I had read all the reviews (both good and bad), and had set aside a few hours for the download and install just to be sure that I would have time spare and not be attempting to get work done on an unavailable machine. Thus I decided that a weekend would be the best bet.

I backed everything up via Time Machine on Friday before I left the office and proceeded with the download and install when I got home. All went well until I noticed that the ‘time remaining’ status bar was hanging at around 32 minutes for some time. Thinking nothing of it I left the laptop for a while and came back around 1 hour later- still 32 minutes left! Not wanting to stress I gave it a little more time and was then presented with a message saying that installation had failed and I should try again. No big deal… right???

Upon restarting my laptop the installation kicked off again automatically which I was impressed with. It want through all the standard screens, but I was then presented with a message what most computer users would never want to see. It went something along the lines of- Mac Lion can not be installed on this Hard Drive as it is corrupted. Still holding my cool (ever so slightly), I followed the prompts to disk utility and ran various tests and repairs. Nothing seemed to be working and thus I headed for the phone and apple customer support (patting myself on the back that I purchased AppelCare extended warranty only 2 weeks before).

The support guys were great, although they had not come across this particular issue previously. Several calls, tests and hours later it came down to a situation you never want o be in- wipe the hard drive and start again!!!!

Not being at the office and with my backup drive I held out until Monday and went through the VERY scary process of erasing my hard drive and reinstalling Lion. This all went flawlessly, and I then proceeded to bring my backed up data from Time Machine to my laptop. This process took around 8 hours, as well as reimporting all my mail from 2 Google Apps accounts with around 8 gig of emails.

The process was a stark reminder of why backing up your data is so vital, it also made me think more about a backup plan in the even it happens again.

For most people, backing up their computer is an arduous task that at best involves connecting an external drive every so often to their computer and ‘remembering’ to open some proprietary backup program and do a backup. This is not to mention that the backup drive sits next to their computer. The very same place that a single power surge, theft, fire or accident can wipe the 2 out in one fowl swoop.

Statistics on data loss are varied, but a report by StollzNow Research, Kroll Ontrack & IDG found a few interesting things:

- 49% of businesses reported data loss in the last two years

- 49% of small businesses do not backup their data on a daily basis

- Hardware failure & human error accounts for 78% of all data loss

- According to the US Archives and Records Administration,  93% of the companies that lost their entire data for 10 days or more filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster and 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same period of time filed for bankruptcy immediately.

For any business, some form of back and recovery procedure is essential. This is often handled by IT departments or external companies, and in many cases even something is better than nothing.

But what do you do if you don’t have an IT department or if you are a much smaller business or a sole trader/ freelancer???

The answer is simple- you don’t use that as an excuse!!!

Data loss and downtime will affect you by an order of magnitude when you are on your own in business. Not having anyone else to blame or fall back on will make such a situation even harder to deal with.

Not sure who coined the term (I first heard it from Peter Krogh when he was on MacBreak Weekly , but I am an avid believer in the 3-2-1 Rule for backup. Put simply the way to remember how to backup is as follows:

- 3 copies of everything that you want to keep safe

- 2 different types of media should be used (online, hard drive, DVD disc, external drive, etc…)

- 1 of these should be off-site (i.e. backup drive at the home and office, off-site backup storage or an online backup service such as Carbonite

Once you have some form of backup procedure in place you need to stick to it, and at regular intervals test your backups. No point making backups if they don’t work when you need them.

Depending on what software and services that you use, you might already have online backups of your data with various SAAS (Software As A Service) providers. Online accounting applications such as Xero and Sassu or hosted email services such as Google Apps keep a copy of your data in the cloud and thus an additional backup should data loss occur on your computer. There are many other online services that you might use that have some portion of your data stored online. The trick is know what services store what data, and how you can get it back in the event of a disaster.

One major factor that is often not considered in a backup plan, is what you will do whilst you are in the process of recovering your data. This might be something as simple as email loss and re-downloading it from a server, through to loss or damage of your actual computer hardware.

