You all know how in love I am with BBFGs. Well, here’s another reason to love them: they’re relatively green!

Doing qualitative research online is actually a green step in the right direction carbon-emission wise. No flying or driving around to do fieldwork.

Good one!

Before I wrap up on BBFGs, it’s probably worth noting cases where you wouldn’t use them.

Where you need to observe how people behave, ‘live’ research is obviously going to be a better approach. Other instances where BBFGs aren’t going to work as well as traditional groups are when the segments of interest don’t have access to, or aren’t comfortable using the Internet.  

It’s really just stating the obvious, but deciding when to use, or not use, a BBFG approach is simply a matter of looking at the research objectives and thinking through the sample considerations.

BBFGs open up a whole new world of possibilities. 

No compromise on location, sample or insights. You’re providing respondents with a relatively safe and anonymous environment, conducive to deep thought and honesty. You’re giving them thinking time. You’re giving them air time. It’s a level playing field where everyone looks the same, give or take a font point size.

BBFGs address so many of the compromises we face with ‘traditional’ research: compromises we’ve accepted because there just wasn’t a viable alternative.

Exciting times ahead.

People who buy research are, for the most part, busy individuals. That’s why they commission us to do research (that and the expertise thing).

Despite best intentions, they don’t often attend focus group sessions. Their internal clients might also be pretty thin on the viewing ground.

This is not good for the research output. The methodology and reporting are first in the line of fire for anyone who may not like the findings. The big black research box (of course, it isn’t, but it must seem like it is) can’t be trusted.

In contrast, a fantastic level of client involvement is possible with BBFGs. Every stakeholder can observe the groups. And they’re much more likely to, because they can observe them at their convenience. As they happen, on a Sunday, or at midnight. Whenever they feel like it. And there it will be, in black and white (!). The actual verbatim.

This increases the likelihood of buy in to the research process – and the findings – enormously.  

One of the issues people may have with the online forum is that because it all happens on screen, you’re missing the visual cues, the body language, etc that you get from a ‘live’ focus group.

I’m not going to argue with that.

But what about the problems with those visual cues and for that matter, the body language? Here’s an example:

Scenario One

Let’s invite Harry to a “traditional” focus group. And here he is:

Hello Harry! What’s he like? 

Already, just by looking at him, in that nanosecond, I’ve probably made at least 10 assumptions about him. And assumptions about what he’ll think and say about X, Y or Z…

Scenario Two

Rewind. Let’s pretend we’ve never met Harry in real life. And instead of asking him to our ‘live’ focus group, let’s ask him to participate in a bulletin board focus group (ie, run in a virtual room, online). 

We’ll give him a user name to log in with: R1 (Respondent One). As a moderator, that’s all I can see of Harry on my screen: 

R1

That’s all the other group participants can see too: he looks like 24 point Georgia font, just as you see it on your screen right now.

What’s he like? I’ve no idea. I can’t make many assumptions based on how he looks, how he talks, how he smells (!). Or about what he’ll think and say about X,Y and Z…

The point is that visual cues can get in the way of the information we want – maybe in more ways than they help our understanding. 

Worth thinking about.

P.S Many thanks to Simon (aka Harry) for letting us use a really bad picture of him (he’s actually very handsome).

In the past year or so, it’s tipped: I can’t think of more than a handful of segments of interest to market researchers that aren’t living at least some of their lives online.

And most of these segments not only have access to the web, but are (now) also very comfortable using this medium to communicate.

They write and forward emails to friends who share, or emphatically don’t share their views. They contribute to bulletin boards aligned with, or diametrically opposed to their interests and values. They have their own blogs or comment on others’. They’re likely to be even more comfortable communicating this way than they are in real life.

The point is that often, and increasingly, they’re using these media to voice their opinion: to make themselves heard.

Isn’t that exactly what we ask from respondents in our research focus groups?

BBFGs mirror the way people voice their opinions and communicate with others, including corporations, in the real world. 

We’ve recently been experimenting with over time, online groups, aka bulletin board focus groups (BBFGs). BBFGs are conducted in a virtual group room, using browser based, and usually dedicated, software.

In contrast to real time online groups, the BBFG ‘session’ typically runs for a few days (but could run over several months). The moderator posts questions over time, and respondents have the flexibility of logging on, at their convenience, to answer questions and interact with other respondents.

