1. Evolution of Insight
Vision Critical has the most viral research meme of the year, with an interactive cityscape that takes you from 1890 to the future, highlighting key research milestones along the way.

2. The 12th Edition Of The GreenBook Research Industry Trends (GRIT) Report Is Now Available
GreenBook released its latest incarnation of its regular survey of research suppliers and clients. In this wave, 1,375 respondents completed the online survey: 84% from the supplier side, 16% from the client side. Expect even more in January’s followup report.

3. I’m Not Your Consumer: How Research Misses the Human Behind the Demographic
Douglas Van Praet of Deutsch L.A. fires back at the research industry’s emphasis on consumers over people and rationality over emotional engagement and reveals the method behind the Volkswagen “Smiles” campaign (“It’s not the miles, it’s how you live them”).

4. Harris Interactive to Be Acquired by Nielsen
Writing for Research, Bronwen Morgan reveals Nielsen’s purchase intent – for Harris.

5. The Top 25 Unmet Needs Of Insights Clients
Lenny Murphy highlights the top unmet needs of clients of consumer insights organization that were identified as part of the Insight Innovation Challenge.

6. Protecting the Science
Writing in Research, Ray Poynter of Vision Critical outlines 10 key principles to guard quantitative research against pseudoscience and unsubstantiated claims. His main points: “estimates and predictions need probability ranges, a large sample is still only a sample, and people are usually unaware of their own decision hierarchy.”

7. 10 Things I Hate About You, by Mr. R. E. Spondent
A formerly anonymous research client with the nom de plume of Angry MR Client has created another anonymous persona, this one named Mr. R. E. Spondent. How much he hates your surveys might make you… D. Spondent.

8. How P&G Presents Data to Decision-Makers
Writing for Harvard Business Review, Tom Davenport of the Harvard Business School, shares a case study of Procter & Gamble’s standardization on visual tools across the company.

9. 20 Signs You’re a Market Researcher
Adam Rossow of iModerate shares 20 things that might indicate you’re in research.

10. Forget Big Data, Think Mid Data
Tom HC Anderson has prepared an interesting analysis of the Return On Investment of different types of data analysis, from projects with “small data” (sample sizes under 100,000 ) to Big Data to what he calls “mid data” (a “sweet spot” for ROI for smaller Big Data datasets).

Jeffrey Henning, PRC, is a serial entrepreneur dedicated to widening the audience for market research. He is president of Researchscape International, an agency serving small businesses.

Re-posted from GreenBook Blog