The Inquire Group

An important aspect of survey design is asking the right questions.  Because surveys attempt to capture data on attitudes and opinions of things, you better make sure that the questions you put forth to capture that data, are worded appropriately and frame the questions in appropriate ways.

Language is key.  If you use a vague term like “satisfaction” in your survey, you will have a difficult time interpreting results if they are negative – because not being satisfied and being dissatisfied are very different things.  Further, what does satisfaction mean to the individual consumer anyway?  If you are not working with the same definitions as your customers, you will not be able to decipher what the results mean.

Also key to survey design is knowing what types of questions will yield the best data.  Is it a binary, yes/no question?  Is it a question of rating, using likert scales? Do you want to let people chose more than one answer?  Are you going to let them respond with an “I don’t know” or neutrally?

Demographic questions are perhaps the most important if you are interested in knowing about your customers.  What demographic data do you want to collect?  Do you care to know if the respondents are male, female or transgendered?  What about their age?  Their highest educational level? Their income? Selecting proper demographic questions is extremely important, you want to get the information which will inform your data the best without putting people off and having them feel as though you are invading their privacy.

That’s why, at inquire research, we take the time to talk to you about the answers you are looking for, and structure the questions in the best way possible to get them.

Web 2.0 is catchphrase coined by Tim O’Reilly back in 2002 which refers to the social evolution of the Internet. It’s the user-created side of things. Institutions of Web 2.0 include Twitter, Wikipedia, Flickr, Myspace, Facebook, BitTorrent… pretty much any web based service that allows for user control of it’s service.

O’Reilly put forth Web 2.0 as a marketing concept for business (one that explains the beta phenomenon on the net), but much of the “lessons” we learn from Web 2.0 – as O’Reilly tries to sell the concept as a new business model -  are extremely relevant to the community context of the web. Web 2.0 is the user-created universe.

Robert Putnam wrote a book called “Bowling Alone” and the book was dedicated to showing how civic engagement at the community level is deteriorating. The example he gives from which the title of his book is derived, there has been a steady decline of group membership or joining clubs – like bowling leagues – in America since the 1970’s. Not only are fewer people getting together in these organized manners, they are voting less and overall seem to be less engaged with society.

One section of the book is dedicated to social movements and the Internet, suggesting that these may in fact be ways in which social organization is changing. Bowling Alone was written in 2000.

He notes that Internet communities run the risk of a sort of “cyberbalkinization” where groups that are formed online are interest-based rather than geography based; and potentially narrow in their focus. He seems to think this is a bad thing… but a community based on shared ideas rather than mere geographic location seems progressive in my mind.

One of the biggest tenants of Web 2.0 – perhaps the one thing that drives the movement and evolution of the web (and the physical communities of it’s users) – is trust. It’s a new trust, one based on word of mouth (user endorsement through hyperlinking) and one that does not really have any real-world measures (aside from those who use Web 2.0 merely to bring their physical realities online).

Another interesting element of Web 2.0 is the folksonomy.  Folksonomy is the opposite of taxonomy – it expands concepts of concepts rather than narrows it into a specific category. An example of a folksonomic practice would be photo tagging… allowing users to label the concepts themselves. For example, if I tag a photo with the word “Autism”, I am creating a visual concept to go along with the label of Autism.  When I click on the “autism” tag in Flickr, my conceptualization of autism is incorporated into how others have conceptualized “autism” in their own images – thus giving the user a broader (visual) conceptualization of autism.

The same can be said of blog tagging, not the game but the specific practice of assigning categories to blogs. If I put this blog in the category Computers and the Internet it becomes part of the online dialogue today of Computers and the Internet. If I tag it as News and Politics though, or Religion and Philosophy, I’m saying as a creator of cultural content this is much more than a discussion about Computers and the Internet, it has religious and philosophical implications.

Get it?

Web 2.0 fosters an environment of collaboration and cooperation. The comment function allows us to interact with the information images and concepts that are being presented to us instantly. We (as users in Web 2.0) are no longer passive receptacles of information… our interaction changes the information we are being presented… whether it is in disagreement or agreement of that information. If we disagree… we question and thereby present different ideas to the topic… if we agree… we reinforce the idea of collective consent towards the topic or idea.

