ResearchTalk

Watch this episode of web video show Scam School, which focuses on the tricks memory can play. Afterwards, think again about whether you should always believe what consumers say.

If you want to see another example of this in practice, in a case that had very sad consequences, check out this 60 minutes story and accompanying video.

TechCrunch50 in San Francisco is fast becoming one of the premier places to launch a technology startup if you’re looking for exposure, customers or funding.

In fact, one of the companies that presented at the inaugural event a couple years ago just announced that they had been bought for a considerable sum.

So we were watching the live stream of this year’s event when the startup Affective Interfaces started to pique our interest.

Based on the work of facial coding expert Paul Ekman (recently popularised in the hit TV series Lie to Me), AI has built a system that monitors facial expressions in real time and on a mass scale (via webcams). They claim the system provides a much more accurate and sensitive indication of, among other things, an ads. likelihood of success.

The presentation didn’t go as well as it could have done – the presenter spent too much time talking and not enough time showing ‘compelling’ videos. But then, in a scene reminiscent of Dragon’s Den, a couple of judges on the expert panel started to recognise the potential. Those enlightened judges were publishing entrepreneur Tim O’Reilly and senior Google exec Bradley Horowitz.

But while these judges know tech, they’re not experts in human behaviour. So we decided to get Jai Haissman, AI’s founder and CEO, to chat with Conquest Research’s David Penn, someone who knows a thing or two about the reliability of interpreting emotions and non-verbal cues. This is a pretty geeky podcast, but we hope you find it stimulating nonetheless.

Affective Interfaces is keen to reach out to potential partners, customers and funders (they’re self-funded). We regard them as an exciting addition to the world of new research and so encourage you to engage with them (as you’ll hear in the podcast they’ve already had a good amount of interest from the event).

VCs and corporate M&A folk: this could become a very special company.

 STARRING 

• Jai Haissman, founder and CEO, Affective Interfaces
• David Penn, MD, Conquest Research

Read the rest of this entry »

In a continuation of the theme in part 5, Danny looks at how to measure performance in a meaningful and useful (actionable) way.

He says, for example, “What is the point…of knowing that each individual employee receives on average 5.5 training days a year. So what? Could you get a similar impact with fewer training days…doing something else?”

It contains more useful questions, tips and tricks if you’re a manager or help to manage talent. You can find all the previous episodes here.

Find out more about Danny here.

Our article in the Sep ‘09 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.

Sony founder, Akio Morita, once said: “Curiosity is the key to creativity.” So, given how curious researchers are, we decided to speak to some client-side researchers to discover ways in which they have used creativity to amplify the value of research.

 
The Listener
Dr. Simon Roberts, Lead, Design/Social Science, Digital Health Europe, Intel

Roberts’ solution has been to turn some of his findings and insights into well-produced booklets and brochures, something he did for a recent global ageing study with hundreds of in-depth interviews: “Let’s put it all in a booklet and make sure that every person in the organisation for whom this is relevant gets a copy on their desk. We can also use it externally to tell a story about our work.”

Pop here for the rest of the article – available only for a limited time – and do subscribe to Research World magazine.

Dan Pink speaking at this year’s TED Global in Oxford.

He takes us through a wealth of evidence – built up over four decades – which demonstrates that financial incentives tend to focus the mind and as such only tend to be productive on left-brain tasks, i.e. “problems with a clear set of rules and a single solution.”

In contrast, when financial incentives are offered to people to solve more right-brain tasks – those that are more conceptual in nature and require greater use of cognitive power – the incentives actually make the problem harder to solve because they narrow the focus when the solution tends to be on the periphery and so the solver needs to be thinking more holistically and laterally.

The issue, says Pink, is that we’ve known about these flawed links between problem-solving and financial incentives for decades, and yet despite that they endure. And more and more of the work we do is shifting to right-brain thinking as we delegate the routine, rule-based stuff to computers and outsourcing agents.

The solution: offer incentives based on intrinsic motivators. Specifically, autonomy (e.g. Google’s 20% time), mastery, and purpose.

After the brief hiatus, we’re back with Wain’s World!

And in part 5, Danny looks at the tricky area of performance management which he says is “more than the dreaded annual appraisal!”

As always, this is just 2-3mins long and contains useful tips and tricks if you’re a manager or help manage talent. You can find previous episodes here.

More about Danny here.