A Time To Reflect

charukesi January 5th, 2005

Study quoted in Outlook on happiness levels across cities in India - Bangalore, City In A Deep Blue Funk

Despite its weather and greenery; despite its emergence as the city of opportunities, Bangaloreans are India’s unhappiest people.

Once again, a lot of figures and percentages quoted from this study by Synovate but little analysis and explanation of the reasons behind… Sachin Tendulkar (27%) is perceived to be happier than Amitabh Bachchan (23%), but Aishwarya Rai (34%) scores over both in Bangalore. Only 2% respondents felt Mukesh Ambani was happy. Why???

Is this because of the limitations of the research methodology - purely quantitative - or of the research agency? Or is that we the readers demurely glance at these figures and move on with life without any further curiousity, demanding nothing more from such surveys…

Also read my earlier post The Polling Game….

• Qualitative Research Trends , Indiawatch
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charukesi October 19th, 2004

Measuring a child’s IQ is an obsolete way to determine intelligence, and in fact, labels youngsters unfairly, according to a University of Alberta professor. From the Science Blog

The traditional IQ measure, as can be expected when graphed, is a curve in the classic ‘bell’ shape where most people are distributed around the average intelligence (or intelligence score) and few people are at the extreme ends of low and high intelligence.

With street-smartness increasingly becoming the prerequisite of survival and even success, this kind of research into ’smarter’ measures of intelligence is long overdue. Sure, research has been going on for a long time to find a better alternative to IQ, but this study must be the first of its kind to acknowledge what I think is the essence of intelligence : that it is not absolute, but influenced by such factors as learning and cultural demands, cognitive abilities, even school attendance, as well as individual ability to process information such as language and face recognition.

In other words, a person can be ‘intelligent’ (or smart, to use the better word) in some situations and not in others. Which is a fact that conventional tools of intelligence measurement do not consider.

And the more I see the generation now-and-me youth, the more it occurs to me how conventional ways of labelling a person intelligent or otherwise suck.

More on this here

• - Armchair Analysis
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charukesi October 7th, 2004

What Stylish Young Women Are Wearing

No, this is not the sequel to Bertram Wooster’s ‘What the well-dressed man is wearing’.

Further discussion on the age-old hypothesis that the length of hemlines is connected to prevalent social and economic moods… The economics and anthropology of the bare midriff - insights into the midriff and hemline from the perspective of economics and social psychology.

Stock broker Ralph Rotnem observed, rather casually, that the long-term trends of stock prices and of the hemlines on women’s skirts appear to be in concert. Skirt heights rose to mini-skirt brevity in the 1920s and in the 1960s, peaking with stock prices both times. Floor-length fashions appeared in the 1930s and 1970s (the Maxi), bottoming with stock prices. This is not likely a frivolous observation. In my judgment, it is not unreasonable to hypothesize that a rise in both hemlines and stock prices reflects a general increase in friskiness and daring among the population, and a decline in both, a decrease. Because skirt lengths have limits (the floor and the upper thigh, respectively), the reaching of a limit would imply that a maximum of positive or negative mood had been achieved. - Robert R. Prechter, Jr., Pioneering Studies in Socionomics

The Socionomics Institute is a delightful site I recently stumbled upon. Socionomics is a strong acknowledgement of the overlap of different social sciences as anthropology, economics, culture studies and psychology - an argument for acknowledging the other stream and working together…

Variously called economic psychology or behavioural economics, socionomics examines and forecasts market and social trends on the basis that the character of social, political, cultural, financial and economic trends are the product of collective human psychology. In simple words, social events do not compel social mood, as is widely supposed; rather, the patterns of social mood impel social events.

A study of the rise - reflecting the social angst of the times - unemployment, disillusionment with the system, frustrated youth - and subsequent fall of the angry young man - giving way to the more conventional, orthodox ‘chocolate’ hero is an interesting case in point in India…

Think of any more?

• - Armchair Analysis
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charukesi September 24th, 2004

Today, a friend and colleague was out on the field all day doing qualitative depth interviews. She met a respondent who had been attending groups everyday for the last three days.

So much for strict and disguised recruitment criteria.

Dina had written long ago about the problem of what we call ‘professional respondents’. Which is not to say that they attend groups as a profession. But that as respondents, they are far more professional than their first-time sisters in the same group.

Given all the real concerns about professional respondents, it is yet time to accept that they are a reality (Dina has a good analysis on this) and cannot be just wished away. There are product categories and research centres which have been over-researched and have crossed saturation point. (I sometimes feel I cannot ever walk on the streets in Madurai, a large city in South India, without feeling that I know each and every woman who passes me by - I must have seen her in one group or the other!)