The Internet is a significant piece of technology that is reorganizing social relations in the larger society.  Researchers have identified three categories of proposed effects that the Internet is having on modern culture and society: it is changing the role of time and space; it is changing communication and the role of mass communication; it challenges the dualisms of representation and reality, the authentic and the fabricated, and technology and nature (Hine, 2000:5).

There are two prevalent theoretical approaches to studying the Internet’s effects on social organization, representation and formation and interpersonal communication.  The first approach assumes that the Internet is a social context in its own right (Hine, 2000:9).  Howard Rhinegold (1993) was instrumental in bringing this apporach to Internet studies.  He argued that the Internet could provide a venue for “real” community formation.  He brought the notion of the “virtual community” into the foray of a variety of disciplinary studies.  Further systemaatic studies used ethnographic methodology to establish that the Internet was a site for “rich and sustained interactions”:

Cyberspace is now crowded with ‘researchers swarming over the virtual landscape, peering around at the virtual natives and writing busily in thier virtual fieldnotes (Stone 1995:243).

The second approach to the Internet is by viewing it as a product of the culture.  This perspective sees the Internet as being a set of programs that allow for expanded forms of communication and information sharing (Hine, 2000: 27).  The Internet is studied in the context of the individuals’ uses of the technology in their day-to-day lives, rather than with the assumption that the computer provides them with an alternative reality.  To study the Internet from only one of these perspectives without the acknowledgement of the other is problematic and has lead to a fragmented picture of the Internet as a whole.

Traditionally the aim of the ethnography has been to develop a deep understanding of a culture through participation and observation (Hine, 2000:41).  The introduction of ethnographic inquiry on the Internet was inevitable, as anthropology increasingly expands into alternative, modern, industrial settings and the ethnography assumes a variety of new forms.

There are a number of issues that need to be addressed in the design of the virtual ethnography, including the boundaries of the research site, how the researcher “travels” to the field site, and how the researchers plans to interact with the subjects of the research.

Traditional ethnography generally occurs in the context of a physically bounded field site; therefore the absense of physical boundaries in Cyberspace can be problematic for the ethnographer.  However, interactions, and the cultural representations that arise from them, occur in identifiable bounded spaces of the Internet, even if they are only perceptual.  Web sites, newsgroups, MUDs, chatrooms, and social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are all examples of spaces available for ethnographic inquiry.  In many cases, the boundaries of the field site will not be established a priori: “The challenge of the virtual ethnography is to explore the making of boundaries and the making of connections, especially between the “virtual” and the “real” (Hine, 2000:64).

Travel to the virtual field site does not occur by traditional means.  This is possibly the reason why it’s becoming so popular among desk-bound academics.  The term “armchair anthropologist” assumes a new status through the establishment of the virtual ethnography.  The field site can be accessed from anywhere that there is Internet access.  It is not even necessary for the researchers to share the same time frame as the participants, as many online discussions are achieved and can be accessed after they’ve taken place.  This feature offers many possibilities for the scope of the inquiry.  Researchers are able to go back and review all the participant interactions, not just the ones that occured in the same temporal location.  However this feature can also be problematic for the researcher, as it can question the authenticity of the participants’ identities.

Some researchers prefer to combine online interaction with offline interaction to minimize the effects of identity play on  the study.  Baym and Correl’s (1995) study of newsgroups consisted of real-time online engagement, general postings, email exchanged and electronic or face-to-face interviews with the participants.  The need to verify online identity will largely depend on the goal of the study.  Hine notes:

The decision to priviledge certain modes of interaction is a situated one.  If the aim is to study online settings as contexts in their own right, the question of offline identities need not arise (22).

All online settings are heterogeneous; therefore no single predetermined methodology will likely be implented.  Hine notes that the same is true of ethical considerations such as the negotiation of consent, which should be viewed as an ongoing process rather than something which is conducted at the beginning of the study.  The guidelines set out by the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) in “Ethical decision-making and Internet research” (Ess, 2002) reinforces the notion of continual negotiation.  It is presented in Section II, A. of the document under the heading of “Timing”:

Determining not only if, but when to ask for consent is thus somewhat context-dependent and requires particular attention to the “fine-grained’ details of the reserach project not only in its inception but also as it may change over its course.