If you hardware needs to be repaired how will you run your business without it for a week? Can you survive just on a smartphone or iPad- unlikely for more than a day.

Having some type of backup hardware can be a lifesaver in situation like this. Even if it just allows you to get online and access your email and the web in a somewhat normal fashion (i.e. not on a small phone screen), then you can have a measure of productivity whilst you are getting back up to to 100%.

I was forced to work off my iPhone for the entire day when I was recovering all of my data. I managed to borrow a bluetooth keyboard from someone in the office and could at least type faster, but doing anything other than emails was painfully slow.

I now have an old netbook sitting on a bookcase in the office. It is slow, runs windows (yes I am a Mac guy) and has a small screen, but it works and can be up and running in 2 minutes if my main machine is out of action again for whatever reason.

Backing up is often though if as flossing your teeth. We all know we should be doing it, but most of us never remember to, or can’t be bothered. It is only after a disaster (or very expensive trip to the dentist) that we think about it.

If you haven’t got at least a basic backup plan for your business, do yourself a favour and start now.

Online Panels Don’t Have To Be an 800-Pound Gorilla

Online panels have long been an effective tool in a researcher’s tool belt. Going by names such as AdvisoryPanel or Panel of Experts, online panels provide clients with a wealth of knowledge and insight that can directly influence business-critical decisions.

And they work. I know there are differing opinions on this, but my belief for the past decade has remained unchanged:  When well-crafted and well-tended, online panels provide clients with a significantly wider array of benefits than do one-time studies or surveys.

Of course, helping your clients plan, design, launch and grow an online panel can be intimidating. It’s time-consuming, requires marketing expertise, and necessitates the need for a robust data-tracking and analytics engine. Even as recently as five years ago, many market researchers shunned the use of online panels because they took way too much time and resources and were, frankly, not cost-effective for either the researcher or the client.

That’s changing. Today, some market research companies have online panel solutions that incorporate best practices and technological advances, making it quicker and easier to get an online panel up and running and, more importantly, provide clients with accurate information based on sound data. To be sure, it’s a fantastic solution to add to your product suite. But as I discovered, it was a lot more challenging than anticipated and took a long time to get good at.

What follows is the story of our company’s experience building its first online panel, what we learned, and what we’ve done to make the process so much more efficient and effective now.

In 2000, OnResearch had the fortuitous opportunity to partner with a well-known technology brand for the sole purpose of helping it meet a specific business need. After lengthy investigation, conversation and deliberation, we ultimately recommended they create an Advisory Panel. It would be comprised of a statistically significant sample of qualified thought leaders from their target industry who would help our client decide where and how to expand its service offerings.

We convinced them by enumerating the benefits of an online panel.  Just to name a few:  Panel owners get to tap into the expertise of like-minded professionals without the cost of internal headcount or external consultants; they can get unbiased opinions about where their business is lacking, what makes their customers tick and what their competitors are doing; and they can expand their business opportunities and circles of influence – a sweet byproduct of being associated with industry experts.

What’s not to love?

They were on board. Contracts were signed. We were jazzed. And when the back-slapping and high-fiving ended, we took a good, long look at what we were now contractually obligated to provide … and freaked out.

It’s not that we didn’t have the skill or expertise.  We did.  It’s that we didn’t have the process.  The tribal knowledge. The tools. The stuff that experience and trial and error gives you.

Our major obstacle was how to set up the backend, both the database and the data-tracking methodologies that fed it.  How many levels of segmentation should there be? What types of business rules are needed? How can we quantify and categorize actions and responses? Can we do that across all online channels?  Can we identify common characteristics and affinities that allow us to dive deeper?  Can quickly analyze thousands of data points and distill them into business-critical insights that the client can actually use? Keep in mind, there was nothing in place for this and nothing we could purchase off-the-shelf that was robust enough to meet our needs. And the clock was ticking on meeting schedule.

