Welcome to the New Year!

We are excited to be kicking off 2012 with a great line up of educational events! The online qualitative research space is ever expanding and market research professionals are learning new mediums for conducting qualitative research. As the market research industry grows and expands Revelation is committed to helping our clients and prospects keep ahead of the curve whether it's our thought-leadership series, "Great Research Thinking," or our new Mini-Webinars designed to provide practical knowledge and collaboration in 30 minutes.

See below for our January events.

CEO's Blog

Hello 2012! Five MR trends to watch in the coming year!

Well, here we are at the beginning of 2012. 2011, with all of its twists and turns, is behind us and we start the New Year looking ahead to see what might be in store. Here at Revelation, 2011 was a wonderful year of progress, challenge and growth. We see 2012 filled with immense opportunity. The wonderful thing about working in a dynamic, rapidly changing industry like market research is that each day represents a new opportunity to learn and find exciting new ways to create value for our customers.

So as we look forward into 2012, here are some of the things we are keeping an eye on, please click here to read the full article.

Revelation Knowledge Sharing

Mini Webinar Series – Join Us As Our Experts Share Inside Secrets and Answer Your Questions Live

• January Mini Webinar Series: Acquiring, Retaining and Engaging Online Research Participants
• February Mini Webinar Series: Introduction and Best Practices for Reporting

To register for either series, please click here.

Immersive Research White Paper

What is all this talk about Immersive Research you might be wondering? Immersive Research gives market research professionals unprecedented access into the lives of their consumers and this leads to deeper insights and candid discoveries. If that is not enough, Immersive Research results in 20% more consumer participation at a lower cost.

To learn more: download our white paper.

Revelation Names New VP of Sales & Marketing, Kermit Yensen

Revelation, Inc., provider of Immersive Research™ software and tools, announced the addition of a new member to its executive team. Kermit Yensen assumes the role of Vice President of Sales and Marketing. Mr. Yensen is a dynamic professional with over 30 years of experience in the Oregon business community including positions as Director, Product Marketing for Hewlett-Packard and Vice President Worldwide Marketing for Tektronix, as well as chief executive positions at iMove and Massini Group.

To read the full press release, please click here. 

Well, here we are at the beginning of 2012. 2011, with all of its twists and turns, is behind us and we start the New Year looking ahead to see what might be in store. Here at Revelation, 2011 was a wonderful year of progress, challenge and growth. We see 2012 filled with immense opportunity. The wonderful thing about working in a dynamic, rapidly changing industry like market research is that each day represents a new opportunity to learn and find exciting new ways to create value for our customers. 

So as we look forward into 2012, here are some of the things we are keeping an eye on:

1.    Technology continues to reshape MR

No doubt about it, technology will continue to have an immense impact on MR, on both methodology and the business of MR itself. Technology enabled offerings will be the price of admission to stay current in the business, and more technology companies (especially around big data, marketing automation and mobile) will enter the market research space.

2.    Hype versus reality

That said, technology is not methodology in itself, and new technology-enabled methods will need to prove out against methods that have been normalized over the past decades. In 2012, researchers and clients will be putting social media research, gamification and other buzz-y methods to the test. 

3.    Lighter weight engagement at key moments

Given that the attention span of potential MR participants for MR activity is constant shrinking, and more MR moves to the less expressive mobile medium, lightweight collection methods that engages quickly at key moments will become more widespread. Getting the right question to the right person at the right time will start to take on as much importance as the depth of information.

4.    Delivering more value

We are not out of the economic woods yet by any means, and that means that budgets will continue to be tightened and a premium will be placed on delivering value. Ultimately the mission of market research is to understand people to answer business questions, and getting that mission accomplished faster, more cost effectively and just as reliably  (if not more so) will continue to be a huge imperative.  New methods, no matter how flashy, will be measured by how effectively they enable clients to get the answers they need.

 5.    Watch for new business models

While all the attention is on technology and methods, there is an undercurrent of disruption of current MR business models (for example, Usamp not charging for SurveyWriter to enable sample and other forms of revenue). Which traditional models will come under stress from a confluence of methodology and technology is yet to be seen, but inevitably, there will be a leap from applying technology to current methods and models to technology enabling new MR business models. 

