Feedback Communities as Standing Focus Groups
Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Thu, May 29, 2008
Recently a former colleague I had lost touch with found me through my Linked In profile, and he asked, "What have you been up to lately?" It was a short question, requiring a short answer, and I cast about for a succinct way to summarize feedback communities.
When he and I started in the market research industry in the 1980s, the primary methodologies we were involved with were mail surveys, telephone surveys, face-to-face surveys and focus groups. It occurred to me that feedback communities are, in a sense, standing focus groups, and so that is how I described them to him.
Unlike surveys, which are typically completed one respondent at a time, focus groups involve multiple participants, who not only answer the moderator's questions but comment on each other's responses as well. Feedback communities do that as well, and they eliminate some of the problems with focus groups:
- Where focus groups have small participant size (an individual group typically has no more than ten participants), feedback communities can have hundreds of participants.
- Where focus groups have limited time (90-120 minutes divided by 10 participants yields only 9-12 of minutes of potential response per participant), feedback communities can be a resource that lasts for years.
- Where a focus group can be dominated by one or two garrulous individuals (my hardest job as moderator was always politely but firmly ending one participant's comments so that others could be heard from), it's hard for a member of an online community to monopolize the discussion.
- Where a focus group is set in a major metropolitan area, a feedback community can have participants from around the world.
(For a good discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of online focus groups, see Debbie McNamara's recent post.)
When I organized studies involving a series of focus groups across the United States, we typically developed a two-page written questionnaire for participants to complete as they waited for the session to begin, giving us quantitative research to supplement the qualitative nature of the focus-group discussion. Similarly, feedback communities by design include web surveys, to provide those quantitative results.
Of course, unlike traditional focus groups, feedback communities don't provide you an opportunity to show participants a product in real life and don't allow you to gauge their facial expressions, body language and vocal cues as they respond.
And neither does LinkedIn. So I can't be sure if my succinct answer about feedback communities as "standing focus groups" wasn't met with a quizzical raised eyebrow. Next time someone asks me that question, I guess I'll give the 21st-century answer: "check out my blog"!