Cloudof Knowing

The Cloud of Knowingcontent analytics and the future of market research

John GriffithsPlanning Above and Beyond

Jan 20th

Planning Above and Beyond

Ground I am going to cover

Work in progress from Cloud of Knowing project

Paper for the Market Research Society conference

Online content – how it can be part of MR MR stuck using offline research

paradigms Will introduce 2 new approaches A way to bring content into research


The questions we need answers to

Is sampling central to research or does research have to change?

If we don’t ask questions is it still research? Do we need permission to use people’s

content? Do we need to protect anonymity? How can research use internet content for

business decision support? Is there such a thing as real time research?


Redrawing the lines around research

Will researchadvance toinclude content?

Or will researchretreat andbecome aspecialism? the guys who doInterviews..


Research cultures

Farmer/cultivators

Hunter gatherers

Scavengers


Blog site


Scavenging on the web

But it is only one blogger even with comments from others

Who is the blogger? Where are they based?

Are they representative? All internet posters are atypical

That person may be misrepresenting themselves – corporate blogging/PR


Current resources to analyse online content

Social media measurement experiments - eg #measurementcamp

Netnography – online behaviour and content coming from this

E-Anthropology –social analysis using web artefacts Bricolage – support to qualitative research

Research practice says research data needs to come from a valid sample

representative of the population If projective materials are used then research participants

need to explain it


So can online research help?

Online surveypanels

Online focusgroups

Face to face/CATI surveys

Offline discussion/Focus groups

ResearchCommunities{ }

{ }Open platformsEg FB group


Business decision support using more and more data sources

Business process Web analytics Customer satisfaction Corporate reputation tracking Transaction data Customer research?

A lot of these aren’t being managed bythe marketing department


Research at the crossroads


Purefold: open source co-created transmedia

film directorstory

‘seeds’

RSS feedsgather

raw contentFriendfeed hopper

Visitors /linkersgrade and

link to otherWeb content

storylines amplified

Brand ownerssponsor &

create charactersstorylines

Output putinto production

Ridley Scott Assoc/Ag 8


Purefold model applied to research


Benefits of the Purefold model

Continues to use real people as participants

Dual role of research participants as graders and taggers

Sampling of participants can be controlled

Content can be filtered and amplified


Demographic replicators: Research bots

‘Wefeelfine’emotionalwrapper

DGR Felixtext bot

twitter

posterous

friendfeed

networkAnalysis ofothers who

sharebot tastes

Comments/retweets

of those whodialogue with

the bot

Findings aggregated with other bots


Meet felix Emotional wrapper: wefeelfine.org:8080/

ShowFeelings?feeling&limit=50 gender=M city=london agerange=20

emotion_keywords: { sad: [divorce, desk], great: [Floyd, Doors], depressed: [sales, weight, divorce, client], lonely: [at home, the divorce, miss my kids, desk], tired: [work, boss, home, hangover, sales]

# Times of day time_keywords: 04: [work, sales, weight, conference, procurement, desk]

weekend_time_keywords: { 10: [home, kids], # Words to fall back on if nothing else matches, or

to add randomly character_keywords: [work, boss, divorce, fat]


What is Felix?

A projective devicefor researchers toreframe researchquestions?

A dynamic sample/panelwhich can be observed andwith which the researchercan interact

A lure/decoy for drawingout customer response


Benefits of Replicators

Continues to use real people as participants

You don’t need to recruit research participants unless you want to

Sampling of participants can be controlled Content is filtered and amplified Content can be used to stimulate online

response Content can be used to inspire the

researcher as analyst


Past the sample/content bottleneck

Sample

Content

Quant & Qual researchkeep sample and contentquestions separate

Inability to control sampleis what makes web contentanalysis problematic

Sampling is literal: 20 male,works in local govt, lives in London


Computing has a similar bottleneck

Instructions/data Memory/CPU


Knitting machines.. two different media

programme cardswool


Into the cloud..

Sampling Permission Anonymity


Sampling Probabilistic scoring has been standard in

lifestyle database marketing and geo-demographic marketing for 20 years

Use sample and content tags to mark up data. Could use cookies as a type of sample tag.

Use scoring models to decide whether to include content within sample.

Use best fit algorithms to aggregate content and sample tags.

Identify content first and then use sample tags to eliminate all the content which is off sample.

this starts to make available to us the riches of the web

in realtime search engines and Google/Yahoo alerts


Permission

If we source content probabilistically then permission is no longer an issue

We can use their content without ever disturbing them.

Is this permissible within research or not? The volume of online content that could

become the subject of research is potentially so great that data protection becomes meaningless – permission becomes unnecessary


Anonymity

MR principle protects research respondents from being sold to

Anonymity can only be granted in the context of a customer interview. There is always a possibility with behavioural targeting that that the digital marketer knows something about you that you don’t.

Probabilistic systems already being used for behavioural targeting and direct marketing would identify them anyway but there would not be greater disadvantage than anyone else who is the subject of behavioural targeting.


To summarise

To bring content within research – need new methods

Purefold co-creation using taggers and graders

Use of DGR research bots Probabilistic sampling Challenge the use of permission and the

protection of anonymity


Vested interest in MR preventing the incorporation of online content

Qual: Research by hand Quant: Self measurement


CRM the natural starting point

The need to engagement means that CRM is no longer focussed on hard sell

Multiple contact points with customers – very few falling within conventional research practice

The natural starting point for analysing web content.

Research needs to be part of it


Final thought? Customers are tribal stakeholders an extension of the company

Perhaps customers willing to be involved in regular dialogue as part of CRM programmes

Customers as valued stakeholders Extended members of the company ‘tribe’ Is it possible that research industry is

perpetuating the divide: Research respondents as outsiders? Researchers as essential intermediaries?


Thank you .. Questions??


Some references you may find useful..

http://www.webjam.com/cloud_of_knowing http://www.research-live.com/events/annual-co

nference/research-2010-the-annual-conference/4000799.article

http://www.ag8.com/purefold http://felixfreeman.posterous.com/ http://twitter.com/felix_freeman

[email protected] johngriffiths7 twitter