Here is to a great 2012! To learn more about Revelation’s Immersive Research, we have a few options for you:

• Webinars
• Resources
• Demo

When: January 31st 2012

On January 31, 2012, Elizabeth MacLaughlin will expand on the first mini webinar, Recruiting and Participant Engagement: Part 1: Acquire, and discuss the second and third ingredients that get you the excited, engaged group you want!

To Register: click here

When: January 26th 2012

On January 26, 2012, please join Revelation and Rachel Bell for our webinar, "Maximizing Your Online Immersive Research Toolbox". This presentation will provide valuable tools for executing online qualitative research, immersive research techniques and adapting your qualitative research techniques for mobile research.

To Register: click here

All About Revelation Mobile

By: Elizabeth MacLaughlin, Client Services Manager

I recently hosted a mini-webinar to demonstrate the functionality of our Revelation Mobile App and discuss best practices in using mobile technology to capture in-the-moment data.

Here is a link to the recorded webinar and a PDF of the presentation, please click here.

Also, don't miss out on the follow-up webinar: Revelation Mobile Case Study. Click here to view the recording or download the presentation.

There were so many great questions that a few of them didn’t get answered. So, I put together the following Q&A series:

A: The Revelation App currently is supported on:

• iPhone Apple iOS 3.1.3 or later

• Android 1.6 (Donut) or later

• iPad 1 and 2 (keep in mind that iPad 1 does not have photo-taking capability)

Other mobile smartphone and tablet devices are not yet supported.

A: Currently, if a text pops up while the participant is in the middle of answering an activity on their Mobile device, they can either continue the activity and finish (submit) it before looking at their text…or they can click away from the Revelation App to view their text (or answer their phone, or anything else that might distract them from their in-the-moment responses), in which case their responses will be lost when they return to the Revelation App.

This is why we recommend structuring mobile activities to be short, and recurring. That way the activity is continually available to the participant so they can easily return to it and answer questions, and if they do happen to lose a few responses, they can re-enter data quickly and easily.

A: Revelation Mobile functions as an asynchronous tool, and researcher follow-up probes only show up on the desktop interface. Therefore there will be some time between the participant responds to his/her in-the-moment activity and when they see and respond to follow-up probes.

Utilizing the “Record, then Reflect” Immersive practice is most effective for our tool, which allows participants to capture their in-the-moment documentaries on their mobile device with short texts and photo responses, and then to elaborate later from home with more reflective detail.

A: On the Revelation Platform, the participant must first login to the online study from their desktop and create a password. Only after doing so are they able to use the Revelation App to access their Mobile activities. So to some extent, a desktop is currently required.

In addition, there are currently certain functionalities, such as ability to see and respond to probes; and certain activity types, such as an activity requesting video or a discussion activity, that are only available using a desktop computer.

On the whole, layering mobile activities in with non-mobile activities provides more rich data. However, if your goal is to run a study to collect primarily short, in the moment, response capture, you can certainly tailor a study that guides participants to primarily use their mobile devices to enter data. Just keep in mind that they potentially can respond to questions from their desktop as well, so setting participant study guidelines will be paramount.

A: Certainly! Our example for the webinar was a consumer shopping experience study, but one could use the same methods to capture B2B data, such as in the moment feedback from a tradeshow, conference or marketing event.

When: December 8th 2011

Fanny Forgeau from Linkfluence will present "Quali-Social: Using Qualitative Research Techniques to Maximize Social Media Research". 

In this GRT webinar, Fanny will explore the concept and reality of social media research, underlining the opportunities and limits of informing a research approach, and illustrating the presentation with many examples of how her team of researchers fuses qualitative thinking and social media listening to provide consumer insight to clients.

To register: click here

Welcome to the November issue of the Revelation Dispatch.

This last week a team of Revelationites were at The Market Research Event in Orlando, Florida. It was great to meet new people, and reconnect with our partners and clients. There were some great sessions, many of which showcased our clients. To see some pictures of the event and virtually visit our booth, check out our Facebook page.

CEO's BLOG

Thoughts from The Market Research Event

During the past few days, I had the pleasure of attending The Market Research Event in Orlando. It was wonderful to meet so many of Revelation's customers, and vendors in person, as well as many friends and colleagues.

For those who have never attended TMRE , it can be a little overwhelming. There are nine (yes, nine!) concurrent tracks over the course of nearly three days. It’s impossible for any one person to see everything and inevitably there are sessions you want to attend that happen during the same time slot.

The event has only just finished up, but I’ve collected some of my high level takeaways. To read Steve’s thoughts click here.