This fundamental challenge turned out to be a blessing, ultimately becoming the foundation for our online panel solution, which combines years (now) of panel-creation experience with ever-better technologies that help us collect and analyze enormous amounts of data faster and accurately.

Some of the key advances we’ve incorporated include the ability to communicate to panel members via any online channel (e.g., traditional email, social media sites, RSS feeds, SMS), thereby better ensuring they’re reached in the manner they prefer.

Additionally, all data is tracked to the individual level, meaning we know—real time and across time—every communication and opportunity a panel member has received, and every action and response the panel member has provided. This dataset allows a comprehensive degree of in-depth analysis to be performed, which often uncovers interesting nuggets that can impact the client’s business decisions.

Improvements to our scoring system have significantly increased the ability to flag business-critical information, giving the client time to put strategies in place. For example, identifying at-risk panel members and automatically launching a sequence of steps to intercept attrition.

Most interesting has been the ability to merge behavioral data with survey response data; that is, what panel members actually do and what they say they do.  Countless reputable studies have proven that actions and words don’t always square, even among the well-intentioned members of anAdvisory Panel. Since quantitative and qualitative data are intimately related to each other, gathering both data components—and adding other demographic and geographic factors to the mix—illuminates a much clearer picture, which further enables the client to make better business decisions.

Like everything in the digital space, online panels are in constant flux as new ideas, technologies and business needs push different sides of the envelope. But from my perspective, the fact remains that online panels are very effective in helping businesses that need much more insight than a single study or survey can provide.

Although they are still time-consuming to implement and nurture, the technological advances of online panel solutions continue to make the process easier, increase efficiencies and let you re-focus on the results instead of the administration.

Link to original article- http://www.research-live.com/features/raising-researchs-profile-%E2%80%93%C2%A0whos-right-for-the-job?/4004329.article

Trust and respect from the public are vital to the market research business. Should research associations be doing more to improve the industry’s image? Or should agencies just focus on delivering better research?

“If we stepped outside this building and asked some people in the street about market research, what would they say? And would it have changed in 20 years?” That was the question asked by Danny Russell, research boss at BSkyB and chairman of client body Aura, at a recent event organised by the Independent Consultants Group.

Research associations in Germany have been pondering the same question – and have already done just what Russell suggests. They went out in to the street, asked passers-by what ‘market research’ meant to them, and made a video of the results. It involves a lot of staring into space and shrugging.

Waiting in the wings to fill this void are an array of bad ambassadors for research: disreputable telemarketers using it as a front for a sales pitch, irresponsible journalists butchering results of surveys, cosmetics ads claiming that 79% of 52 women agree with the PR copy for their product, and shoddy DIY online surveys.

Anonymous research blogger MR Heretic wrote recently that commercial websites fall into two categories: “sites that provide a valuable service and monetise their traffic through advertising, e-commerce or subscription fees… [and] sites that hustle, scam, or otherwise exploit naive web users by luring them in with promises of cash, prizes, porn, or other rewards. We are in the second group.”

Danny Russell believes industry bodies need to do more to defend research’s public image. “I think a lot of the responsibility for the positioning, perception and training within market research has to lie with the Market Research Society,” he said. As to how research positions itself, he says: “I am amazed that an industry that is going into very big business telling them how to position their brands is falling on its arse… I find it absolutely astounding that the MRS has not grabbed hold of this and said, ‘We are going to reposition ourselves.’ I am astounded the MRS hasn’t gone, ‘We identify this as a problem, we’re going to at least try and do something about it.’ I think that has ramifications.”

But Sally Ford-Hutchinson, a former chair of the MRS and now an independent researcher, disagrees, pointing out that the research industry’s angst over its image is not unique. “If you talk to the pharma industry, they’ll worry about their image, if you talk to the advertising industry they’ll worry about their image, if you talk to town planners in district councils they’ll worry about their image. It would be strange if we didn’t worry about this. I find it naive coming from the chair of Aura saying the MRS should sort the image out. Is anyone going to pay to sort the image out?”

