Earlier this month Face Research Director Saul attended The Market Insight Forum where he led a workshop session on Co-creation with 50 senior researchers. Take a look at his keynote presentation What Is Co-creation & Why Do It?
Archive for June, 2010
Well I’ve been a bit quiet of late on the blogging front. But its been for all the right reasons! Reckitt Benckiser have been keeping the Face team more than busy!
We’ve had the opportunity to work on a really interesting and high profile strategic project in the last couple of months. With the backing of the Mortein team, we’ve been off to India and Australia to work on a ground breaking global brand re-positioning project, for which we pioneered a co-creative approach, delivering a new brand footprint and equity creative brief.
While most traditional agencies and clients would employ a safe, traditional focus group methodology we stayed true to what makes us different. Employing a collaborative methodology with intimate, direct and equal interaction between clients, agencies and local consumers. In each market we worked through a series of on and off line co-creation exercises designed to explode and explore 2 potential positionings developed to help Mortein differentiate itself from an increasingly homogenous crowd.
Following some skilled analysis, the result is a final brand positioning that is completely consumer centered, and a creative brief that is significantly tighter and more informed than ever before. Less testing required, less risk and uncertainty, and a fuller, earlier understanding of the parameters and possibilities inherent in it.
Aside from the fantastic nature of the brief, a large part of what made this project so special and so groundbreaking for the Mortein team is the fact that it was conducted, in part in an emerging market.
While Co-creation is increasingly becoming one of those marketing buzzwords it takes years of experience to do it well. Face has developed its Helix Co-creation process over the past 5 years across global markets and we have tailored an approach specifically for the BRIC markets.
We have found that co-creation if anything is even more applicable to the emerging markets than developed ones. It is here that global marketeers are less in touch with their consumers, where it is harder to conduct meaningful research, but really where the most costly mistakes can occur if you get it wrong. Co-creating with consumers allows marketers like the Mortein team to quickly immerse themselves deeply in specific cultural nuances, aspirations and needs of these new consumers.
Blog, Community Management, Insights, Research Communities, Research Communities 101
Research Communities 101 #4: What is a Task?
- Date June 10 2010
Whenever a community is setup there is a reason for it. There is a predefined output that is desired and it has been determined that an online research community is needed to gain that output. It is now up to you to work out how you are going to make your goal a reality.
The traditional way is to break your desired output down into as many tasks as you think you need to reach the your target. Now this is all well and good but what exactly is a task and how exactly do they help you to get where you want to be?
What is a Task?
In very simple terms a task is a question/project/challenge you set your community members to complete.
Building your tasks up and making them interesting, engaging and practical is vital to making sure your community is successful. Tasks represent your interpretation of the client set brief; they are your way of achieving the desired output. Tasks are critical to getting relevant feedback and need to be crafted with care if you are to achieve your community goals.
This is why I believe a task can be anything and everything you want it to be.
Every community is different, therefore, the tasks within that community are going to be different every time. You as community manager in collaboration with your research team need to make the call on how you think your tasks should be planned out and how they appear to your community.
The format of your tasks take depends on a few key factors:
- What your community software is capable of
- How creative you want to get with your tasks
- What you want out of the research
Most community software has basic web 2.0 tools – message boards, diaries, blogs, polls etc and it is really easy as a community manager to let these task formats to take president when writing your task plan.
Hatching Your Plan
If a research community were a body, the task plan would be the brain. Pumping out direction to the community via the community managers (who are the heart of the community, if you were wondering!).
The task plan binds the research and community elements together and sets out exactly what you want to get from the activity. It is the lifeblood of everything you do during the research and if it isn’t properly considered the success of your community will be seriously under threat. Traditionally researchers write the task plan but if you want it to work for a certain community it should be written with the input from community managers.
A task plan consists of a set of tasks that you are going to ask your community members to complete. A good task plan will make it clear to the users what they are being asked to achieve and it gives the community managers guidelines of what they need to gain from the research as a whole and each task individually.
As we have already stated your tasks, and therefore your task plan, are going to be different every time but there are certain things you will need to consider every time you begin thinking about a new task plan:
- Who are your users? Where are they from, how creative/tech savvy are they? What do you think they will and won’t react to?
- What output do you need from this community and the tasks individually, how are you going to get what you want?
- How can you make the tasks flow as a journey that the users are a part of, how can you make what you’re doing exciting for them?
- Do not funnel users answers before they have even begun to complete your tasks, it is easy to steer and guide users subconsciously. By all means give them examples of how you would like them to answer but stay neutral.
- What can you do to stimulate your community members, too many words = boring, how can you liven up the tasks with visuals?
It is really important that you and the approach you want to take is enforced on the tasks you want users to complete. Your creativity and vision should be driving force behind the task plan, not the task formats.
