes was for us to relax eligibility criteria from 'never having been interviewed or attended a group earlier' to 'not having attended a group in the last one year (some companies use a 6 month time period) and never having attended a group on the product category under study' 

Some of the issues that i wonder about that might help us recognise this problem and deal with it : 

- are we being too unrealistic in our expectations or in the criteria we set out for an eligible respondent ?  Since qualitative research recruitment is always purposive, i do feel we sometimes 'dump' so much extra into our criteria that encourages taking shortcuts and 'cheating'.  Result - Focus Group Moms.

- there's way too much of QADR (Quick and Dirty Research) happening.  Clients call on a Monday - want 2 quick groups on Wednesday - and findings by Thursday.  I've had fieldwork suppliers tell me, without a blink of an eyelid - i can do groups for you tomorrow - why wait till Wednesday.  ????? .  The thing is the researchers are happy, the client is happy, the field supplier gets his money - so where's the problem !!! Result - Focus Group Moms.

- we accept unreasonable demands from Clients: eg - do two groups among users of a product category with penetration of 3%; and they must be users of brand X - market share - 5%, who have lapsed from brand Y - market share 10%.  And turnaround the groups in a week.  How many researchers really question the client on the logic behind the criteria, how many of us explain the ground realities to them, how many can say - hey - i will not take on the project.  Result - Focus Group Moms.

- we are happy when we get a group talking.  Many Clients and researchers today believe a group has gone off really well, when all respondents have spoken extensively.  We need to be careful about this "noise" - noise is what we are most comfortable with - makes us feel good as moderators, and look good in the eyes of the client. It may give us no insight however on the subject, or in some cases can be extremely misleading.  It isn't necessarily real speak. A silent group, on the other hand, is labelled a "bad group". This too, is a naive view - and unfortunately i have seen clients and researchers really upset - with client cribs - "but they didnot talk, the moderation was awful- you will need to redo the group".  While this may well be the case in a few instances, i have found in most cases, silence is insightful.  It could be a reflection of low levels of involvement with the category, indifference to stimuli you are testing, or discomfort with the topic, that is really going deep, and is difficult to articulate. Each of these can have huge implications on findings, if care is taken to listen to what's not being said.  Result - Focus Group Moms.  

These might just be small things each of us, as researchers can guard against.  Respondents are here to stay - and i am usually honest with my clients - that i cannot truly guarantee they will not attend groups organised by my company. 

The larger issue is how best can the Market Research industry tackle this issue. 

Until we resolve these issues somehow, as an industry, we're going to only have more and more "focus group moms" and "focus group dads", and "focus group kids", and "focus group doctors", and "focus group bankers", and  ............       

I'd love to hear your views - and how the industry in other countries is looking upon the problem of professional respondents.

12:07:50 PM    comment []  trackback []

Nova Spivack: The Future of the Web, has two interesting articles - one tracing the Pattern of Social Technology Evolution,  and the second, his vision of the Metaweb.

In the first, he traces the evolution of online technologies from the 80's with a vision for the 2010's, along five parameters - content, communication, collaboration, community, commerce.

For the 2010's here's his vision :

Content : Lifelogsî & Personal Portals - All information about a person and their experiences is automatically logged for their personal use. Semantic routing of content delivers relevant information to interested parties automatically ñ everyone gets their own portal.

Communication : Universal Communications -Persistent identity and relationship management across all devices, software, and networks enables seamlessly integrated synchronous and asynchronous communications.

Collaboration : Group Minds - Anyone can know what everyone knows; everyone can know what anyone knows. New levels of collective intelligence are enabled by fusion of Semantic Web with distributed agents and knowledge management tools.

Community : Emergent Communities - Communities spontaneously emerge and self-organize around memes (hot topics). Communities are decentralized; no longer ìhostedî in any single location or controlled by any single service provider

Commerce : Intelligent Marketplaces - Intelligent commerce agents interact semi-autonomously in a decentralized global marketplace. Self-optimizing trading networks

In the second article, he ties this evolution into implications for the Metaweb, along a matrix of degrees of information connectivity and social connectivity. 

"The Metaweb is emerging from the convergence of the Web, Social Software and the Semantic Web."

A larger image can be viewed here.

9:30:21 AM    comment []  trackback []