Dr. Pete Discusses Emerging Technologies
12.04.2011
Dr. Pete
Dear Dr. Pete:
What do you think will be the next big thing in market research?
-R E Heinlen
Dear R E:
To be perfectly frank, if I knew the answer to that question I wouldn't be here telling you, now would I? As we all know, market research doesn't tend to be ahead of the curve when it comes to new thinking so I can confidently predict that market research will not change as a result of Technology Review's "10 Emerging Technologies that can change the way we live" for 2009:
- Intelligent Software Assistant - does things like book restaurants or check flight status
- $100 Genome - sequencing whole human genome for less than the current cost of a chest x-ray
- Racetrack Memory - no not the result of the 3:00 at Saratoga Springs
- Biological Machines - flying beetles with implanted chips
- Paper Diagnostics - some medical thingy
- Liquid Battery - not as small as an AAA
- Traveling-wave Reactor - nuclear power without all the yucky left over bits
- Nanopiezoelectronics - exactly what you think it is
- HashCache - definitely not what you think it is
- Software-defined Networking - software that tells you who to talk to and who not to
Although all these things are nice, I have to say I'm a little disappointed with the lack of ambition this year. Compare and contrast to some of the "10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change The World" back in 2001:
Brain-Machine Interface - you think it, the machine does it
Natural Language Processing - "Computer? Are you there? Hello?"
Computer Designed Robots - "Dave, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye."
A small digression if I may. While I'm writing this there is a helpful little green squiggle underneath the "I'm" in the paragraph above. I'm trying to ignore it but then curiosity gets the better of me. I right click and, lo and behold, find Ali G is now writing code for Microsoft:
Is it just me or do these green squiggles make you feel you've done something wrong even if you haven't? Anyway, back to technology...
I think the good folks over at MIT have learned a little something from market research. Here's Dr. Pete's "Top One Thing That's Going To Keep You In Employment" - don't make over-elaborate claims that can be verified by real life data, especially not in your (working) lifetime. Notice how the Emerging Technologies have changed from being "That Will Change The World" to "can change the way we live." It's only half a step away from saying: "I'm 95% confident that the data says that this emerging technology has a 60% chance, give or take 3%, of succeeding." Now that's what I call prediction.
-Dr. Pete
Dear Dr. Pete:
I saw that robot, Asimo, on TV the other night. It looked pretty cool, walking and running, and even going up and downstairs. How long do you think it will be before we start using robots in market research?
-Isaac Asimov
Dear Isaac
Use them as what, respondents or interviewers? I kinda like the idea of replacing respondents with robots. They would give us 100% response rates, wouldn't satisfice or tire before the end of a survey, and wouldn't even need an incentive. There might be a small problem of representivity, but I'm sure we can gloss over that if the CPI is cheap enough (smiles ruefully).
They do say that one day one of these Artificial Intelligences is going to pass the Turing Test and then this technology is really going to take off. In the spirit of SatireWire's seminal interview with Ask Jeeves, I thought I better check on how they are doing. I tried to interview Jabberwacky but it didn't work out too well as you can see from the conversation below. The first thing that threw me is that Jabberwacky asked me a question first. After that it was all downhill...
(I think Jabberwacky already knows about market research.)
Failing on the conversational, qualitative style of interviewing I thought I'd try again keeping it short 'n' sweet, and asked them all: "Which do you prefer; Coke or Pepsi?"
Jabberwacky said: "Snow! Although I do love rain."
iGod said: "I don't have a preference. Coke is the beverage preferred by higher beings."
Jeeney said: "I like them both the same."
ALICE said: "Electricity."
Elbot said: "I flipped a bit and got Pepsi."
Eliza said: "Oh, I prefer Coke or Pepsi."
I think this is one emerging technology that needs to emerge a little more before we start playing with it - as interviewer or as respondent.
-Dr. Pete
Dear Dr. Pete:
I know that market research is not great at predicting massively influential mind-shifting events. Nor is the industry good at seeing these things for what they are and using them intelligently. But surely there must be something you think will at least slightly alter the way we do things in the future?
-Frank Herbert
Dear Frank:
I think we need to stop thinking about "emerging" and concentrate on "converging" technology.
You'll remember (and who can forget?) Dr. Pete's simplistic mantra about market research...
"Asking the right people the right questions and understanding their answers."
I don't care how smart your technology is, this maxim doesn't change. What does change is the mode in which we ask our questions or the means through which we attempt to make contact with respondents in order to ask them questions or hear their opinions. Convergence may force us to adapt in a way that makes our work more difficult or our findings less rich, but adapt we must lest we die.
Let's take a look at the world of telephone research. When I was a boy researcher this meant calling people on their landline (in fact their only line) at home, safe in the knowledge that the person you called was not in the middle of some death-defying stunt or simply "on the train." And the phone itself? That's changed too. My phone now has a camera in it. Or maybe my camera now has a phone in it. And it can access the Internet - how cool is that?
What does this mean for telephone research? Well it certainly means you could show a picture to the respondent while you were talking to them. And they could show you where they were. And you could call people because of where they were - immediately. So, don't think "can I migrate my tracking study to mobile?" Think "what does it mean to be in contact with someone who is mobile?" Then the potential application starts to become clear.
And what about SMS? A friend of mine, a father, tired of texting with his son, decides to call him instead. He dials, the phone rings, and rings, and rings. Next thing is he gets a text from his son. "What?" reads the text.
If this is the way people want and expect to be contacted then this is the way we are going to have to do it. The use of SMS hasn't rendered our young people incapable of stringing two sentences together or made them lose the power of speech - it's simply freed them from the tyranny of answering the phone just because it is ringing, even when there's a 99% chance it's gonna be just another marketing (research) call.
So here it is, at last.
I confidently predict that someone, somewhere in the market research world will fully understand what a mobile communication device is really all about and will make a killing. I further predict that they will not make this killing by asking questions like "WHCH DO U PRFR CK R PPS?"
Toodle Pip!
-Dr. Pete
