I’ve talked about probability sampling before. Unless your population is your immediate family, your immediate colleagues, or your immediate classmates, chances are probability sampling is a theoretical idea. The premise behind probability sampling is that by generating a sample that approximates the population in important characteristics, you will be able to accurately predict population values with sample values.

So let me propose a better system. Forget probability sampling. Strive for predictive sampling. In this sense, select samples that consistently and accurately predict the phenomenon in which you are interested. If a bunch of twelve year olds standing outside the candy store accurately predict the weekly cast-off on American Idol, then it is a GREAT predictive sample. If a bunch of eighty year grammas accurately predict each state election, then it is a GREAT predictive sample. That is predictive sampling.

I truly don’t care what a sample looks like as long as it reliably and accurately predicts future behaviour. Isn’t that what you too are striving for? I think so. The trick is though, what exactly is the predictive sample? Whomever discovers that will be a wealthy person.

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Be prepared to recognize and support the "inner betty" @bettyadamou is officially an #MRIA meme #netgain6—
Annie Pettit (@LoveStats) January 25, 2012

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Malcolm De Leo, Chief Evangelist, NetBase
Understanding Sentiment Analysis: Methodology and Relevance to Market Research

• Do you trust social media research? Do you research opinions online before you buy a product? Is your answer the same for both?
• 5 years ago there were 300 tweets per day and 200 million tweets per day now
• 53% of people on twitter recommend companies or products in their tweets
• The average consumer mentions specific brands over 90 times per week in conversations with friends, family, co-workers
• Will research replace or augment? It doesn’t have to be one or the other.
• Surveys remove and include biases all the time.
• Challenge is not finding social media data because there is tons of it.
• The world is no longer B to C, it’s now C to B. We can’t even keep up with the marketplace.
• We are comfortable with numbers are removing bias but we still resist. We know social media is the wave of the future but we aren’t seizing the opportunity to control it.
• Consider NLP versus text analytics vs keyword searching when doing sentiment analysis. Precision is key.
• Covert passion – mentioning a hashtag. Overt passion – saying you love something about the hashtag
• Market research companies wear no clothes – we can measure any of them anytime we want.
• Your suggestion box is public – people will talk about you online no matter whether you want them to

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• Finding the Right Social media Mix: Julie Wittes Schlack #Netgain6 
• The Lizard Made you do it!: Indivar Kushari #Netgain6 

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Behavioural Economics
Adam de Paula – Managing Director, Sentis Market Research, Inc
Measuring Without Needing to Ask: Using Implicit measures to Predict Choice

• It’s not the consumers job to know what they want – Steve Jobs
• People have no idea why they’re doing what they’re doing so they try to make something up that makes sense – Clotaire Rapaille [TOTALLY agree]
• Surveys are about measuring explicit attitudes and behaviours
• Explicit measures rely on conscious thought have limited predictive value
• Implicit measures tap preferences and feelings indirectly
• You can predict divorce over 3 years with non-verbal measures – eye rolling, sneering, silence, monosyllabic mutterings
• Predict litigation with dominance and lack of concern
• Predict career based on people’s names – Dennis more likely to be a dentist, Louis more likely to move to St. Louis – Unconsciously, we associate things with ourselves. Dennis won’t admit it but statistics will prove it.
• BE is how people really make judgments and choices. The old model of people think through all the options is off the table now.
• Implicit associations between words – old/weak, beauty/youth. Activation of one word, automatically activates the second word.
• People are bad at accurately reporting on what has influenced them. We can prove people are influenced by the space or size but people won’t recognize that.
• Group task – tap your left knee or right knee to indicate whether a word belongs to younger or older male [room full of tapping sounds now] Now task is good vs bad [quick tapping from everyone] Now task is young and good vs older and bad [woah .... tapping sounds are few and slow] . As tapping gets slower, people are having harder timing matching a picture to multiple words that may or may not represent a cohesive theme.
• Great process for stereotyping research because people don’t feel comfortable saying what they really feel. There’s no social desirability here.
• Useful conditions for implicit measures – quick judgments, many alternatives, early life attitudes

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• Netgain 6.0: An MRIA Social Media Workshop by Annie Pettit
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Gamification
Bernie Malinoff, President, Element54
The Yin and Yang of Gamification

Flight #7 of 2012 – at the end of this rainbow, will find @LoveStats @BettyAdamou @lennyism @camdavis48 @SandyJanzen @BFSingh #NetGain6 #MRX—
Bernie Malinoff (@berniemalinoff) January 24, 2012

• Grids are toxic for consumers and addictive for researchers
• Bernie accepts he has a problem
• Survey “Engagement” space race
• Just because you have a flash question doesn’t mean you should use it – a yes no question is still a yes no question
• DIY is beneficial to all and makes us better consultants
• You could do the same question with  a radio button vs slide vs facial expressions vs visual skiier game – Why not first decide WHY you would choose one of the methods, take a purpose based approach
• Issue of straightlining – Grid was 10%, flash question was 6%, flash question plus “bet $20″ was 0% straightlining
• Data cha0s – 40% variance in answers due to different methodologies
• Gamification can be visual or linguistic
• Do you put a little bit in a survey when it’s boring? only at the beginning? only at the end? pepper it throughout? THINK what makes sense
• Flash surveys are 20% longer. Game version is 73% longer. But these options are much more enjoyable.
• Adoption hurdles: norms (blow on a tracker and the results will change), scalability (efficiency of programming all surveys the same way, surveys go off to Santa’s workshop and come back all done)
• I Love Lucy’s factory is an example of efficiency and creativity…. maybe. Is this how our survey programmers feel today? We treat it as just a production process.
• You can’t replace the fundamentals with software
• Most researchers are analytical but maybe not spending much time being creative about our approach to research
• Big or small supplier/client, we share the same goals of better research and better data

Related articles

• Netgain 6.0: An MRIA Social Media Workshop by Annie Pettit
• New book! The Listen Lady: A novel and social media research guide baked into one 
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