In which case, can we just accept them and work around the problem? Using them to our advantage as researchers?

Before the indignant jump… read Lies, Damned Lies and Focus Groups by Daniel Gross. Here, Gross analyses the reasons focus groups are losing their value as a quick and valid research tool. Primary among them being the fact that there is just no time in such a setting for participants (who are ideally strangers to each other) to get comfortable with the group and the moderator. Getting paid to get together with a bunch of strangers, and being led in a discussion by another stranger, is unnatural

In which case, can a participant who has ‘been there done that’ help put the rest at ease? Considering the fact that in India, they are not even there for the money (paying participants in cash is a no-no in India - they usually get a small gift in return), but just for the feeling of importance it gives them - to be heard. My feeling is that an experienced moderator should be able to guide the discussion and keep the ‘maestro’ from hijacking / intimidating the group.

• Qualitative Research Trends
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charukesi September 17th, 2004

Thinking more on netnography…. adapting ethnographic research techniques to the study of cultures and communities constructed through the Internet

A community like ryze is reaching saturation point India-wise….

- Why are Indians such avid ryzers?
- What kind of people do we network with? And why?

And some questions Edward of livinginindia (or elsewhere on the planet) always has…

- Why are there so many bloggers from Madras ?
- And what do they write about?

- And from this, can we say what Madras is like - about the kind of people who live there or are
from there - bloggers over the world with Madras ‘roots’
- Why not so many from Bangalore? (after all, Bangalore is geek city)
- What about Delhi bloggers?

- What about shopping behaviour on the net - how do different ethnic communities behave?
- And what implications does this have for the marketer? Advertiser? Both offline and online

- Ethnography on internal communication (intranet usage and behaviour) within an organisation
for more efective knowledge management and better work practices

Using ethnography to study online behaviour patterns of communities and using this to construct theories about offline culture. A step closer to understanding those we interact with only online… Visit cybersoc for some interesting studies….

I find the possibilities endless…..

And fascinating… (My mind googles at the possibilities. Did I say googles? I meant boggles)

• Qualitative Research Trends , - Alternative methods
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charukesi September 15th, 2004

Not a typo, this. Check out a netnographic investigation of online communities here.

(Link through antropologi.info)

“Netnography,” coined from ‘ethnography on the Internet,’ is an emerging qualitative research methodology adapting ethnographic research techniques to the study of cultures and communities constructed through the Internet.

There are links to Robert Kozinets’ site with netnography and much more .

• Qualitative Research Trends , - Alternative methods
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charukesi August 19th, 2004

Came across a very interesting website today, India Resource Centre. And while browsing the site, also found this study India: A Media Analysis

As a strong advocate and enthusiast of alternative research methodologies (anything but the F-technique - Focus Groups, you dirty minds), this research fascinates me for the neat use of content analysis.

Like I keep saying repeatedly, there is so much research that one can do and data one can gather and analyse through secondary sources. Sadly enough, clients and researchers alike (especially in commercial market research) rarely think about them as serious data sources. The temptation to rush out and grab the first ten (or thousand, as the case may be) unsuspecting people to answer your questions, is just too strong. And very often, it is the simplest thing to do.

I had blogged about this a long while ago, on a research conducted by Rediff, through an analysis of the advertising consumed by the young Indian male.

Read this for more details on the study.

I also downloaded and went through the actual research report from the site. The only disappointment was the total lack of a qualitative perspective in the reporting format. Why cannot numbers also be explained qualitatively?

That apart, also check out the India Brand Equity Foundation website sometime. Quoting from the site, The India Brand Equity Foundation is a public-private partnership between the Ministry of Commerce, Government of India and the Confederation of Indian Industry. The Foundation’s primary objective is to build positive economic perceptions of India globally.

• Qualitative Research Trends
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charukesi May 31st, 2004

As a researcher, I am always meeting people and asking them questions. Questions ranging from the Stupid (so, what do you do in your free time), to the Difficult to answer (what were your thoughts and feelings when you saw the ad), to the Irritating (can you describe this again in detail) to downright Personal (which contraceptive method do you use). And surprisingly enough, I get answers.

I cannot imagine some stranger asking me such questions and getting any kind of polite reply. Yet, in project after project, I see people opening up in the course of a focus group / interview and revealing to me glimpses from their lives…. (A huge proportion of research in India is among housewives – the apparent decision-maker and I am talking about such respondents here).

Last week, after I ended a focus group in Madurai (a routine ad-testing study; what all people do for their bread and butter!), a woman came up to me and said, I really enjoyed this. I will go home and tell everyone about you. She held my hand tightly and said, I will never forget you. Thanks.

And this was not the first time I had heard that.

