Comments on: Posts about surveys :: Look deeper before you believe

By: Katie Paine

Katie Paine — Tue, 15 Aug 2006 17:57:19 +0000

This kind of stuff makes me crazy. I should know, I sell research, and in my younger days used to put out those sorts of press releases that would essentially promote the need for more of my services. But I realized that touting questionable data does more harm to our industry than you ever know. Every time we are revealedas fudgers of data, our crediblity goes down another ten points. See my rant on the subject.

By: Blog Run » Blog Archive » Hockey Rules, Surveys are a Joke, Networking and Layoffs

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 08:26:01 +0000

[...] InfOpinions: Posts about surveys :: Look deeper before you believe Bloggers love surveys. They tend to point to data that fits most bloggers personal agendas, and then bloggers run with those numbers. The problem is that most of those surveys are crap, and, well bloggers are self-serving and have their own agenda to push (mostly that everyone should blog). Take these with a grain of salt. [...]

By: PR Communications

PR Communications — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 01:46:10 +0000

Customers Drive Corporate Blogging Growth

As the lead author of two corporate blogging survey’s over the last two years, one initiated on my blog PR Communications, and the other in my role as Director of Blogging Strategies at Backbone Media, I was very interested in

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:55:39 +0000

Thanks, Kami. I saw the post and enjoyed it. Commented, too.

I like that format and think I’ll maybe copy it.

Thanks.

By: Kami Huyse

Kami Huyse — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 19:50:58 +0000

Thanks for the post Robert. I wrote a response to it yesterday. With all of the studies I cover from now on, I am going to use the format I set out in my post: Survey title, with links to the report, if available; Findings, Commentary ; and the Bottom line (or summary)

By: celeste w @studio 501c

celeste w @studio 501c — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 05:08:11 +0000

You make many good and important points. Analysis is so important. When a study on business blogging recently came out from the University of Mass., I saw many bloggers linking to it, but no one analyzing it, so I shared this critique: http://inprogress.typepad.com/studio501c/2006/06/report_compiles.html .

By: Robert

Robert — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 01:53:46 +0000

Thank you, Fard.

Good points. Remembering that episode now, I wish I’d linked to it as an example.

As more and more people become involved in blogging – many want to make money off of the new adopters. With more businesses considering it – even more people see opportunities for profits. Some of these surveys are just one of the tactics used to drive business.

I’m not suggesting that ‘all’ the blogging surveys are created for these purposes. But, when surveys are created by an organization with an agenda, skepticism should be amply applied to any consideration of their claims, IMO.

You’d think that is common sense, but too often they are taken as fact.

Thanks.

Robert

By: Fard Johnmar

Fard Johnmar — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 01:22:37 +0000

Robert: Fantastic post. Toby Bloomberg and I just came out of an episode with JupiterKagan (JupiterResearch) where we were asking some basic questions about the survey and were initialy rebuffed by the company. Our experiences offer a great case study in why it is important to look beyond the numbers so that surveys can be placed into context. At the risk of being filtered by your spam eater, I'll provide some key links here: -JupiterResearch Passes Around The Kool-Aid (Diva Marketing Blog) -Corporate Blogging and JupiterResearch: Survey Raises More Questions Than It Answers (HealthCareVox) -The JupiterKagan Corporate Blogging Survey: Four Lessons I Learned From This Incident (HealthCareVox) -JupiterResearch - End Story (Diva Marketing Blog) I think students, bloggers and others can learn a lot from this incident.

By: Communications Overtones

Communications Overtones — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 20:42:45 +0000

How to Lie with Statistics: Dissecting the Latest

First, let me say that I love research. But lately it seems as if there is a lot of it out there and few are offering critical thought around how to interpret all of these results. Here is my roundup of recent surveys with some critical commentary:

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 14:19:57 +0000

Thanks, Lauren. I do the same thing with drafts. In fact, I have to go back in periodically and clear them out because I probably write 5 drafts for every 1 post I make.

Drafts / rewrites are important. Some things, upon further review, should probably not be posted. Sometimes I write something and don’t like it. There are many reasons to create drafts, rewrite them (then rewrite again) … it is all about creating readable and worthwhile writing for your audiences.

Sort of going off topic here, but … My favorite analogy for rewrites is Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech. Somehow, I think the line “I have a dream” started out something like “I have this dream of a day when…” or something like that.

Wish I could find the article I read, a long time ago, about the writing of that speech. It was quite inspiring and enjoyable to read. Anyone know of such an article? I think it contained interviews with those familiar with the writing of the speech.