The Merrill Dubrow Blog

A few years ago when I was on the MRA National Board, we were discussing conferences and I tossed out an idea that I thought had some legs. The idea was a niche conference that focused on developing talent with people who have worked in the research industry for 5-10 years. Almost a superstar in training conference for people between the ages of 25-40. People who have tremendous potential and could benefit by going to a three day conference and be part of a small group of 40 people or so. The conference is similar to the CEO conference–just for a different group of people. The presenters would all be successful business executives from the industry and the topics could range from:

• Being a GREAT leader
   
• Presentation skills development
   
• Understanding financials
   
• Basic knowledge of running a company or division

That’s the concept. I really like it and really want to know what you think.

• What do you think of the concept?
   
• Would you attend or send someone on your staff?
   
• Do you think the industry could support a conference like this?
   
• Is the timing right for this conference?

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (10) »

The fall brings a lot of different things besides colder weather; it also brings a heavy research conference calendar.  AMA, IIR, CASRO, MRA, WOMMA, ESOMAR, QRCA and many others all had research-focused conferences.

Recently when I was at a conference, one of the new contacts I made mentioned which of the concurrent sessions he was going to and then added something odd.  He said, "I’m a mover."  When I asked for clarification, he replied that most concurrent presentation sessions aren’t good and when he starts feeling one is a total waste of time, he MOVES to another session. 

This conversation gave me a chance to think about what makes a presentation good, and made me wonder what people really want out of a conference presentation.

Here are a few things that I really want:

• I really want to hear results. Not pie in the sky but results on how a system or procedure saved them money, increased revenue, led to a successful new product or something like that.
   
• I also would like one takeaway — one thing that I can implement or at least evaluate at our company
   
• I want the presenter to have me think about something differently. I really want to be able to say, "Hey that’s interesting, I never thought of it that way."
   
• Clean slides.  I don’t want to have slides that are very text-heavy and hard to follow.

What about you?

What do you really want in a conference presentation?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (1) »

I think it’s safe to say that no matter what the research project objectives are, one thing that every custom research project has in common is respondents. I think it’s also safe to say that every client WANTS and NEEDS the right respondents for their research project. It doesn’t matter if it is a qualitative or quantitative study, they want the right respondents.  That’s for sure. They are paying for and deserve respondents that qualify, are truthful and rely on companies to ensure that their partners’ or vendors’ quality standards are very high. People who don’t know our industry that well always question the quality of respondents. Since I have been in the industry for over 25 years I know many people who have quality front and center of everything they do and really would like for them to share some best practices with readers of the blog.

Ok now that I have bored you a little bit on the obvious, the question is, "What do data companies really do in terms of quality?"

• How do panel companies recruit new panelists?
   
• What traps are they putting in place to catch people who might be falsifying data?
   
• How do focus group facilities ensure that Fred Smith is really Fred?
   
• How do they make sure that the recruiter isn’t leading the respondent?
   
• How do telephone interviewers get trained to make sure that they are following the screener/questionnaire exactly the way the client wants them to?
   
• What are the quality standards for coding and translation companies?

I look forward to hearing from Chris D, Craig S, Steve S, Roseanne L, Amy S, Todd B, Harriet N, Ann T.B, Carl I, Michael H, Ed S, Peggy O and many, many others–all of whom I have known for many years and have a lot of quality standards in place.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (10) »

With the conference season about to start, one thing is for certain: every conference will include many sessions regarding social networking sites. A few people–probably not that many–might ask, "Why is that?"  For many reasons.  And at the top of the list is the buzz that these social networking sites have created and how they might be able to help in terms of research projects.

My sense is that companies are starting to have some success with social networking sites and starting to figure out their place in the research world.

I assume companies are:

• Using these sites to increase their respondent data base?
   
• Using them to recruit for focus groups?
   
• Using them to do incidence checks?
   
• Creatively using them to find staff?
   
• Also monitoring the sites to see what the most relevant discussions and buzz words are and using that information to develop a questionnaire or moderator’s guide.

Am I right?

• I would love for you to share success stories (no need to mention clients names at all – please keep that generic)
   
• Also can you share some of the mistakes that you may have made?
   
• What learnings have you had along the way?
   
• On what sites have you had the most success?

It would be great to hear from a lot of people and get a good discussion going on such an important topic. I will also ask our Field Department and some of our project staff to share our experience as well.

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (6) »

The fall always brings a little cooler weather and research conferences. In fact, lots of conferences:

ESOMAR Congress Sept 15 – 18

AMA Research Conference Oct 4 – 7

QRCA Annual Conference Oct 7 – 9

CASRO Oct 13 – 16

IIR The Market Research Event Oct 18 – 21

PMRG October 25 – 27

MRA Conference Nov 4 – 6

WOMMA Nov 18 – 20

With tighter budgets and a challenging economy:

• What conferences have you decided to attend?
   
• What about exhibit?
   
• Are you going to send fewer people to conferences?
   
• Did I miss any conferences?

As of now I plan on attending the AMA, IIR and WOMMA conferences and am still on the fence with a few others. We will be having colleagues at most if not all of the conferences that I listed.