The AoIR document was published as a set of universal guidelines for researchers, ethicists and students in the social sciences interested in conducting online research.  The document recommends that consideration of the venue should assist researchers in establishing ethical expectations:

The greater the acknowledged publicity of the venue, the less obligation there may be to protect individual privacy, confidentiality, right to informed consent etc” (Ess, 2002).

There are many futuristic predictions about the Internet’s role in society.  Some believe that the Internet is the tool which will bring about the utopian global village; others are much more cynical and believe the Internet promotes individualism and corporate control.  Regardless of the background of extreme predictions, it is certain that a rapid level of population penetration is occuring.

There should be no further need to doubt that the Internet is having an impact on current social and cultural relations.  Ethnography plays an important role in the discourse on the technology as it exists in both of its forms; as a cultural context and artifact of culture.  The Internet forces us to reexamine traditional ways of thinking about culture and society including the way we approach social research.

What is Twitter anyway?

Twitter is a social networking site where the main activity is sending out and receiving 140 character (max) information bursts (called Tweets or Chirps).  People sign-up for membership using an email address and choose a unique username.  After disclosing of a small amount of personal information you are given your own Twitter profile.

Every profile is one page, and consists of a photo (if the user chooses to upload one), a 140 character “About Me” blurb, and if you have entered it, where in the world you are.  Your profile is also a record of your Tweets, in the order in which they have been entered, with the most recent last.

Where you “friend” people on other social sites like Myspace and Facebook, the social part of Twitter emerges as you “follow” other people’s tweets, and as people follow yours.  Your Twitter “home” then, becomes the real-time sending and receiving of tweets between and among you and those that you are following.

If you use Facebook, think of it as the Status Update feature isolated and turned into a social networking site on its own.

What kinds of information are being sent and received over Twitter?

The substance of the information bursts fall in a number of different categories:

• Mundane events (what I’m eating for breakfast or whether I’m going to get a bath or a shower)
• Personal news (where I’m going to have a beer or whether or not my best friend is pregnant)
• Making Plans with Followers (let’s go have a beer together to talk about our friend who is pregnant)
• Interesting Internet Finds (external links to articles, blogs, YouTube videos, pictures)
• Self-promotion (external links to your own blogs, YouTube videos, pictures, website, creative work)
• Citizen journalism (coverage and promotion of the local community events and news)
• Mediated journalism (external links to, interaction with and commentary on mainstream news)
• Commercial (purely service or product driven information with the intention of promotion)

Who uses Twitter?

Twitter is a social networking site predominantly used by individuals who are high-level communicators and organzations/businesses who want to reach those communicators.   Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is a good lens through which to view Twitter users.  He talks about the Connectors, the Mavens and the Salesmen as being the three types of individuals which start and spread what he calls “social epidemics.”

Connectors are individuals who know lots of people and who use those connections to their advantage.  Connectors are people who have invested in social, cultural and identity capital and who can convert those intangible resources into pretty much whatever they decide to.

Mavens are the senders and receivers of information.  They are the people who always have the pulse on the good deals and breaking stories of the day.  Mavens are the trendsetters and the people who you turn to to find out about this thing or that.  Citizen Journalists are types of Mavens, often scooping the mainstream media in reporting “from the ground”

Salesmen are the persuaders of society.  They are the people who dedicate a great deal of their lives to selling people on their ideas.

These three types of people form the Golden Triangle of trends. “Mavens are the databanks.  They provide the message. Connectors are social glue: they spread it… Salesmen [have] the skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced.”  (p.70, The Tipping Point).

But there is a fourth type of Twitter user, which I will call Leachers.  Leachers are passive Twitter users who do not tweet themselves, but who set up profiles simply to follow users and extract information from them for whatever purposes they may have.  For the most part Leachers exploit Twitter and the information being provided to them from the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen.  They only use half of the application.  They take information without giving anything in return.

How Many People Use Twitter?

According to Mashable, In April 2009, it was estimated that 7.4% of adult Internet users had a Twitter account.  That’s about 12.1 million people.  How many of these are active Twitter accounts with real people behind them is probably considerably less, but this is a problem with measuring any social metrics on social networking sites.

What about Twitter Penetration into Real Life?

