We made the Inc. 5,000. Actually, we made spot 1,954 and ranked 42nd in Central Texas. We are extremely honored to be part of a list that includes companies like Vizio and Scottrade this year and Timberland, Microsoft and Jamba Juice in prior years. Trite, but very true – the success over the past few years (and in the future!) is due to amazing clients and employees. To all that have been involved with Sentient in large and small ways – please accept my deepest gratitude for your business, work, trust, support and friendship. Here is to a great future together! See our Inc. online profile here.

Best,

Paul Janowitz
Founder and CEO
sentientservices.com

Doing Good Work

As many of you know, at Sentient we have an unwavering commitment to affecting positive change through business. Part of this involves working with local charities such as LifeWorks and launching organizations of our own including AustinProBono.org. We also recently worked with The Trail Foundation to concept, design and launch an entirely new website for the organization. A special thank you goes out to The Butler Bros who worked with The Trail Foundation to develop the cool new logo we built the site around. This amazing nonprofit serves to protect and enhance the trail at Lady Bird Lake – Austin’s centerpiece of outdoor activity and exercise. We hope you enjoy the site!

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Research Is Not Dead

Recently I read a very interesting article in the June 2008 issue of Inc. magazine on Threadless titled “The Customer is The Company”. The article touts Threadless as “the most innovative company in America" and they may very well be, but that doesn't equal the death of research. In a nutshell, it argued that with the emergence of Web2.0 and other crowd sourcing platforms, companies were bypassing market research and R&D to develop products and services. This is being called “customer innovation” along with many other terms. The article predicts market research and large R&D departments will decline because of these innovations in communicating with customers. This is not the end of research – communicating with customers and listening is market research. What this means is that market research is ever more important and that these developments are new tools to use and the old barriers to implementing research are falling down – all actually good news for market research and the expertise needed to correctly solicit, analyze and implement all this customer feedback. To read my full response to the article that Inc. so kindly published in the next month’s issue go here.

-Paul Janowitz

We Have a New Baby

Well, it is actually Jessica’s little sweetie – Cameron. Please welcome back Jessica Dierks (our President) from her 3-month maternity leave. She needed a vacation from her maternity “vacation”, so she’s coming back to work! Not only can Jessica now help you with market research, interactive and usability projects, but if you are a new parent feel free to email her about baby stuff!

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Bigger, Faster, More Data, Less Money

We know what clients want. And, while there will always be a project, time, place and budget for traditional in-person focus groups – the time has also come for online bulletin boards (OBB). Just as much of the traditional phone survey research is now done online, we see the future of qualitative research turning heavily to online methodologies as well. Now, this does not mean that everything could or should be online.

However, just as online panels have become very projectable, large and valid survey instruments today due to a changing technology use landscape, so have online bulletin boards. More and more brand, product and customer interactions of all kinds are happening online (with online support, social networks, e-commerce applications…) it makes sense to bring the research online as well. There are two main online qualitative methodologies – online focus groups (real-time) and online bulletin boards (threaded discussions over several days). We are a strong proponent of the latter (online bulletin boards) as they have distinct advantages and benefits over real-time online groups.

Keeping in mind that you are always giving up something (more than just the M&Ms in the back room) by going online – namely facial expressions and interpersonal in-person dynamics, it is important that you gain something for that trade-off. This is where conducting online bulletin boards really shine. With real time online focus groups you do not get any real benefits in the amount of data or data quality vs. an in-person group and you are giving up the in-person interactions. You also have the issue of the loudest talker and fastest typist monopolizing the group. However, in online bulletin boards both of these issues disappear and you get more data, richer data and a high amount of inter-respondent interaction – making this format an excellent qualitative platform for most, but not all, qualitative research.

Some key benefits:

Asynchronous/self-paced with detailed and nuanced feedback
• Respondents have more time to think, they may look up notes and can do “homework” assignments (gather and post pictures, view other responses and react, observe their own behavior between sessions to report back, and other “ethnography-lite” applications)
• Given the flexibility and easy interaction of the platform respondents provide rich, detailed and thoughtful responses throughout the discussion as opposed to a single point-in-time

Better recruiting, broader coverage
• Participants can log in at times that are convenient to them (e.g., an individual may not be able to make it from 6-8pm but can login at midnight while traveling)
• There are no geographic boundaries
• Ideal when target respondents may be geographically dispersed

Integrated multi-media
• We can showcase websites, Flash, commercials and other rich media for quick and detailed user experience and audience testing
• Respondents can “diary” their own life with pictures and video and post directly into the discussion for a self-directed ethnography study
• Usability research can be done quickly and easily for most web and software applications through self-reported task analysis and pathing

More time, bigger groups, more data, less money
• Generally one online group generates the results of two in-person groups for around the same cost as a single traditional group
• Typically online bulletin boards last at least 3 days, with 12 participants “seated” (vs. 2 hours with 6-8 participants in traditional groups)
• Clients can view responses in real-time and post “back room” questions to the moderator, which can then be injected into the group at any time (vs. having to wait until the end of a traditional group) – this increases client interaction and the depth of probing significantly over traditional groups
• We can allow extensive interaction between respondents (since we are not time constrained) which generates results and insights not normally found in in-person groups

In summary, the opportunities for interaction, combined with the detail and depth of information provided by respondents with online discussions makes this methodology an ideal alternative to traditional groups – and a superior methodology in many respects for particular subject areas.

While online bulletin boards are an excellent platform for many research queries and should be strongly considered, especially if timing and budget are major constraints, they are not ideal for all research (and Sentient still conducts 60% of our qualitative work in-person).
• Online bulletin boards can be used for usability, ad/creative testing, product development, customer engagement and many other areas of inquiry
• In-person should be used when tactile, emotional and certain group dynamics are needed
• Questions? If you want to chat about an upcoming qualitative project or just chat through methodology options, please give Paul a call directly at 512.288.1706 or email.

Example Discussion of Online Bulletin Board:

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