Last week, I attended the AMA Research Conference in Palm Springs.  One of the better presentations I witnessed was by Chris Frank, VP of Global Insights for AmEx.  He presented on "Tricks and Techniques" to be a brilliant researcher.  These techniques are built on two trends he sees as pervasive in research.

1. Research Control becoming Research Collaboration
2. Education about research becoming Evangelism about research implications

Here are Chris Frank's 7 "Tips and Tricks" to be "Brilliant!"

1. Be explicitly clear on the essential business question.
2. Develop hypotheses, test them in the research and report on them.
3. Practice Smoke Jumping.  Be willing to change the research design at any point to accomodate new findings or explore new questions so that the final report includes complete understanding of the findings and issues.
4. Reveal surprises.  Ask the question, "What surprised you the most?"
5. Don't sweat the small stuff.  Miniscule changes are just that miniscule.  Focus on the important findings that are important enough to change decisions. 
6. Plan and be sprecific in your research meetings.
7. Make the bottom line the top line.  Put conclusions up front.  Leave the detail for those who want to dig through it.  Display the data to drive the point home.  Be compelling.

These points are changing the way research is designed, managed, reported and used throughout American Express. 

If we all focused on our research in this way, we would be more valuable to the decision-makers in our firm or our client's firms.  This process makes complete sense and focuses everyone on the game-changing research results.

Susan Abbott points out that people who are lying often can't be caught by body language but are usually given away by their words, usually they way they tell a story. 

Drawing from Judging Honesty by Words, Not Fidgets, by Benedict Carey, Susan presents the debunks the following myths about liars.  

• Liars do not avert their eyes more than people telling the truth
• Liars do not fidget, sweat or slump more than truth-tellers
• There are fleeting changes in expression, but these are difficult to analyze

In addition, she presents the following truths:

• People who are lying tend to try to stick to a script, to avoid getting caught in a lie.
• People telling the truth don't have a script, so they tend to recall more extraneous details, and make mistakes. And the more they talk about a given experience, the more of these details come to mind.

Paying close attention to words is just as important as nonverbal behaviour to truly understand the truth contained in the research.

Susan's blog, "Customer Experience Crossroads" can be found at www.customercrossroads.com.

Rarely do you find an academic science foundation producing a serious paper on qualitative research.  While browsing the internet, I came across a paper that the National Science Foundation published following a 2003 workshop.  The paper titled "Workshop on Scientific Foundations of Qualitative Research" is an academic paper that laid out a roadmap for the NSF to begin awarding grants for qualitative research. 

The paper is not terribly long. The actual paper is only about 10 pages though the appendix balloons the entire document to 147.  As a practitioner, I found it somewhat helpful if I applied a "qualitative" eye to it as I read.  For me, I gained the most by keeping the question, "How might this concept be applied to my practice?" rather than reading it for literal knowledge. 

Here is the link to the entire paper http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2004/nsf04219/nsf04219.pdf

Click the link below to read two paragraphs from the paper's Executive Summary about the organization of the paper.

In advance of the Web Strategy Summit coming up May 4-5 in Calgary, Matthew Nish-Lapidus sat down with one of the presenters, Dianne Howie to get a preview of her presentation.  In this interview, she shows how Logitech used qualitative research to dig deeper into issues highlighted by Logitech's web analytics and how the qualiative actually allowed Logitech to identify and solve specific consumer problems. 

2009 Web Strategy Summit - A word with Dianne Howie

by Matthew Nish-Lapidus
April 1, 2009

This paper from the Weekly Qualitative Report is specifically produced by academics for academics.  However, if you are interested in finding qualitative material in video format on YouTube, this paper has done the work for you.  The authors searched YouTube for qualitative related videos, reviewed them and provided them in this paper with a synopsis and a link.  You may find it useful.  Here is the article abstract:

YouTube, the video hosting service, offers students, teachers, and practitioners of qualitative researchers a unique reservoir of video clips introducing basic qualitative research concepts, sharing qualitative data from interviews and field observations, and presenting completed research studies. This web-based site also affords qualitative researchers the potential avenue to share their reusable learning resources for all interested parties to use.

You can go directly to the paper at: http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/WQR/youtube.pdf 

At the end of a very good article that defines the ever-elusive "insights" that we seek as qualitative researchers, is an interesting couple of paragraphs related to the importance of "unlearning."  I've copied those paragraphs below and hope they will stimulate your thinking.  To see hte entire article, go to:  http://kumeugirl.com/

Kathy Sierra in her blog Creating Passionate Users discusses unlearning.

"Yes, we're under pressure to learn more and to learn quickly, but the future goes to those who can unlearn faster than the rest, because you can't always learn something new until you first let go of something else. And learning to let go of rules is one of the first things we (and our managers) have to learn to be quicker at.

Sometimes that means letting go of something that served you well for a long time."

Qualitative Research is changing, as we work through how we engage people in a more "authentic" way. The recession means we literally cannot afford to do what we have done in the past. We will need to "unlearn" both how we construct methodologies as well as how we analyse and interpret meaning. And maybe there are other things we have to unlearn as well?

Qualitative research is constantly engaged to understand underlying motivators, hot buttons and meaning for various types of consumers.  Therefore, understanding and being able to communicate those insights is crucial to success for the qual researcher.  The folks at Making Meaning outline 15 meaningful experiences people common to people across cultures.  For the full article go to http://www.makingmeaning.org/meanings.html

The 15 meanings that they found across cultures simply provide a framework for thinking as we conduct qualitative research.  Those 15 means are presented below in alphabetical order. 

1. Accomplishment
2. Beauty
3. Community
4. Creation
5. Duty
6. Enlightenment
7. Freedom
8. Harmony
9. Justice
10. Oneness
11. Redemption
12. Security
13. Truth
14. Validation
15. Wonder

Its an interesting website.  I recommend you check it out.

In research and in management, we are solving problems.  As we know, not all problems are created equal.  There are many different approaches to many different problems.  A fascinating method for thinking about problem-solving is the Cynefin Sense-Making Framework developed by Professor David Snowden. 

This framework divides problems into two broad categories:  ordered and unordered.  The ordered category is further divided into Simple and Complicated problems.  Unordered is divided into Complex and Chaotic. 

1. Simple problems are cause and effect related and generally have direct solutions. 
2. Complicated problems exist in a complex environment where the actual solution is not obvious and requires an expert to discipher and solve.
3. Complex problems exist in a constantly changing environment where cause and effect are impossible to determine.
4. Chaotic problems are those that happen rapidly denying decision makers time to analyze and evaluate. 

Deloitte applied this Framework to the problem of Mine Safey in South Africa.  The resulting report is a wonderful explanation of the Framework as well as a case study in its application.  You can find the report at:  http://www.narrativelab.co.za/files/Deloitte%20PoV%20on%20Mine%20Safety%20Feb09.pdf.