QRCA Views

8 QRCA VIEWS SPRING 2 0 15 www.qrca.org W e hope you find this issue chock-full of innovative ideas on methods, tech- nology, and qualitative research in general. Our authors have been generous in sharing their approaches with enough detail to enable you to adopt and adapt them in your own work. Here is a preview of some of the content – for Luminaries, Judy Langer inter- views Tony Foleno, Senior Vice President of Research for the Ad Council, on its process for learning what the public actually thinks about issues. In the qualitative portions of the agency's work they favor loosely moderated groups of participants who share common characteristics. Rather than directing the group conversation with a fixed agenda, they guide it and pay attention because "there is no substitute for actually listening to people's stories." In their Toolbox article, Beverly Freeman of Google and Mark Wehner of eBay describe how they use "Journey Lines" to collect customer-user stories, which they share with colleagues to collaboratively redesign services. In the "Hitchhiker's Guide to Narrative Galaxies," Jochum Stienstra describes his open-ended technique for collecting stories, collaboratively analyzing, rewriting, and using them as a basis for developing caricatures and customer archetypes. This issue features several excellent articles that show how technology in our field has matured. Steve August, the creator of the Revelation platform, offers his ideas on how to blend online/offline, real-time/asynchronous, web/mobile capabilities to bring the most value to our clients. I was surprised to learn it is now possible to include facial recognition in webcam interviews. Karen Lynch has written an excel- lent piece on "clearing the hurdles of webcam interviews" through planning and practice, a useful checklist you can use to ensure success when you conduct this type of interview. And for a humorous look at the annoyances and snafus that can sometimes occur with online research, check out Andreiko Kerdemelidis's piece, "The Horrors of Online Qualitative Research." For our Global section, "Locavores and Fish in New Ponds: a discussion on expats as researchers" by Nikki Lavoie weighs the pros and cons of being a qualita- tive researcher in a foreign culture, based on her experience as an American living and working in France. In this issue's Trends piece, Terrie Wendricks explains why it's important to distinguish between consumer insights and shopper insights. With consumer insights the goal is to learn who the customer is and how to reach them with the right product and message. The focus of shopper insights is learning the consumer's path-to-purchase so the shopping experience can be optimized. Jeffrey Henning, President of Researchscape International, borrows a page from the manufacturing handbook in "Build a Blog Content Factory to Drive Leads" in the Business Matters section. His tips will help you generate, refine, and store ideas for your website. Please check out podcast.qrca.org for two new excellent podcasts. Michael Carlon talks with Joe Indusi, founder of Research 2 Video, a company that works exclusive- ly with researchers. Karen Lynch interviews Owen Shapiro, who co-wrote Brand Shift: The Future of Brands and Marketing on how cultural change and technology will affect brands and marketing in the future. George Sloan, VIEWS Book Reviews editor, critiques Advancing Ethnography in Corporate Environments by Brigitte Jordan and Start with Why – How Great Leaders Inspire Action by Simon Sinek. As always, our gratitude goes out to these amazing and generous authors who share their expertise with us so that we can expand our learning and be more cre- ative and successful as researchers. Thanks for reading VIEWS! Kay Corry Aubrey Editor in chief, QRCA VIEWS Magazine, Kay@UsabilityResources.net. n FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF n

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