I look forward to reading your comments and hopefully seeing you soon.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (15) »

For 2,190 consecutive days I was part of something very special. My streak was longer than Lou Gehrig’s by 60 but far short of Cal Ripken’s streak of 2,632 baseball games played in a row.

Well as of this past Friday, my streak came to an end. I never realized that in the early part of 2003 my life would change. Not only change but for the better. You see in March 2003, I was nominated to be on the national board for the Marketing Research Association (MRA). Next stop was to cross my fingers and hope that I would win an election against two other worthy candidates. As luck would have it I won the election and the next thing I knew I was being sworn in–in front of the association at the annual conference. This was a nice time and I was honored but I didn’t know what it meant. Having matured over the years, I now know that it meant a lot.

I have attended many conference calls, board meetings, participated in strategy sessions and presented many times. Yes it was work, in a lot of ways extra work, but I must tell you it never felt that way to me. I was doing something for an industry that I truly love and wanted to give something back to an industry that has given me so much.

Over the years the MRA has given me:

• An opportunity to grow as a professional
   
• Being part of a team that is so passionate and dedicated to the industry
   
• Friendships that will last a lifetime

I have been part of many boards before but this one was different. This experience was much more meaningful and together this team made strategic decisions and moved the industry forward. I was part of something that was so very special and near and dear to my heart.

My streak of 2,190 days being on the national MRA are over and part of me is sad, in fact very sad. However, I am excited for the next generation of board members and their dedication, energy and most of all, fresh ideas.

The first thank you goes to the MRA members for voting for me. For trusting and believing that I could make a difference. I hope I did and didn’t let you down.

A big thank you to the presidents whom I served under: Michael Mermelstein, Joe Ottaviani Jane Cook, Merrill Shugoll, Colleen Moore Mezler and Jon Last. What a special group of people.

Another thank you goes to Larry Brownell, Kristen Darby and the entire MRA staff. They have done a great job in a tough economy.

A huge thank you to all the board member that I got a chance to serve with. There are way too many to mention all of them but a few of them include: Adam Weinstein, Amy Shields, Ed Sugar, Elisa Galloway, Ken Roberts, Kim Larson, Mary Wang and many others.

Of course a big thank you goes to Steve Schlesinger. Over the past six years we have worked closely together, accomplished a lot and you are one of the main reasons that my MRA experience was so meaningful and unforgettable.

Last but not least . . . the late John Boni who was the person who first got me involved in the local chapter of the MRA way back in 1988. Thank you for continuing to have a positive effect on my career long after we stopped working together.

MRA, my glass is raised and I toast you!

Thank you for everything you have given me over the last 2,190 days.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (26) »

Some of the most effective marketing tools these days are webinars. They are inexpensive (sometimes free) to attend.  And since you can participate from wherever you are there are no travel costs and frankly the time commitment isn’t that great.

The question is, what are the best ones to attend? Years ago I must admit I attended two in a row that were not only very basic but an infomercial for the company who was presenting. I understand that hosting companies need to see the value, but I believe the payoff will be big if the webinar is done correctly. My goal is to walk away learning a few things and unfortunately that didn’t happen during the ones I attended.

Some of the companies and associations (I haven’t attended many of these) that have webinars include:

• American Marketing Association
• CASRO
• Confirmit – software
• Cvent
• Dunn & Bradstreet
• Forrester Research
• Global Bay – software
• GMI
• Marketing Research Association
• MarketTools
• Nielsen Claritas
• Peanut Labs
• Vovici

Now your turn to add to the list:

• What webinars have you attended?
   
  
• What webinar did you learn something from?
   
  
• What webinars would you recommend?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (11) »

When I get to work in the morning I usually do the same things: I review my calendar to see what my day (or at least what I know about) has in store for me, I review our revenue and current pipeline and I go online. I will see if any of the Boston sports teams played and what the outcome was (most of the time a win!) Also I will visit a few websites–mostly research related. They include:

The MRGA

The MRA

Quirks

MrWeb

My goal is to stay up to date with happenings in the industry. Because things are changing so quickly these days, I feel this is critical to my job.

• My question is what websites do you visit?
   
• What sites give you the most up to date information about our industry?
   
• What e-newsletters do you subscribe to?

With websites and newsletters popping up everywhere I want to make sure I am as tuned in as I can be and need your help.

I look forward to reading your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (8) »

Everybody has heard of them. Everyone has joined them and more likely visited one in the past few hours.
 
You are probably trying to figure out what I am referring to which is social networking sites. Some of the bigger sites are Classmates.com, MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook. I am sure everyone has heard of them and probably registered with each of those sites. I believe each of those sites have over 100 million registered users.
 
There are ones that you may never have heard of like:

• Geni.com
   
• imeem
   
• Last.fm
   
• Orkut
   
• Plaxo
   
• PerfSpot

Until I did some research while writing this posting, I had not heard of those six social networking sites. Have you? I am assuming the answer is no for most of you. The interesting thing is, that each of those sites have over 10 million registered users. Yes I said 10 million registered users!

We all know the world is changing and changing very quickly. Clearly these sites have a role in research.

• What is it?
   
• How are you using social networking sites for research projects?
   
• What success are you having?
   
• Are there any white papers that you can share?

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Posted in Research | Post Comments (11) »