Trends and News
1/14/09
Is Detroit now asking the right questions?
A few weeks ago there was an article in the Denver Post about the reason for the demise of the US auto industry (thanks to Chuck, our finance manager, for passing it along to me). In the article, Ed Quillen mentioned an age-old anecdote about asking consumers what they want. When US automakers built and […]
By David KennedyRead More
1/6/09
Looking forward to 2009
In the tradition of blog posts recapping the previous year and predicting the next year, Corona offers our own opinions on how the trends of 2009 will shape the world of research and strategy. Response rates are declining and reaching a representative sample is becoming harder. The number of households with no landline telephone may […]
By David KennedyRead More
12/11/08
Cutting through the clutter
As a fun experiment, I’ve kept track of all the chances I’ve recently had to complete a survey. In the past two weeks I’m up to six (conservatively counting). This includes a few invites from research panels, a student’s class project, a mail survey, and a customer feedback form. This doesn’t count “fun surveys” such […]
By David KennedyRead More
12/8/08
Everything is connected (moreso than usual)
There have been lots of interesting political analyses coming out of the recent election, and since we are rabidly non-partisan at Corona we haven’t spent much time covering them (other than the all important donuts and coffee polls). But this amazing analysis of how Obama’s victory was created by the sea level and sedimentaton pattern […]
By Geoff UrlandRead More
11/20/08
Long surveys
I heard the following conversation a few nights ago while on the bus ride home between the bus driver and a passenger regarding a survey that RTD was administering to a few riders on each bus. “That survey was like a book.” “It even had chapters.” “I think they get paid by the question.” Of […]
By David KennedyRead More
11/17/08
Importance of market research in an economic downturn
The economy is on a downturn and, with businesses bracing for the effects, you’ve probably been hearing plenty of strategies for how to thrive during this tough period. And the foundation for any good strategy is good information. Market research is just as important, if not more important, during a tough economy. When times are […]
By David KennedyRead More
10/31/08
LinkedIn launches online survey sample service
LinkedIn, a social network for business professionals (learn more here), last week announced a new service that allows researchers to access their database of members for research. This service provides access to business and IT professionals that are typically hard to reach through surveys, and with the extensive profiles of members, targeting specific groups will […]
By David KennedyRead More
10/13/08
18 Steps to preventing and catching online cheaters
In a recent post, I talked about the problem of professional respondents, and specifically people who cheat to earn their incentive. At the end of the post, I posed the question, “what can we do?” Here I provide some basics on how to ensure the quality of your online data. Survey Design Screeners. Screeners shouldn’t […]
By David KennedyRead More
10/8/08
Trends in travel…and research
I attended the Governor’s Colorado Tourism Conference in Beaver Creek. It was a fun three days and we ran into several people we’ve worked with and met several more that we hope to. The conference started off with Daniel Levine from the Avant-Guide speaking about “The Five Social Trends that will propel Colorado Tourism into the Next Decade.” It got […]
By David KennedyRead More
10/6/08
Professional survey respondents
We get a lot of inquiries about how to join our panel or participate in our focus groups, and consequently we spend a lot of time explaining that we don’t maintain this kind of recruiting list for participants. (We custom recruit for almost all our groups. We’ll explain why below.) Some questions come from people […]
By David KennedyRead More