Typically, when patterns of technology penetration are reported and analysed, they are done so in terms of number of users, which was answered in the above statistics.  However, the type of penetration discussed here has more to do with how this virtual platform influences and penetrates the everyday life of its users.

Because of the simplicity of the platform it makes it extremely friendly for use on any mobile phone with web capability.  Whereas Facebook there are multiple pages and multiple possibilities for surfing, the Twitter feed is the only screen you need to use the site.  Twitter mobile is fully functional, because it has such a simple function.

One of the concerns with this, of course, is that heavy Twitter users will often exhibit behaviours consistent with work-a-holics, or information addicts.  Non-users will often complain that their friends who have embedded Twitter into their daily lives are missing out on the here and now, and they hate having to compete for the attention of users.

Twitter penetration has also surpassed the personal and infiltrated the institutional.  Institutions, which have been the traditional gatekeepers and disseminators of public information are jumping in the tree for their own purposes.  Politicians, libraries, universities, governments, police, celebrities, the media, corporations – all the institutions who have things to say to people – are  chirping their way into the collective consciousness of the Tweeps (or Twits if you prefer) who would find that information useful.

Why has Institutionalized Media Become so Obsessed with Twitter?

Because Twitter is a social networking site which attracts the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen; the mainstream media has become increasingly interested in hopping on board this social epidemic.  It has gotten to the point where many mainstream media outlets are using Twitter as a source for their stories, which perpetuates it’s perceived value by the users because it can create a direct line from them to the mass media.  The Trending Topics feature (a keyword top 10 of what people are tweeting about) assists the media in keeping the pulse on what the Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen are talking about (it should be noted that this is also why market research firms are so interested in Twitter).

In this way, the mainstream media co-opts Twitter as a form of unpaid journalism.  The Twitter user becomes a Prosumer (from George Ritzer) – the Producer and the Consumer of “news” mediated by the mainstream media.

Why is Twitter Such a Valuable Social Tool?

Many of the social benefits of Twitter can be found in the literature around social networking sites in general.  Feelings of connectivity can lead to stronger social cohesion within cultural and geographic communities.  Because the majority of content on Twitter is user-generated, the information does not have to pass through the same vetting processes.  There are still vetting processes though, but they emerge in the form of social consensus as to what information is valid, or worth repeating (or in this case, retweeting).

Some, like Silicone Valley ex-pat Andrew Keen, are concerned with these processes of user-generated forms of culture, lamenting the death of the expert as a dangerous evolution of western civilization.  But this concern only holds water if you fundamentally believe that culture should be guarded and distributed through institutionalized gatekeepers: mainstream media, academics, admen, studied artists and record companies to name a few.

A local example of the social value of Twitter can be seen upon recollection of the Spryfield fires.  Those Haligonians who were using Twitter at the time were sending and recieving information about the state of the fires much faster than any local media outlet was.  It was the efficient delivery of important information which was personalized and unvetted, therefore it contained an inherent unmeasurable value to it which is often absent in reporting from the anchor desk.

A global example of the social value of Twitter emphasizes democratization, and information which has circumvented the institution.  This example is actually playing out as I type this, in the highly contested Iranian election.  Where state controlled media is finding it difficult to control the message and the information coming out of the country.  Even their attempts to block Internet traffic has failed, as global activists are facilitating external communication by tweeting proxy server addresses for those who might not be able to otherwise connect to the Internet.

Is Twitter for Me?

Well, the only way to find that out is by going on and trying it.  Chances are that if you consider yourself to be either a Connector, a Maven or a Salesman, Twitter would definitely be worth checking out.  Unless you are a celebrity, or have many friends and connections to people already using Twitter, it takes a while to collect a following, and really understand how it works.  Ultimately, people will follow you if you are tweeting things that are relevant to them (another benefit of Twitter is the positive identity/idea reinforcement as more and more people start following you).

It is important to remember that the thing that makes Twitter so valuable and meaningful for people is the interactive aspect of it.  The more you use it, and interact with it, the more you understand it’s value.

I think, though, overall with Twitter, we need to rethink the whole media paradigm.  The old “Medium is the message” adage becomes flipped to think about  “the Message as the Medium”, with the “viewers” flipping to the “users” and where “content” matters more than “form”.