That’s another question the German associations are closer to having an answer to. The country’s four major research bodies have come together to launch an ad campaign promoting research to the public, and pointing out the difference between research and telemarketing, but its success will rely on getting sponsorship from providers (and with luck users) of research.

When the four organisations first got together it didn’t take long for the conversation to turn to money. Hartmut Scheffler of the ADM told Research: “We can start the initiative, we can finance agencies concerning the creative part, but at the end of the day we would like to start a mass media initiative, and that means we need money, we need sponsorship to play a relevant role… especially in radio at the beginning, in outdoor advertising and maybe even later on in TV.” The organisations have set the ball rolling with a set of outdoor ads, a website and flyers that agencies can distribute to help win respondents’ trust, but they need to build support if it is to keep going.

Such efforts to bolster the image of research are to be admired, but it still feels like research is on the back foot. The reasons offered in the German campaign for taking part in surveys are that your data will be protected and they won’t try to sell you anything – the only actual benefit to the respondent is the warm glow of having been asked their opinion and contributed to making better products and services.

In any case, if researchers are going to worry about the views of the man in the street, they should also think more urgently about how they are viewed by clients and business leaders. Brian Jacobs, who has produced a guidebook for commissioning research (to be published soon by advertiser body ISBA and the MRS) suggestsagencies need to do a much better job of articulating the value of what they do, especially in a time when red pens are poised to slash anything that doesn’t offer a clear benefit. Jacobs says: “For the first time I can remember, senior management at client companies, and most particularly procurement heads, are saying: ‘Actually, why are we doing this research? What’s this for?’ And they’re not getting particularly good answers.”

James Smythe of Culture of Insight says research agencies are increasingly struggling to sell the value of their thinking time. “Heads of research are no longer seen as the gurus that they once were,” Smythe told Research. The solution, he says, lies in how agencies communicate the findings of research, and the value of conducting research. “Think like an advertising agency when you communicate research,” he advises. “Different key decision makers need to be communicated to in different ways.”

It wouldn’t hurt to extend the same approach to respondents too. In this month’sResearch Magazine, Gary Austin of 100%Cotton suggests agencies should routinely produce summary research reports for respondents, because the cost of doing so is far outweighed by the longer-term benefits of keeping people interested and showing them that their participation has some kind of purpose.

Already techniques like co-creation and online communities offer a way for participants to become more engaged with the research process. A study by InSites Consulting and the University of Maastricht suggests that providing opportunities for social engagement in online research communities can make participants more willing to take part in surveys – even if they’re on topics unconnected to the discussions in the community.

Perhaps a more open, more equitable relationship with the people whose information we rely on is the way for the industry to build a positive image – rather than just countering a negative one.

Respondents are customers

Definitely worth a read for anyone in the online research field.

Definitely worth a ready, and good to see more organisations taking this stance in the industry.

Link to Article- http://www.research-live.com/comment/lets-let-respondents-decide-what-matters/4003484.article

His blog post- Stop, collaborate and LISTEN, focuses on the issues with research and those that do and do not use it- and those that should.

In addition to this he talks about needing to break out of the ‘traditional’ way of thinking for researchers and moving to the idea of ‘Listening’.

Full blog post here and definitely worth a read- http://peteraharris.wordpress.com/2010/02/16/stop-collaborate-and-listen/

Knowledge Management and Social Business Transformation. Guest post by Jenni Beattie from Digital Democracy over on Market Magazine.

The fundamentals haven’t changed just the tools and technologies! Post by David Wesson over at his personal blog Digital Culture. Video from this post is below:

It is a perfect example of just how many sites, platforms, ecosystems, etc.. are out there, and need to be utilised by organisations in a constantly shifting landscape.

For more info on the Conversation Prism, check out the post on Brian’s blog.

Have a read of the blog post over at the Vovici blog called Closing the Feedback Loop: Sharing Results with Online Community Members & Respondents.