Last Saturday was an interesting day for me. When I set off from home, I was not sure what to expect. I get skeptical when I hear of NGOs these days. Most have their own political agenda and the others are into making a lot of money thru foreign remits. So when I accepted the offer of visiting this one at Mankhurd, I was in a mixed state of mind.
Upon visiting the place I saw Atul squatting on the floor along with a senior gentleman and chopping vegetables. I joined him immediately. On menu was sambhar for the 350 or so kids of the Bal Kalyan Nigam(BKN). Volunteers like us were supposed to help cook sambhar for kids. This was a regular Saturday affair wherein the idea was to give them nutritious food, at least once a week. This cost, as I later learnt, just Rs. 1500, something that we spend, at times, on one dinner. With too many volunteers, we chopped all the vegetables in no time. Later Atul was telling me about the several activities Vinimay, an institution for children and youth welfare, undertakes for their development. That really is not the focus of this piece. What is more interesting is the meeting that I attended later on at Dr. Das's apartment at the BARC campus.
There were 16 of us in the meeting ranging from people in their mid twenties like Anusha, who introduced me to this group, to Dr. Das probably in his early sixties. What was striking about this group of people was that they would otherwise appear to be normal human beings like you and me, but were committed to teaching economically challenged kids a few days a week, absolutely free. Today’s meeting was to decide who was going to take which class and which subjects on which day for the next academic year. On agenda were two schools, Class 6 to 10 and boys and girls separate batch. Dr. Das was able to allocate responsibilities so smoothly with the help of a couple of other senior people, that all these permutations and combinations were sorted out in less than an hour. I was recalling other high level meetings that I have attended where people squabble and shout to make their point. Most of the time is squandered in playing politics and serving one’s own agendas. How this group of men and women, young and old coming from different backgrounds were doing this thankless job along with their other responsibilities of a wife, mother, husband, father and not to mention, their jobs, smoothly.
The thing that struck me about this group was that they were very practical and wise. So for example someone asked if we had to buy notebooks. To this, another participant responded saying that the kids don’t get the notebooks we give them and get some other note book each time so let’s not spend on notebooks. Then Dr. Das checked if Mrs. Ganguly was good for Class 10 English. To this someone responded that Mrs. Ganguly was very popular. Dr. Das said, “Popularity is OK but this is Class 10. Will she be able to get them pass Class 10?” How practical! Getting the kids to pass class 10 is important and hence that was the focus, not popularity of the teacher. Saurav, another guy who I got friendly with, had an interesting question. He asked if he could gift a boy a chocolate or something like that if the boy answered a question right or did well in a class test. The response was no. The idea was that other kids should not feel ‘left out’ which is what they feel all the time when they see other children. If one wants to praise the boy, move away from materialistic things so that they don’t start comparing their own teachers as opposed to the volunteers. Further, the primary idea is to improve the average and not groom excellence. This last phrase struck me. Improve the average.
Marathi manoos promoters should know that a significant majority of this group were not Maharashtrians but were doing whatever they could for these kids who were mostly from Maharashtra. Once again, there was no personal agenda.
I have often thought of joining such institution. A place that is practical and works with the system to change it overtime. I am not sure whether I will be able to travel to Mankhurd each Saturday from Andheri but what I am sure about is that sooner or later, I will join some such group, closer from home. Sometimes, ordinary people inspire us. Saturday was one such day for me.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Erstwhile researchers, be fair.
I was recently in a meeting with the insights manager of a leading telecom player. During this meeting, I was trying to sell a recent offering in which among other things, there are 25 image parameters on which respondents associate celebrities. During the presentation, the insight manager said, ‘25 is not enough; I need 150 image traits’. After the presentation was over, she repeated her need for 150 traits complaining that 25 were not deep enough. I was speechless wondering how can an ex researcher talk of 150 image traits being in a questionnaire? I do not mind conceding that 25 may not be enough for some clients so one may ask adding a few more. But 150? Does she not know what an interviewer goes thru in the data collection process? Do we all not know how difficult is it to get an interview? After all, how many of us would give one to a market research company? And of those who said yes, how many would go through a list of 150 image traits, among other things in a questionnaire? Did she never, at one point in time in her career when she was on the other side of the table as a research seller, defend the merits of keeping questionnaires short? Coming from someone who spent a few years in a leading market research company, left me wondering if she was really doing justice to her new employer. The meeting may have triggered this blog, but I have met many ex-researchers like her in client organizations.