Don’t Pigeon Hole Yourself
A lot of the time creativity and creative thinking can get lost as you are too busy trying to pigeon hole your tasks into a certain format. It is the ultimate sin as a task writer to start off by setting out how many of a certain task format they want to have in a research community.
To really achieve your output you need to build your tasks freely and without the constraint of different formats.
Write your tasks first and then when completed to the standard you want, apply the suited format. Things like message boards, blogs, diaries etc are very open and adaptable, you should use them to fit around your tasks not the other way round.
Moderate Everything
As a community manager you are the closest point of contact to the community. You are closer to it than research teams, clients, stakeholders and the community users themselves! You know what is good for the community and what is not, you know what they will react to and what they won’t; this is why you have to be a moderator of tasks and content as well as users.
If you do not think a task is right for the community let the research team know, and give them advice on how to adapt/change it to make it appropriate for your users. Do not be afraid to let researchers know if you think something needs to be tweaked, they will be happy for the input, as it is their results that are being enhanced.
The role of researchers, community managers, clients and users is something I am going to explore in my next blog:
Writing Tasks for Research Communities – The Role of Everybody
Coming Soon!
it’s time for another Face Forum, the title for this forum is ‘9 LIVES – how does it feel to be 16-24 in Britain today?’.
Over the last month we have been working with members of Headbox (our online community of 16 -24 years olds) to discover what is it is like to be aged 16-24 in 2010. What is important to them, what pressures do they face, how do they feel about the future and, most importantly to you, what does this mean for brands? All of this is brought to life through Headboxers videos, pictures and words.
The event promises to be incredibly rich with an opportunity to discuss the topic and findings. We are holding the event at the renowned Groucho club on Tuesday 22nd June at 6:30, see the attached invite for more information. There will be plenty of beer and wine flowing and we’ve checked to ensure the night doesn’t clash with any England games!
We hope you can make it and feel free to bring any colleagues that would be interested. Just send me an email if you are interested
It’s Face Forum time!
After the fun and heated discussion at our last forum (Do Brands Really Need Agencies?) we thought it was time to take a step back from the business world and get the people who really matter involved. The title for this forum is:
‘9 LIVES – how does it feel to be 16-24 in Britain today?’
Over the last month we have been working with members of Headbox (our online community of 16 -24 years olds) to discover what is it is like to be aged 16-24 in 2010. What is important to them, what pressures do they face, how do they feel about the future and, most importantly to you, what does this mean for brands? All of this is brought to life through Headboxers videos, pictures and words.
The event promises to be incredibly rich with an opportunity to discuss the topic and findings. We are holding the event on Tuesday 22nd June at 6:30pm. There will be plenty of beer and wine flowing and we’ve checked to ensure the night doesn’t clash with any England games!
If you would like more information on The Face Forum and would like to come along please email lucy@facegroup.co.uk
Blog, Interesting Stuff, Social Media
Taking Responsibility for our Online Traces
- Date June 03 2010
Are the days of online anonymity over?
Last week, the new paid for site for The Times and The Sunday Times have been launched. Many many lines have already written about whether this is a good idea or not. However, one of the things that has been most interesting about the new sites, are that they will not allow anonymous or pseudonymous names to be used when comments or messages are posted.
The Independent is now following in a similar vein, stating:
So we have changed our logins to encourage comments from individuals or even official bodies using their Facebook or Twitter accounts – with other options for Yahoo or Open ID log-ins. There is also a Disqus option, where your account must be validated through your e-mail.
Independent, 24th May 2010
The rationale behind them is to encourage community dialogue, and limit the level of cruelty that is readily in evidence on many sites where anonymous and pseudonymous names are allowed (anyone who has trundled through the various commented on posts on The Guardian would probably agree).
On a wider level, does this force online commentators to become responsible for the words they broadcast? For a long time, online discourses focused on the freeing nature of anonymity that could be afforded to people online. In the early online days, this presented a landscape where people could play at being someone else, and put out whatever they wanted to online. At the end of the day, this wasn’t you, it was just an online construct.
However, this argument has begun to feel increasingly dated over the past few years. As the internet has become a normalised channel for communication and conversation, the idea of this existing as an “unreal” or false articulation of who you are appears to run in counterpoint to how many people engage with the online world. It can’t be argued with that anonymity can often lead to heightened levels of cruelty and vitriol, providing a platform for people to say things they would never say in a face-to-face situation. This can’t be a good thing for the cause of meaningful, open and honest debates and conversations happening online.
Time will tell as to whether these steps by News International and The Independent mark a turning point in the ways in which we engage online. However, they at least stake a claim for the fact that the words we put online are as powerful (and potentially damaging) as those we would choose to say to people face-to-face.
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