The Knowledge » Research

Check. Check. Stop! Managing the Process Critically

TechDept — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 09:53:25 +0000

Not long ago, a friend of mine turned me on to an interesting book entitled ‘The Checklist Manifesto’ by Dr. Atul Gawande.

Although Dr. Gawande hails from the medical field, I found his book interesting because he explores, in great detail, a topic that spans almost every aspect of our lives: how to get things done. But rather than focus exclusively on the medical profession, Gawande explores the tools that other professions use to manage complexity. He examines a wide range of specialties, including architects, pilots and chefs, to learn their technique.

What he finds is that, across the board, these industries rely heavily on checklists to succeed, even when the task at hand seems too complex for a simple recipe. He examines how the checklist can be implemented in operating rooms to eliminate human errors, reduce infections and ultimately save lives. But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can read Malcolm Gladwell’s review of the book over at Amazon.

One of Gawande’s most fascinating anecdotes is the visceral rejection of checklists by surgeons. Over and over again, doctors reject the idea of a checklist because they feel it is beneath them. After all, being a surgeon is something that requires years of educational study, research and intense on the job training. We trust them to make life or death calls, to essentially improvise based on years of expertise. Surely the idea that they would rely on a set of check boxes, to heal “by the book,” seems almost insulting.

By Garett for www.agencynet.com June 3 2010

Gaming most popular internet activity for tweens

TechDept — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 16:10:48 +0000

Children aged eight- to 14-years-old might be the most digitally aware generation yet, having never experienced life without mobiles, internet and computers, but 74% of children still opt for a modern version of old fashioned entertainment such as gaming.

This is followed by 59% of children who most commonly use the web for homework.

Although 95% of the 3,020 children surveyed said the internet was important to them, 30% said they would still prefer communicating with friends face to face while 15% would prefer texting and only 14% would rather chat online. Nearly 10% prefer communicating using their mobile phone.

By Sara Kimberley, Brand Republic, Jan 11 2010

New Marketing Asset Management Benchmark Report Released by Aberdeen Group

TechDept — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 14:53:59 +0000

Aberdeen Group recently launched a new benchmark report titled “Marketing Asset Management: Managing Brand Compliance in Distributed Marketing Environments,” authored by Peter Ostrow, Research Director, Sales Effectiveness for Aberdeen Group. The report examined 136 organizations that have deployed marketing asset management (MAM) solutions and found that 100% of the top performing companies improved their return on marketing investments, compared to 26% in other companies.

By Jake Athey, April 7 2010

Co-Creation: Not Just Another Focus Group

TechDept — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:11:56 +0000

To launch Twist, a new men’s fragrance in its global Axe brand, Unilever turned to a preapproved crowd of eager young amateurs for help.

In July 2008, Unilever executives convened 16 regular young men and women from around the world at a meeting in New York. Why? To tap them for ideas for a new global fragrance for Axe, a brand of men’s body spray, antiperspirant, and shower gel. The company had previously experimented with consumer-driven product development for local launches, but never for one on such a large scale.

The young adults had been assembled by Face, a London-based firm that helps companies innovate through co-creation. Face runs two online communities: Headbox, for young adults, and Mindbubble, for women. Each group has about 7,000 members, all eager to opine on what brands should do next. For each commercial project, Face invites a small number of members to work as paid collaborators, with compensation levels depending on the project. It’s a new way to answer the question of how to harness an unwieldy crowd to a business’ advantage.

Co-creation is more fluid than focus groups, says Face Chief Executive Andrew Needham, who helped to start the company in 2004. Presented with a brief, Needham’s participants are asked to develop an idea from scratch, while focus groups mainly offer feedback on ideas or prototypes that have already been prepared. “Often consumers take you to places that you would never thought of going to had you used more traditional research methods,” he says.

By Vanessa Wong, April 1 2010

UserVoice: The easiest way to turn feedback into action

TechDept — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:05:34 +0000

Listening to your customers just got a lot easier. Start a conversation. Take action. Build raving fans.

1. You ask a question.
2. Customers share their ideas and vote up the best ones.
3. Improve your product and customer loyalty.

Visit site

What is the secret to a successful website?

TechDept — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:02:32 +0000

Here’s the million-dollar question: “What is the secret to a successful website?” I’m not foolish enough to suggest a single answer. But in more than a decade of working on client websites, I’ve noticed a recurring pattern: the sites that succeed are those that have a well-informed, passionate website owner at the helm.

Read more

By Paul Boag, February 18 2010

10 Most Expensive Domain Names

TechDept — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:28:22 +0000

What’s the most expensive domain name on the Internet? It’s not ‘Porn.com,’ which comes in a close second, but ‘Fund.com,’ at nearly $10 million. Using data from the Domain Name Journal, ABC News put together this list of top 10 most expensive URLs on the Web:

1. Fund.com, $9.99 million
2. Porn.com, $9.5 million
3. Diamonds.com, $7.5 million
4. Toys.com, $5.1 million
5. Vodka.com, $3 million
6. CreditCards.com $2.75 million
7. Computers.com, $2.1 million
8. Seniors.com, $1.8 million
9. DataRecovery.com, $1.66 million
10. Cameras.com, $1.5 million

Commando Usability Testing

TechDept — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:45:54 +0000

Last week I aggregated all the most current resources I had found on lean usability testing into one post. As promised, this follow up post is about my personal experiences and lessons learned from doing Commando Usability Testing (CUT). I did CUT with around 30 different users in at least 5 different locations (all cafes): 3 in Palo Alto last summer and fall, and 2 in NYC this fall and winter.

What is CUT?

I had never heard it called this until Andre’s usability presentation last week. But what an awesome name . CUT is the most informal and low-cost style of usability testing. Basically you go into the field (usually a coffee shop) with your laptop and find random strangers to do user testing/customer development on.

By Carter, Feb 22 2010

Digg: 5 Years in 5 Minutes

TechDept — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:14:42 +0000

A great overview of the history / story of Digg (we really like the story of how they picked the name)…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fkIjOP0aug

83% of Twitter accounts inactive in December 2009

TechDept — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:32:47 +0000

Although 75 million people had signed up for a Twitter account by the end of 2009, only 17 percent sent even a single Tweet in December ‘09, an all-time low for the micro-blogging service, research from RJMetrics has found.

Overall, in the three years since it began, 40% of Twitter account holders have never sent one Tweet and 80% have sent less than ten.

By Furlong PR, Jan 28th 2010