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We're living in the Golden Age of market-research blogging, with an embarrassment of riches. Who can keep up with all the great posts out there?

To give you a hand, here's a roundup of some recent posts that stuck with me and are worth your time.

Analysis: Good Numbers are Better than Great Numbers

• Market Research Needs Less Statistical Analysis - Bruce Temkin - "I've noticed a very important shift in market research. Leading-edge firms are relying less on traditional statistical analysis and more on what I'm calling ‘Contextual insight' which I've defined as ‘Observations drawn from data that resonates with an understanding of the business.'"
• Metrics & the Placebo Effect - Tom Ewing - "A lot of market research is confirmatory - or, less flatteringly, its main purpose is to cover your arse by telling you that what you already want to do is right. This kind of stuff is in a way as useful as the more disruptive or insightful stuff - it encourages someone to make a decision."
• When Good Enough Is Good Enough: Seeking Balance In Product & Pricing Research - Kathryn Korostoff - "The difference between good market research and great market research can be significant. But sometimes the incremental time, cost and sweat of that extra effort simply doesn't make sense. Sometimes, ‘good' is just perfect... Many entrepreneurs get bogged down by over-analyzing their decisions-ultimately missing their window of opportunity. Key areas for such analysis paralysis? Product optimization and pricing."
• Segmenting for Success - Erika Bruhn - Go beyond traditional segmentation variables like demographics and firmographics and focusing on needs, attitudes and lifestyle instead. "Why segment differently? The reason is simple: These [traditional segmentation] variables are descriptive, but not predictive. Motivations drive behavior, and by understanding the motivations of different segments of the market, one can reasonably predict how those segments will behave."

Twitter: Connect with Peers & Customers

• The Benefits Of Twitter From A Market Researcher's Perspective - Reineke Reitsma - Reineke confesses, "I spend easily 30 to 60 minutes a day checking out Twitter messages, clicking on links, and reading articles - time I spent differently before I started using Twitter (only a couple of months ago). So what does it bring me? Is this a good investment of my clocked hours?"
• 5 Simple Twitter Listening Tips Every Marketer Should Know - Elyssa Pallai - The five tips:
  1. Search your product, service or topic using http://search.twitter.com.
  2. Use hashtags.
  3. Progress to a desktop application for market monitoring.
  4. Create custom-filtered views of the conversation.
  5. Build community and learn from the Twittersphere.

General Views

• AMSRS Summer School Points the Way to the Future - Ray Poynter - Highlights from the Australian Market and Social Research Society's summer conference. Ray's take on the consensus of attendees:
  1. Access panels cannot approximate probability sampling.
  2. Telephone research no longer approximates probability sampling either.
  3. "Long surveys result in bad data and unhappy respondents." 
  4. Surveys need to be more engaging, without compromising accuracy.
  5. Online surveys represent the bulk of MR spending, with listening and ethnography growing.
• How to Use Qualitative and Quantitative Research in New Product Development - Michaela Mora - Michaela nicely contrasts the two approaches: "Qualitative research is by definition exploratory, and it is used when we don't know what to expect, to define the problem or develop an approach to the problem. It's also used to go deeper into issues of interest and explore nuances related to the problem at hand. Quantitative research is conclusive in its purpose as it tries to quantify the problem and understand how prevalent it is by looking for projectable results to a larger population."
• Excellent Articles and Thoughts on Customer Feedback - Ivana Taylor - At the risk of becoming recursive, I have to include Ivana's roundup of six recent customer feedback posts, ranging from my Customer Feedback Listening Posts article to five approaches to insights beyond survey research.