Research Landscape

We recently had a good question from a CEO who just heard about Adaptive Survey(r) Technology, “Why should I use Adaptive instead of SurveyMonkey or any other tool my people already know?”

One of our advisors, Professor Raghu Santanam from Arizona State University, jumped right in with a short definition of the various uses of research, “There are three basic uses for research…”

1. Descriptive surveys are backward looking and captures what happened to what demographic in the past. CX or Customer Experience surveys are in this category.
2. Confirmatory surveys confirm information you already know by taking a current reading. Some of these are tracking over time to see if anything changes – NPS or other tracking surveys for example.
3. Discovery surveys are future looking where you want actionable insights that lead you to doing something.

Adaptive Survey(r) technology falls primarily in the Discovery category. It is used to generate new ideas, innovations or simply unexpected opportunities to delight customers. If you are looking for new and actionable insights in priority order, Adaptive is the right type of tool for you. Adaptive generates new ideas not conceived in a traditional design.

The first and only tool for doing Adaptive Surveys(r) is at GroupInsight.com.

Once you see some results form your discovery survey, you’ll find that Adaptive is also a useful replacement for open-ended questions and collapsing ratings into one Adaptive Question(r) in descriptive and confirmatory surveys too. Many survey can be reduced by 80% using this method; you can turn 30 questions into 5 or 6 using this method. Adaptive surveys require dramatically fewer questions, yet provide more business insights.

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Mind Mining

There is a lot of talk about big data and data mining. It’s all good stuff as people try to get control of their data stream and monetize it. The current state seems to be organizational — put it in a form that people can read and identify issues. This is a huge step forward.

What do you think about mining information in people’s minds and organizing it in a way that makes sense? I’m not talking about mind reading, just involving a lot of people in the decision-making process in order to find the best solution to everyday problems. You could involve employees, customers, prospects, and etc. Here is how it works…

Come up with the ten best solutions to any business problem you have and show it to any group of people who can help you. Ask them to review 10 possible solutions from the pool and indicate those solutions they agree with. Then prioritize those they agree with. If they have new solutions or don’t see their solution, they can add to the pool of solutions. After everyone has a chance to respond, drop the solutions with a low percentage of people who agree or a low percentage who feel they are priorities.

Once you have the top 10 or so solutions from the group, combine it with the ten you started with and pick the one that makes the most sense –the best decision.

How Mind Mining Works

Adaptive Survey(r)

An Adaptive Survey® is a market research method that combines qualitative and quantitative research features. This unique combination allows researchers to speed up the research process by gathering ideas and prioritizing them in the same research project.

Adaptive Surveys are offered by CloudMR, Inc. and this blog is related to that company. The benefits of this technique…

• Systematically gather and prioritize open-ended text in a single project
• Replace dozens of traditional market research rating scales with a single Adaptive Question™
• Answer questions you didn’t even know to ask
• Get higher response rates since Adaptive Surveys® are short and conversational
• Add structure to unstructured data
• Prioritize ideas using any representative sample you choose