icanmakeitbetter.com 2.0 released!

My apologies for the lack of recent posts. We have been extremely busy launching new clients on icanmakeitbetter.com and building our 2.0 release - announced today!

This release includes many tweaks for speed and stability, but also takes the platform to an entirely new level with these key features:

1. Facebook app: In 30 seconds add our app to your Facebook page and start innovating and conducting market research.
2. Customization: Customize "How can you make it better?" text, customize Forum text and more.
3. Public Discussions: Create open "town-hall" meetings.
4. Customize all system emails.
5. Improved discussions: Super cool new expanding features and user flow, makes the user experience way better!
6. Private Communities: That's right, create completely private online communities for innovation and research with employees, partners, you name it. Limit by invite, IP or email address.
7. Enhanced security: SSL, email validation.
8. Updated website: icanmakeitbetter.com - scroll down and check out the new "how this works" and "key features"
9. Improved Forums: make Forums private, choose where Forum ideas show and more.
10. Feature Box: Promote a Forum, Idea, Survey, or Discussion in one click to your home page.
11. Surveys!: Now create quick and easy question-of-the-day or full surveys and promote right on your home page. Integrated reporting and unique ability to allow respondents to see how the community answered if you choose.

A few screen shots are below, but please contact us with any questions or needs at all. Thank you!

Change By Subtraction

I read a great quote in the most recent issues of FastCompany: "It's so much easier to change things through addition than subtraction." This was in regards to an organization needing to change by subtracting due to budget constraints. While it may be "easier" to affect change through adding or doing, it may not always be the best, most enlightened or most sustainable form of change.

On a personal level I began thinking of these differences in how I attempt change. Most of us always have some "change" we want in our lives to produce a desired outcome - I assume that is typically some form or "happiness" and "peace". But, we try to do that through adding, not subtracting. "I will take more vacation time", vs. "I will work fewer hours each week". One ramps up the need for money, luggage (a personal love of mine) and other items, while if one were to do subtraction those actions may return the same desired results for less money, effort and stress.

As market researchers much of our research is on "what's next", "what new features do we need to add", and what else do we "do". Perhaps more of our research should focus on "what do we remove", "delete", "not do" in order to increase usability, reduce costs, increase customer loyalty and drive meaningful change instead of just additive actions that may look like progress but do not create meaningful change.

While Apple may be too easy an example to use, I think they are the best. Take the iPod "one button for all my music, no way will that work!" and now the iPad - both created a massive shift in the market as much for what they did as for what they did not do or have. Summed in an Apple ad here:

Let us know your thoughts. How can you innovate and grow personally and in your business by subtracting instead of adding?

Research Less, Know More

We have just launched icanmakeitbetter, a new innovation and market research platform. Our platform enables companies and communities to create, share, and act upon ideas to drive innovation and make everything, and every day better. In a nutshell we built a platform that allows businesses, government and organizations to:

• Innovate: Community driven idea portal.
• Research: Conduct primary market research that is faster, cheaper and more actionable than ever before.

Check out this quick video overview:

What can you do on the platform?

1. Get great new ideas from customers and the community.
2. Gather feedback on bugs and improvements for your website, products, software, services, you name it.
3. Provide a single place for your community to provide innovation and feedback - don't lose feedback across Twitter, Facebook, etc. where ideas get lost, are not vetted or researched.
4. Build a CAB (Customer Advisory Board).
5. Conduct online focus groups.
6. Build a panel/market research online community cheaper, quicker and of higher quality.
7. Conduct market research - usability, creative testing, product development...

We hope you like the platform. We already have Dell and the City of Austin on the platform. Let us know how you think you could use it!

Garbage In - Bad Research Out

Market Research is more necessary than ever - product development cycles are shortened, margins are thin(er), consumer driven innovation is building the next generation of companies...you get the idea. Grab a recent copy of Inc. or Fast Company and you will see articles on iCitizen (citizen generated government innovation), The Customer Is The Company - Threadless (fully crowd-sourced product innovation - we will call this market research, since we are research types), and many, many more. The connection between company and customer is getting tighter and research + technology must keep up with it to provide the data, communications and intelligence. For my take on this that was printed in Inc. read HERE.

What does all this mean for Market Research. It is positive and negative. The positive side is that research is getting a seat at the executive table, is part of product development, drives the customer experience and is an integral part of the innovation process. It also means panels are being over used, and some corners are cut by clients or research partners to "just get it done and get some numbers". If you don't pay attention to quality at the front - who is answering that fancy conjoint survey, all the segmentation and animated PowerPoint slides mean nothing, in fact they are worse than nothing, they are wrong.

How wrong?

In a recent Havard Business Review summary the following alarming facts were pointed out:

1. In 13 out of 18 panels 32% or more of panelists said they took 10+ surveys in the last 30 days (Research by: Burke)
2. 14% of panel respondents in one panel claimed to own all 10 items on a list - one of those items was the Segway scooter (only 80,000 were ever sold, so this is about 1,000+% off, that is well beyond the acceptable margin of error!). (Research by: Theo Downes-Le Guin at Market Strategies)

We can we as researchers do about this? Quite a bit actually. We will be writing more on this subject and launching a revolutionary new research platform to address some of these basic issues in the coming months. Questions before then? Give us a call or send an email to: infoATsentientservices.com.