Research or insights managers in client organizations are hired with the assumption that they know the market research process well and are therefore in an advisory capacity protecting client interests. Their job is to understand the requirements from the brand teams, convert them to research briefs, liaison and negotiate with the market research agencies and deliver back what was required. They are also supposed to educate the brand teams on what makes good research, what type of questions make sense and what makes respondents irritable. However we continue to see poor demands of deliverables (power point being used as excel sheets with 200 slides) or 40 page questionnaires with 80 psychographic statements or 150 image traits by the same ex market researchers. Whereas most of them are doing a good job, I hope, they are doing little to educate the clients, now their employers, on the best practices of the market research process. In turn, clients continue to be oblivious of the information in spite of having them on the payroll.
For instance, a true researcher knows (but would never admit) that if the questionnaire length exceeds 15-20 minutes, the quality of response suffers. I still am surprised at how little the questionnaire length plays a role in negotiating contracts. They all talk about reducing sample size to save costs but I have yet to meet a researcher who asks me to reduce costs by reducing the length of the questionnaire. A high proportion of interviews stop midway leading to productivity loss but who cares? How many of these ex researchers visit the field once in a while to get a feel of data collection? And how often? If they did, they would know how difficult it is to get an interview, let alone administer a long questionnaire. Rather than only negotiating the price of the survey, they should question how much are the market research agencies paying their interviewers for each completed survey? Or for that matter what is the value of the gift given to the respondent?
If you are a client and if your market research agency or your insights manager says OK to a questionnaire which in your opinion takes 40 minutes to administer, then you are being fooled. Period. If there is no provision for gifts, then half of the data is diluted. Ask yourself, why would someone oblige otherwise? Would you?
So here are 3 rules, as a benchmark if you really want to improve the quality of your market research data:
1. Try really hard not to exceed 20 minutes of interview time. Approve a questionnaire that you will yourself answer if approached by an interviewer.
2. Except for opinion polls, always keep a budget for gifts to respondents. This is customary in rest of the world. The quality of data will more than justify the increased cost.
3. If you are breaking rule number 1, then compensate it by increasing the value of your gift, from rule number 2.
And ex-researchers, please take efforts to educate clients at the risk of being unpopular. That is, if you really want this profession to have a long life.
Research or insights managers in client organizations are hired with the assumption that they know the market research process well and are therefore in an advisory capacity protecting client interests. Their job is to understand the requirements from the brand teams, convert them to research briefs, liaison and negotiate with the market research agencies and deliver back what was required. They are also supposed to educate the brand teams on what makes good research, what type of questions make sense and what makes respondents irritable. However we continue to see poor demands of deliverables (power point being used as excel sheets with 200 slides) or 40 page questionnaires with 80 psychographic statements or 150 image traits by the same ex market researchers. Whereas most of them are doing a good job, I hope, they are doing little to educate the clients, now their employers, on the best practices of the market research process. In turn, clients continue to be oblivious of the information in spite of having them on the payroll.
For instance, a true researcher knows (but would never admit) that if the questionnaire length exceeds 15-20 minutes, the quality of response suffers. I still am surprised at how little the questionnaire length plays a role in negotiating contracts. They all talk about reducing sample size to save costs but I have yet to meet a researcher who asks me to reduce costs by reducing the length of the questionnaire. A high proportion of interviews stop midway leading to productivity loss but who cares? How many of these ex researchers visit the field once in a while to get a feel of data collection? And how often? If they did, they would know how difficult it is to get an interview, let alone administer a long questionnaire. Rather than only negotiating the price of the survey, they should question how much are the market research agencies paying their interviewers for each completed survey? Or for that matter what is the value of the gift given to the respondent?
If you are a client and if your market research agency or your insights manager says OK to a questionnaire which in your opinion takes 40 minutes to administer, then you are being fooled. Period. If there is no provision for gifts, then half of the data is diluted. Ask yourself, why would someone oblige otherwise? Would you?
So here are 3 rules, as a benchmark if you really want to improve the quality of your market research data:
1. Try really hard not to exceed 20 minutes of interview time. Approve a questionnaire that you will yourself answer if approached by an interviewer.
2. Except for opinion polls, always keep a budget for gifts to respondents. This is customary in rest of the world. The quality of data will more than justify the increased cost.
3. If you are breaking rule number 1, then compensate it by increasing the value of your gift, from rule number 2.
And ex-researchers, please take efforts to educate clients at the risk of being unpopular. That is, if you really want this profession to have a long life.
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