This week, we start with some information about Americans and summer travel plans. Add a dash of data visualization references, a warning about reporting on studies, and a look at both experiential learning trends and the new “yuccies” definition, and you have our #FridayFive!
Americans are ready for summer travel – Quirk’s Market Research Blog
It’s summer time in the United States, and that means most of the population aged 18 or younger has some time to relax between their years of academic study. Traditionally, summer is also the time for vacations. Quirk’s report on a Harris poll of 2,000+ Americans ages 18 and older is interesting for a few reasons. First, it seems more Americans have a better outlook on the economy, translating into increased likelihood to be planning a summer vacation (or seems to be, at least). Second, I couldn’t help but notice the weighting conducted in order to balance the responses. (Hint: it’s in the italicized text at the bottom of the article that most people glance over.) They weighted based on demographics as needed, and also used a propensity score weighting to balance the results based on people’s propensity to be online. I highlight this in particular to show that there are still biases that can come into play even in something as seemingly straightforward as a poll about whether or not you plan on taking a summer vacation trip.
10 places for market researchers to learn about data visualization – Research Access
Data visualization is a huge trend in the world of market research right now. We’re all attempting to find better, more meaningful ways to tell our clients the answers to their questions based on data collected from the study we just fielded. We’re also looking for ways to tell them the information they need to know for the questions they didn’t ask but should have asked — but in a way that gets them to listen. I’d love to see a similar list for 10 places for market researchers to learn about storytelling!
Experiential learning: a thing of the future – MarketResearch.com blog
Experiential learning: using hands-on experiences to teach as opposed to lectures in classrooms. A couple of courses I took as part of my graduate school experience were experiential learning-based. Based on that, well, experience, I don’t think this is so much a thing of the future as it is a growing trend that has existed already in some colleges (and even in grade schools through high schools). And I hope it continues to grow as an educational practice for all grade levels!
Here come the yuccies! – SmallBizTrends
Yuccies: not hipsters, still Millenials, but interested in making money quickly and preserving their creative autonomy in the process. (P.S. You’re welcome for passing along the buyer persona already written in this article for you to use for your own marketing!) It seems that, like everything else, buyer personas might be changing quickly, which means marketing (and, as an extension, market research) will need to keep pace with these changes.
Insert Brian Williams joke here – GreenBook Blog
Sometimes, even when you’ve done your best to craft a good story with great visuals to talk about your study, it still gets misrepresented. Having been under time pressures myself when sharing content, I believe that data being mis-represented is not always done intentionally. However, this is a good call to those of us sharing studies to be certain we’re doing so accurately, and a call to those of us conducting studies to realize our findings might not always be shared accurately.
