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Research Roundup: Serendipity, Statisticians & Statistical Illusions

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Of the 584 links shared on the #MRX hashtag community in the past week, 64% were only shared once. This slightly exaggerates how much we’re talking to ourselves: some links were shared once from prior weeks, and some links are represented multiple times but using different URL shorteners to get around Twitter’s 140-character limit. Bit.ly is used for 51% of the links, t.co for 7% and ow.ly for 6%.

One of my resolutions going forward will be to retweet more often – there’s a lot of great content being shared. Thanks to those of you who shared these top five retweeted links of the week:

• Introducing Serendipity in Market Research – Rich Shaw (@richshaw) shares four key points from The Luck Factor that we can use to bring serendipity to our research. Recognize the unexpected.
• The Top 200 Jobs of 2011 – @SuzyTimms points out that the market research analyst was rated the 58^th best job to be in, statistician the 4^th. I do think the people who compiled these statistical rankings are having the last laugh: 3 of the top 4 jobs are mathematician, actuary and statistician!
• What’s On Tap For MROCs in 2011? – It might not have made CareerCast’s list of Top 200 jobs in 2011, but online community moderator is definitely a profession that is growing rapidly. Reineke Reitsma (@rreitsma) shares this post from @TamaraBarber about her new independent report for Forrester clients, “The Next Evolution of MROCs”. Three key trends are embracing mobile respondents, serving communities of many different sizes and increasing the strategic value derived from research communities.
• Social science hub opens for researchers – Speaking of online communities, this @researchlive article introduces Sage’s new community for social scientists, http://www.socialsciencespace.com/.
• The Illusion of Our Research Data - This @MargaretRoller post discusses the “decline effect” – the reduced significance of research data over time – and how our own biases and preconceived notions color how we interpret research data.

May the research gods grant you serendipity to accept what the data is actually telling you, discernment to see the data despite your own illusions, and the wisdom to know the difference.