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Reflections on CES 2013: the Coming Individualization of Reality

Although I've never attended Consumer Electronics Show (CES), I love following it on the blogosphere. The annual industry ritual allows tech players new and old to share their latest inventions with the public and offers a preview of how technology will further incorporate itself into our daily lives.

Broadly speaking, attendees didn't see CES 2013 as a vintage year. As one Ars Technica blogger remarked:

 

The feeling pervading the entire show seemed to be one of forced optimism. All the various technology companies appeared to be heavily pumping out the message that ‘happy days are here again’ and that any trace of a burst bubble is long gone. However, when pressed, no one really had anything earthshaking to show off...it mostly felt like leftovers from the microwave.

 

Ouch. 4K televisions, anyone? Anyone?

In spite of the forced optimism pervading the show, there were some interesting developments with the potential to profoundly shape our lives in the coming years. One that is particularly striking is the individualization of reality.  

Gaming guru Jane McGonigal's thesis is that reality is broken, to borrow the title of her fantastic book. As a result, emerging technologies will begin blending the physical and virtual worlds into realities of our own creation. One example of this phenomenon is the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset. When worn, the Oculus Rift creates an incredibly immersive gaming experience that takes “being in the game" to a whole new level. Eye tracking and motion technology allow the Rift to create a truly 360-degree virtual experience. Imagine the ways this technology will evolve over time: the universe seen in The Matrix films seems possible.  

Augmented reality is another way to enhance our consciousness. A standout in this space is iOptik, a company creating contact lenses that display "immersive personal media" as we execute our daily routine. 

 

This Youtube video presents an interesting vision of how this could play out in the future. To use another movie analogy, these technologies will bring the world of Minority Report outside of the realm of science fiction.

The potential applications are incredibly exciting: gathering consumer insights for use in future product designs and retail spaces, for instance. Imagine what an augmented reality overlay might look like in a retail space; it guides the shopper through the store, exposing them to highly personalized deals and identifying store sections where their insight is needed. Or think about how much more authentic a vehicle product design evaluation might be if virtual reality technology allowed shoppers to view the car from every angle as if they were in a dealer showroom.

These possibilities provide a very early glimpse of a future where we can move beyond the limitations of physical reality. They point to an era where consciousness will be shaped by our moods, our whims and our momentary needs. It will transform the Internet from a place we "visit" to an atmosphere we live in. 

And that's just scratching the surface from a consumer insights perspective. The societal implications are so staggering that I'll leave that topic to a future blog post, so stay tuned on that front.

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts. Do you see the individualization of reality as a pipe dream or an inevitable future outcome? What will it mean for our culture?

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The Value Path and Market Research

After spending three days in sunny Boca Raton at The Market Research Event 2012, Ron William's keynote "Beyond Business Model Innovation: Embedding Innovation in Everyday Business When the Customer Makes the Rules" stands out to me. Based on his book "The Value Path: Embedding Innovation in Everyday Business When the Customer Makes the Rules," it offered many insights that I thought were applicable to Market Research. Stay tuned for my upcoming post about how Value Path concepts are imperative for our industry as it continues to evolve.

The MR Industry has a "Global Warming" Problem – here are 5 ways you can fight it

Gradual. Subtle. Insidious.  And, ultimately devastating to life as we know it.  This is the picture painted by climate scientists to describe global warming. Interestingly, it is also these characteristics that make it so easily mocked by critics.  In the end, scientists foretell humanity will look back on these warnings and realize the irrevocable damage that has been caused by our inattention to this threat.

While different in scope, the market research industry faces its own "global warming."  And, like its climatological cousin, it too carries warnings of an impending crisis that will shake the foundation of our discipline.

What is the MR industry's "global warming"?  Quite simply, it's the decline in consumer interest and participation in traditional research.  Like the actual global warming problem, the initial warnings have been subtle:

• Mail and phone surveys -- response rates began a long decline starting in the 1990's, which was shrugged off as a knee-jerk reaction to the dot com craze  
• Focus group recruiting -- it has become increasingly difficult to secure participation for in-person studies...with a commensurate increase in the average incentive required to secure their attendance
• Online surveys -- A very strong decline in response rates over the past five years, coupled with decreases in data quality and difficulty of getting panelists to go "off-line" and “on-site” without paying a high premium 
• Hard-to-reach participants - male & high income/high education participants have become increasingly difficult to engage in traditional research. (To wit, the annual snarky comments from my doctor about being pestered to participate in long phone surveys regarding medications he prescribes to patients)

In short, as we look back on these subtle and not-so-subtle hints, we realize we have a looming problem of epic proportions on our hands.

What caused this?  It would be easy to simply blame consumers for their lack of altruistic zeal for sharing their opinions.  However, if we’re being honest with ourselves, we—both vendor and client side MR professionals—have ultimately created this crisis.

We've done it with our 30-minute surveys, painfully worded questionnaires and awkwardly constructed scales.  We've annoyed 90% of potential respondents because we’re our obsessed with finding the proverbial needle in a haystack, i.e. the "low-incidence consumer."  In short, we've made the entire experience about as much fun as a trip to the DMV.

And, arguably we threaten our industry and livelihood because we've treated respondents more like lab rats than the beautifully complex humans that they are.

We need to put a stop to it now, before the lifeblood of our profession dries up to a meaningless trickle.

To do this will require a re-visioning of our discipline. We’ll have to bring forth a truly innovative mindset toward gleaning insights amid the “noise” of consumers’ lives.

Here are five things you can start doing today to help avert this calamity:

1)  Cut, cut, cut - Take out 20% of the questions you ask. Then take another 10% out of that.  Odds are you are asking them "just in case" or because it would be “nice to know."   

2)  Get to the point - Use fewer words for each question. Think of each as a tweet—see if you can do it in 140 characters or less.  Ditto for responses. 

3)  Take your own medicine - Put yourself in the shoes of your respondents. Take every survey you create and ask yourself, "would I want to thoughtfully respond to this?"  If you find it painful to take your own survey, don't ask anyone else to take it either.

4) Get mobile…now - Let's face it. Consumers are nearly too busy to sit in front of their computers to do anything these days.  As researchers, we need to get in sync with this, and use the screen they are using all the time—their smartphone.  Yes, I know you can't replicate a traditional online survey on a smartphone.  Guess what?  That's a good thing.

5) Jump into the river - Get your organization to break out of the traditional ad hoc research paradigm. Stop focusing on large, sporadic research initiatives and begin embracing a river approach to engage consumers.  Think about a series of six three-minute "research snacks" instead of two big online surveys.  If you have a community, you've already begun to embrace this river approach to qual.  Take the leap with your survey research too.

Some of these actions are relatively easy. Others are more challenging and will take time to implement. Just as we find ourselves instinctively recycling flip charts after a brainstorm, these behaviors will not only preserve our discipline, but help re-engineer it for the future.

 

Me doing my job for the greater good of the Earth. Yes, I'm feeding these flip-chart pages from a focus group straight into our office recycle bins. :-)