Author Archive: Ron Sellers
About Ron Sellers
Ron has 25 years of experience designing and conducting research that makes a difference. Thirteen of those years were spent running Ellison Research, which he acquired in 2008 and rebranded into Grey Matter. Twenty-three years. That’s over 1,100 focus groups moderated (plus many more IDIs)…hundreds of quantitative studies successfully completed…over thirty published articles in industry magazines and trade journals…speeches given, seminars led, and classes taught…and scores of clients relying on his work in making key decisions. Ron’s work helped Chevrolet design and name the Chevy Equinox SUV. He helped the NHL’s Phoenix Coyotes design a new logo and branding scheme. He helped the American Red Cross design a successful holiday fundraising campaign. He helped General Motors rebrand all of their pre-owned vehicle lots. Ron’s work has been cited extensively by the international media, including Harvard Business Review, Associated Press, USA Today, Los Angeles Times, Financial Times of London, USA Radio Network, Washington Post, and a host of other media in the U.S., China, Sweden, Russia, New Zealand, Korea, Canada, the Philippines, Norway, Australia, England, and Central America. His work has even been used in panel hearings before the U.S. Senate and quoted in Jay Leno’s opening monologue on The Tonight Show.Biasing Your Research by the Act of Doing Research
Monday, April 23, 2012, 6:35 am 3 CommentsLongitudinal studies can influence how people respond to your questions simply by the fact that you have researched them before. And if you’re not careful, this problem can come about even when you’re not doing a longitudinal study. Continue reading
Biased Research, No Matter What the Methodology
Monday, March 19, 2012, 6:58 am 3 CommentsIn a world where any methodology choice can introduce some bias to your data, it’s imperative to understand how your findings may skew because you chose phone over online (or online over phone, or river sample over panel sample, or any other choice you made). Continue reading
Counteracting the Dirty Little Secrets of Online Panels
Tuesday, February 14, 2012, 5:57 am No CommentsThere are some really, really bad panels out there. The question is, how can we as researchers navigate these treacherous waters? In short, what can we do to avoid these bad panels and practices? Continue reading
More Dirty Little Secrets of Online Panel Research
Monday, January 30, 2012, 9:20 am 7 CommentsIn 2009, Grey Matter Research ran a little internal test on a few panels we had used or were considering. The result was the report Dirty Little Secrets of Online Panels, which burned up Twitter feeds and LinkedIn comments, and was requested by researchers from as far away as Finland, Japan, and South Africa. Well, we’re at it again. Continue reading
Predicting The Unpredictable: A Call For Reason
Monday, January 9, 2012, 5:15 am 7 CommentsI’ve recently spent some time reading predictions about the future of the market research industry (probably because at year-end, they proliferate). Funny thing about predictions, though: they’re often wrong. Looking back, they’re often laughably wrong. Continue reading
Brand Happens – With or Without You
Sunday, December 18, 2011, 20:59 pm 3 CommentsWhether you’re a research vendor or a corporate researcher, your brand is being communicated to clients constantly. It’s your choice whether you exercise control over that or not. Continue reading
Information Assassination – How They’ll Simply Get the Research Wrong
Friday, November 18, 2011, 6:27 am 3 CommentsIt’s true that important nuance and detail is being lost, but at the same time, it’s also a fact that non-researchers generally aren’t going to give the same attention to important details that researchers are. Continue reading
You Can’t Get This Right, What Else Will You Screw Up?
Wednesday, October 26, 2011, 12:47 pm No CommentsAs a vendor, you want to put your best foot forward. You want to demonstrate that you pay attention to details. And you want to show at least basic common courtesy. Getting my name or my company name wrong, when both are prominently featured on our RFPs, letters, e-mail, and all other communication, suggests you either aren’t really paying attention, or you just don’t care. Continue reading
Generalizing: The Bane of Insights
Thursday, September 22, 2011, 7:17 am No CommentsI often wonder whether, in research, we spend so much time navigating the complexities of gathering the data that we neglect the all-important field of communicating what we find. Issues such as online representativeness, phone response rates, and newer forms of data collection (mobile MR, social media sampling, etc.) take up so much of our mental bandwidth that it can be easy to give short shrift to clarity and accuracy in reporting. Continue reading
World’s Worst Questionnaire Design
Tuesday, August 9, 2011, 5:46 am 9 CommentsI just completed a survey (as a respondent). I honestly have no idea how the client is going to get any valid data from the mish-mash of garbage I just had to wade through in order to complete the study. As a respondent, I felt this was a frustrating abuse of my time. As a researcher, I felt this was a frustrating abuse of our industry. There is enough of this nonsense going on in research that it’s time we stand up and call out the worst offenders, and use them as examples of what not to do. Because it’s hurting the end users of the research, and it’s hurting the professionals who actually know and care what they’re doing. Continue reading