Master or Mini? Learn more about our expanded webinar program!

We are excited to share our expanded webinar program. Revelation has been hosting our thought-leadership series “Great Research Thinking” for over two years and with much success. The objective has always been to promote market research, thought-leadership and bring some of the best speakers from industry events to a wider audience. In November we are rolling out two new varieties of webinars - Master Class and Minis.

To find out more click here.

Master Class Webinar

On November 17 join Steve August for our first ever Master Class “Four Awesome Activities for Better Concept Testing”. Discover how to take your concept testing to the next level with this Master Class webinar. Steve will present how to select and sequence four complimentary activities to develop insightful qualitative understanding around the viability and key selling points of new concepts.

To learn more or to register, click here.

Mini How-To Webinars

Join us on November 29 and December 13 to learn more about adding mobile activities to your Revelation research projects. On November 29, Elizabeth MacLaughlin will host “Best Practices for Mobile Research” and on December 13 Elizabeth will present a case study.

For more details about these exciting informational opportunities and to register, please click here.

Immersive Research™

Find out how Immersive Research results in 20% more participant minutes at a lower cost, download our whitepaper: Cost Effectiveness Comparison: Immersive Research Compared to Traditional Qualitative Research Methods.

Thoughts from The Market Research Event

During the past few days, I had the pleasure of attending The Market Research Event in Orlando. It was wonderful to meet so many of Revelation's customers, and vendors in person, as well as many friends and colleagues. 

For those who have never attended TMRE , it can be a little overwhelming.  There are nine (yes, nine!) concurrent tracks over the course of nearly three days.  It’s impossible for any one person to see everything and inevitably there are sessions you want to attend that happen during the same time slot.

The event has only just finished up, but I’ve collected some of my high level takeaways:

1.     From hype to reality - social media research is getting tested by end clients.

There were several presentations featuring end clients (Intel, Coleman) who have jumped into the social media research pool to see if it lived up to the hype and where it fit into the market research tool kit.  The sense I got from the presentations is that the verdict is still out.  On one hand it’s clear that SMR has value and can’t be ignored. On the other hand, specific applications, research norms and a realistic sense of time and effort required to get good results are part of the learning curve that end users are still climbing.

2.   Innovation – not just the technology, but also business models

The idea and need for innovation permeated many of the sessions.  There were presentations that dealt with market research technology and services, but I believe there is also starting to be some innovation around how market research fits into other business models. For example uSamp released a new DIY survey tool that’s totally free, and is essentially a driver for sample usage.  As it scales, it also gives them a huge database of business contacts to potentially leverage in other ways.  Google is playing with the idea of using micro-surveys as ‘pay-gates’ to premium content.   In these cases money is not being made on the research itself, but enabling other revenue streams.   It’s still VERY early days, but MR being integrated into other business models warrants keeping an eye on.

3.   Things that were new three years ago are still new to a lot of people

While so many of the presentations presented forward looking technologies and methodologies, the MR industry still moves very slow in adoption of new things into mainstream practice. Ultimately new techniques and methods need to prove out and prove value.   In the MR world, that takes time.

We are so proud! Revelation’s customers are out in force at The Market Research Event.  This week a number of our customers will be presenting. Of course, while the achievements of our customers are their own, we can’t help but feel a bit of pride in supporting their success.

If you are attending The Market Research Event (TMRE), please consider attending the following sessions in support of our customers.

Monday, 11/7 at 2:15
Illumination Research presents American Woman: A Deep Dive into Segmentation

Monday, 11/7 at 1:30pm
KL Communication presents The iPad is Changing the Way Americans Consume Media: Learning from the Time Inc. Innovation Panel

Tuesday 11/8 at 1:30pm
C+R Research presents Teens and Their Money: A Deep Immersion into Teen Spending Behaviors Using Social Media Research Technology

Tuesday 11/8 at 1:30pm
Nicole Freund of Coleman Outdoor presents Succeeding as a One-Wo/Man Army: Creating Value When You Are the Only Resource

Tuesday, 11/8 at 2:15pm
Stephanie Balderrama of Consumers Insights Group presents Creating a Brand Defining Presence in Unfamiliar Territory

Tuesday, 11/8 at 3:00pm
Dave Lundahl of Insights Now presents Breakthrough Product Innovation through Behavior-Driven Research

Congratulations to all of these amazing research companies!