Digital leadership; how to gain real insight from online content, by John Griffiths

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At the Digital Leadership Dinner last week I gave a brief overview of the Cloud of Knowing open source project. To date there have been five meetings where a growing group of researchers has debated how to make use of copious online data but with the rigour we would normally apply to data gathered through fieldwork. At our meetings we normally have two speakers whose papers start the discussion. All content is posted in the scriptorium on the Webjam.

The group came about because of the dissatisfaction we felt with the way in which so much online content is gathered in vast quantities by computers – tagged; key words counted – and these counts presented as insightful findings with no other analysis carried out. No search engine, not even the mighty Google, gathers everything so every search engine or web scraper has biases built into it – just like unweighted research findings and as unreliable as an unweighted survey. But content-analytic reports are presented as if they were a fair representation of the whole market place, the principle argument being that since the data set is so enormous the findings must be accurate and representative. We beg to differ!

Our sessions are less about sampling and statistics than what exactly is online content useful for and how to make best use of it. Ideas we have discussed so far include using research robots (these are now a commercial reality: Digividuals, launched by Brainjuicer in 2010), and setting up qualitative research pilots to map the different types of conversations around products before narrowly classifying and counting keywords. At our last meeting, with the assistance of Mark Earls the Herdmeister, we considered the influence of other people on our online behaviour and how our online behaviours are a lot less individual than we think they are – which led onto a discussion about how internet data could be used to study context and behaviour, rather than treating the content posted as equivalent to the answers respondents would give in an interview or group situation.

And we’ve discussed privacy: is the internet a public or a private place? Cloud of Knowing functions as a place where you can find others who share the same concerns, many of whom are working in companies which are designing the next generation of research products. Oh, and did I mention they cost nothing to attend?

The challenges I raised at the Digital Leadership Dinner were the following:

1. Decision support is getting a lot wider. Challenge Number 1: how do you ensure that online data you are using is enhancing your ability to make decisions and not degrading it? It’s not even the sheer volume; it’s that you need to integrate this data with all the information streams pouring into your company.

2. Critical thinking – addressing the word counting inherent in content analysis. This is no substitute for hard thinking. We need to do more than count words. We need to know who is posting and how often they have posted on the same topic. We need to know who is paying attention – counting words doesn’t tell you if Seth Godin or Mr Nobody said it. We need multiplatform methodology, and not just a host of Twitter tools. Good research uses more than one methodology to overcome the biases – this is just as true for conventional research. So, to Challenge Number 2: how do you weigh up the significance of the online data you are receiving? Is it representative?

3. Real-time reporting – much of the drive for online content is its immediacy – the urgent over the important. Challenge Number 3: is it possible to do real-time research? With real-time reporting? Or are we actually resorting to a kind of 24-hour CNN where there is breathless reporting but no time for analysis and reflection?

4. Analysis – counting something isn’t the same as understanding it. The powerbase of market research agencies used to be that they were in touch with customers who were otherwise beyond the reach of marketers. Increasingly the power base of market research suppliers is going to lie in the quality of their analysis as much as their speed of response. Because that is going to be their point of difference. So, Challenge Number 4: are you happy with the quality of the analysis you are getting from your suppliers and are you giving them enough time for analysis?

5. Inspiration – a positive side of all the online content is its ability to motivate the people in our organisations who can see verbatim how customers are responding to what the company is doing. Challenge Number 5: how are you using research as a motivational tool for your staff and suppliers and can we make research findings as compelling as comments on Facebook pages?

A snippet from John’s speech at the Digital Leadership Dinner:

John Griffiths is a member of The Marketing Society. For more information about the Cloud of Knowing and details about the Cloud 6 meeting which is taking place next Thursday 19 May, click here.

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Posted: May 12th, 2011 | Author: maddie.york | Filed under: Digital | Tags: , , , , | Leave a Comment »

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