When I think about research families – I quickly come up with:

(Two quick things not to insult ANYONE I put the list in alphabetical order and APOLOGIZE to EVERYONE I left off the list)

• Baldi: Joe, Janet
   
• Iseman: Carl, Diane
   
• Larson: Kim, Steve
   
• Nichols: Mimi, Aaron
   
• Hayes: Bernyce, Andrew, Matthew
   
• Heakin: Pat, John, Patty, Kevin
   
• O’Connor: Peggy, Tom
   
• Schafer: Marianne, David
   
• Schlesinger: Sarah, Debbie, Steve, Alan, Howard, AJ, Eric
   
• Shugoll: Joan, Merrill, Mark
   
• Weinstein: Ann, Adam

My kids are too young to know what they want to do but who knows maybe they will follow in my footsteps and end up in this great industry.

• What research families have I left off the list?
   
• What relatives have I left off the families that I mentioned?
   
• Are you hoping and who knows even nudging a little bit that your children end up in the business?

I really need your help on this and really look forward to compiling a complete list. So THANK YOU in advance for your assistance.

The quiz will involve 20 common acronyms that you have heard over and over again.

Do you know what they stand for?

You will be on the honor system and all you need to do is say yes or no that you know what it is.

What I am asking is look at the acronym and take 5 or so seconds to say yes or no I know what it stands for.

I promise this will be fun and you will learn something for sure!

Good luck and who knows we may even give out a prize and yes the quiz will be timed so please don’t use Google to help.

Click here to play.

Thanks for playing we will post the correct answers on Friday August 6.

The process was very thorough. We met some terrific and very qualified candidates.

One of the most impressive candidates was David Almy. I personally enjoyed getting to know him and found David to be professional, articulate, had a great thought process and most important has tremendous PASSION!

Recently I had the chance to spend an hour with David one-on-one and came away more impressed than I was during the interviewing process.

He is a very quick learner, asks the right questions and will make well informed decisions.

A few things the press release won’t mention about David:

• He was born in Japan
   
• Played baseball as a kid
   
• Loved the Phillies and Dodgers growing up
   
• Loves pecan pie
   
• Collects cars and owns 5 right now
   
• Has a passion for politics, marketing and aviation
   
• Favorite vacation spot is East Hampton
   
• Likes to take pictures

Last week David was announced the new CEO of the MRA and I for one am very excited about his arrival. I hope you get a chance to speak to him and share my excitement!

So how about it – how about a big heartfelt welcome for David!

• Any questions you have for David?
   
• Anything you want David to be aware of?
   
• Any events you want to invite David to be part of?
   
• Any comments you want to make?

I know David looks forward to hearing from all of you!

• Do they use market research to move the business forward?
   
• Do they use a formal customer satisfaction program to keep in touch with their clients?
   
• Do they formally follow up after proposals and projects to see how they do?
   
• Do they tabulate the information and discuss it in meetings?
   
• Do they react to the findings and adjust business practices?

All good questions to really think about. With our business we have a few programs in place. After a project is complete we send out an online survey called Client Voices. This is our customer satisfaction tool that has been in place for years. We have tremendous trending information and constantly are discussing it and making decisions based on the feedback. In addition any score that we deem as low, I personally call the client and discuss the project in depth. Also we have company awards given out on an annual basis and one of the awards is a client delight award which is given to the team with the highest customer satisfaction score.  In addition to this program, we have another one called Proposal Voices. This is an online survey that we send out three weeks after we send a proposal. Again we tabulate this information and use this as a key management tool.

• What do you do?
   
• Do you have a formal process in place?
   
• What are the recent learnings?
   
• What decisions have you made based on the feedback?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Over the past few months,  I have been reading a number of interesting reports on what is happening with the economy and with other companies. In the spirit of BEING A RESOURCE, I thought I would share those reports with you. Rather than posting all of them, I will make them available to anyone who asks. All you need to do is post a comment on the blog as to which reports you want. In return I will email them to you. The only requirement I have is you read them and post a comment about your thoughts on the report and whether it helps you. Sound fair?

Here are the five FREE available reports:

1. Marketing Research Association – Research Industry Index (RII) March 2010
    
2. Rockhopper Research – Research Industry Trends 2009 Report
    
3. Rockhopper Research  - Research Industry Trends Monitoring Group 2009 Qualitative Research Report
    
4. Trend Watching – 10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010
    
5. Anderson Analytics Marketing to Women Social Network Services (SNS) Factoids March 2010

I can assure you they all are very interesting. Some of them are specific to the research industry, while others are more general and have value for any business. Okay, in order for me TO BE A RESOURCE, at least a few people need to request the reports.

• Okay, who wants a report?
   
• Once you read it what did you think?
   
• Did it provide value to you?

I look forward to hearing from you.

• What do you think?
   
• What would you say?
   
• What would you highlight in your message?
   
• Would you mention certain products/services that benefited from market research?
   
• Would you include some of the most famous researchers like Arthur Nielsen, George Gallup and JD Power?
   
• How would you convince people how important market research is to companies?

I look forward to reading your comments and hearing what your message would be as the NEW market research spokesperson!

• 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.

Here are a few examples of the five they listed:

Customer said:

You could do a much better job of replenishing your stock, especially in the food.

Target’s response:

To better meet our guests’ wants and needs, we’re making improvements to our replenishment methods. Specifically, in the refrigerator/freezer case, product is being filled every hour – directly from the truck whenever possible.

Customer said:

Can you offer more Plus Size women’s clothing:

Target’s response:

Launched last month, our new Pure Energy brand delivers fashion-forward looks for Plus Size women to complete their wardrobe at affordable prices, with new styles arriving in stores each month. And for other brands you can always find a broader selection of Plus Size options at Target.com.

For me I really liked the fact that the ads included marketing research. It made me feel a little bit better towards their company, what they were selling and it would make a difference to me for shopping at the store and buying products.

What about you?

• Do you like when companies include market research in their ads?
   
• Can you think of any others that are currently doing that?
   
• As a researcher, how does it make you feel when a company does this?

I look forward to reading your comments.

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.

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.