Imagine. She had just sat through one and half hours of mindless questions about an advertisement for a brand she has never used, for a product category that is so common and unexciting that I actually felt foolish asking certain questions. And she was thanking me for it.

I have wondered often enough how it feels to be a respondent. Surely, they were not doing this for the stainless steel kadhai that they get as a gift in return for their participation? (In India, it is unacceptable to offer cash for participating in research; instead gifts are given out at the end of the interview. These gifts depend on the profile of the respondent, and invariably housewives are given some kind of utensil, especially in the South).

Then why would anyone spend two hours of her time away from home, in a strange location, answering inane questions to a stranger?

The answer to this is in the question itself. Here is a woman (obviously educated and from the ‘big city’) come all the way to her town, seeking her out, asking for her opinions and listening to her for over an hour. If this sounds to you pompous, believe me, most of these women never go out on their own anywhere, nobody asks for their opinions ever or gives her so much attention. I have seldom faced resentment, impatience, boredom or even irritation….

Of course, as a researcher, the feeling is always not nice…. Knowing that your intentions were not all that noble …. And knowing that when you say thank you at the end of an interview, it is more from relief that the interview is over and that there is more data in hand…..

Am writing about that next, what is feels like to be a researcher…. And do read this from Dina on professional respondents
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An explanation of the title : In the West, two-ways mirrors are commonly used in the course of focus groups / interviews where the client(s) sits behind the mirror watching and listening to the discussion. In India however, mirrors are rarely used; instead the client observes the proceedings in another room through a CCTV.

• Qualitative Research Trends
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charukesi May 12th, 2004

Pictures from Abu Ghraib continue to shock the world. Otherwise decent sons-of-the-soil (not to mention daughters, the pride of their communities) Americans grinning happily at the sight of Iraqi prisoners cowering in fear and shame…. Reports that American soldiers are taught methods of breaking down the enemy’s psyche notwithstanding, it seems unlikely that the occupying American forces have developed a collective tendency towards cruelty and sadism…. Yet, their feeling of being in power, having control over the defeated prisoners is so apparent from these pictures…..

What is it about power that intoxicates so much? Especially power that is of a transient nature…. To understand what I mean, you only need to walk into any Government agency in India to say, procure a document or get some trivial work done….

This is the power that a traffic constable wields over a young man on a motorbike, stopped arbitrarily for a license check. That a watchman at the American consulate has over the waiting crowds. Not to mention the actual immigration officer who holds your future in his hands. The power that Moe wields over Calvin and Calvin, in turn over his building blocks and snowmen (not the mutant snow-goon variety, of course).

And the lesser the significance of the person in the overall scheme of things, the worse the impact of the power… Sometimes I feel that the most ‘powerful’ person in any Government office is the peon…. Should I or should I not let you in?

What does pop psychology have to say about this?

• - Armchair Analysis
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charukesi March 31st, 2004

Beware! Big Brother is not just watching…. He is getting ready to actually open your brain and look inside it to see the processes inside. And all in the name of research…. shudder, shudder….

Have been reading a lot about neuromarketing, the neurological study of a person’s mental state and reactions while being exposed to marketing messages. I keep writing (and ranting) about how marketing agencies are constantly in the search for ways and means of getting under the skin of their consumers…. And how research agencies keep coming up with fancy techniques that are increasingly intrusive and objectionable….

India as a market is still not so saturated and consumers here not so yet so cynical that marketers are thinking about such high-tech options…. We can make do with focus groups and surveys for a while…. But in the saturated Western markets, where reaching the consumer is a big big challenge for the marketer, it looks like anything goes….

Neuromarketing is the one of the latest such techniques…. Agreed, the good old focus group is passe….. Abuse and misuse has made it the F word of market research…. And most other techniques are still very subjective and limited in their effectiveness….. So, when all else fails, turn to science to unravel the big black box that is the consumer’s mind ?

And I am not even talking yet about the ethical issues behind peeping into a person’s mind, all for the sake of marketing….

Imagine a scenario when marketing agencies will no longer use the services of market research agencies but scientists for their research. And soon, we will have ‘professional respondents’ here too who have learnt to control and manipulate their brain waves to suit the research needs ?? The mind boggles at such thought….

Or worse, we will have market research agencies claiming to be experts in neuroscience, offering such services at ‘competitive rates’ to marketing agencies. In a scathing analysis, Jennnifer at brandmantra says, When people misuse low-tech options, it’s quite probable that they’ll misuse newer high-tech options. I’m not averse to new technology; I am averse to making it available to users who don’t often understand the basic principles…. Exactly what I mean….

The latest I read was at beyond-branding about neuromarketing being used on children….. ENOUGH !

• Qualitative Research Trends , Branding and Marketing
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