I think that BBFGs are the most exciting thing to happen in qualitative research in a very long time. 

If you had asked me about online focus groups only 12 months ago (interestingly, no one did), I would have said that I didn’t think they were a very good idea.

Online focus group research seemed to be a relatively technology driven practice, rather than there being any real synergy with the way people communicate (which is ironic, given that this business is about understanding people).

And I’d always thought of online focus groups within the real time context. Apart from researching real time focus groups themselves, I can’t see the benefits of conducting a group online in real time.

The stress of getting participants to ‘turn up’ and log in at the same time, the fight for text time (what if there are slower typists?), the moderator’s unenviable task of trying to keep track of it all, on the hop, maybe missing a beat and missing the whole point…I really don’t get it.

My opinion of real time online groups hasn’t changed.

But look out. Here’s the silver and very magic bullet: over time online groups. 

Next time I blog, I’ll explain why.

Compromise is inherent to most qualitative focus group research. It’s part and parcel of the deal. Experienced researchers acknowledge the compromises and the good ones work to try to minimise their impact.

Importantly though, despite these compromises, we still get good information. We still get good insights. And we still deliver very useful output for our clients.

But imagine the kind of data we could get if we didn’t have to make those compromises…

I’m blogging about the compromises we make when we conduct focus groups (no, I haven’t forgotten the magic silver bullet. Just a few more blogs to go…).

Today, it’s all about biases.

How someone looks, the way they speak, the number of mini-pizzas they eat during the group…all these factors influence the way we ‘hear’ them.

At a superficial level, most researchers are trained to acknowledge and try to minimise these biases. But it’s a tall order, and quite unrealistic, to expect that we can put these biases aside completely.

Without shadow of a doubt, personal biases impact on how we perceive, and deal with respondents within the group environment. Not to mention how biases impact on the way respondents perceive, and deal with each other and the group dynamic. 

A fluorescently lit group room, resplendent with a two way mirror, a video camera and a microphone hanging from the ceiling.

This is hardly an environment that readily inspires great banter, deeply considered thinking or for that matter, honesty. 

And consider a standard 1.5-2 hour group, with 6-7 respondents. Each respondent only gets an average of 10-15 minutes air time (after introductions, warm ups, etc). Throw in a few relatively vocal participants and notwithstanding a switched on moderator, that air time shrinks again.

Even if respondents are thinking deeply about the topic at hand, within this context they may not get a chance to, and nor may they want to, share it with the group.

Again, it’s a compromise.

In addition to the approach to, and the insight we might get from focus groups, sometimes we compromise on location and in effect, our sample.

While we may feel it would be prudent to include various state, regional or even international perspectives, we settle for a Sydney/Melbourne split. 

Budget, time and/or logistics prevent us from going to Perth, Tilba Tilba, Auckland, Hobart or Blackheath. 

Today’s post is about insight – or specifically, how insight can be compromised when we conduct focus groups.

As savvy moderators, we (politely, and with great skill) cut off the rambling respondent in an effort to optimise and preserve the group dynamic. I’ve no doubt that we miss several gems each time we do.

But we have 6 other respondents all rearing to speak (or needing encouragement to do so), and we need to make sure everyone feels included and listened to lest we sabotage the group dynamic.

By doing our job (great facilitation), we’re actually getting in the way of insight.

This week I’m blogging about the compromises we make when we conduct focus groups.

Sometimes the decision to conduct focus groups is, in itself, a compromise.

Finding busy respondents who have the time and are willing to participate in market research focus groups is difficult. It can also be a challenge to find respondents willing to participate in studies of a sensitive nature.

In many instances such as these, we wouldn’t even entertain the thought of running focus groups.

It’s not because we don’t think there’d be some fascinating discussions if we could convene a focus group. More often than not, we compromise with one on one interviews because we have much more chance of getting these respondents to participate at all.

In over 12 years of doing qualitative research, I’ve conducted more focus groups than I can count. It’s an approach that, with thoughtful and appropriate application, can deliver fantastically useful information.

But as all seasoned researchers/buyers are aware, using a ‘traditional’ focus group methodology involves compromise. And quite a lot of it.

Over the next week or so I’m going to blog about these compromises. And then I’m going to blog about a magic silvery bullet of sorts.

“Oooooohhhh how mysterious and interesting” I hear you say.

Too right it is!