#002 – 2005 Spring
Welcome to the spring edition of Tribal Voice. We had great feedback from our December 2004 inaugural issue. We’ve been encouraged by everyone’s positive comments to produce Tribal Voice three times a year. The e-newsletter will include our news, project updates, research tips and ideas.
This year we’ve been busy finding out how parents choose a school for their children, how much does Multiple Sclerosis (MS) really cost the community and government, why parents choose reading software, and how motivated Australia’s school leavers are to start their own business. NewsBeat summarises our recent projects.
Tribe Research and The Idea Centre (in 2008 relaunched as The Speed Thinking Zone) are excited to launch the Innovation Benchmark 3 Factor (IB3), a brief survey tool that measures innovation and creativity in organisation. Read more below.
In the spring edition of Tribal Voice we take a look at how to make online research tools effective. We are researching the best online survey sites for the summer edition (Jan 2006).
We’ve revamped our website: www.knowyourtribe.com.au. It includes our code of ethics, which defines our work practices and includes the Australian Market and Social Research Society’s Code of Behaviour.
We welcome your comments and suggestions. Let us know what you think about our new-look e-newsletter and website or how the Innovation Benchmark helped you.
Happy reading!
Kate Tribe
ask@triberesearch.com.au
T | +61 2 9264 4432
Tribe Research & The Idea Centre launch the Innovation Benchmark 3 Factor
“The true value of the IB3 is that it provides a starting point for organisations to assess their current innovation capabilities and design effective innovation programs for the future, which enhances the organisation’s relationship with its people, customers and stakeholders” says Ken Hudson, founder of innovation specialists, The Idea Centre. Tribe Research and The Idea Centre have teamed up to launch the Innovation Benchmark 3 Factor (or IB3).
Spreading the word | If you, or you have a friend or colleague, interested in the IB3, email ask@triberesearch.com.au or call Kate Tribe +61 2 9264 4432 and we will send a personalised email link. The IB3 only takes a few minutes and you will receive an email comparing your responses to the benchmark.
Privacy | The information stored about you and your company is solely used to enable groupings of industry types and organisation size for Benchmark management and comparisons.
NewsBeat
Health and Community News
Multiple Sclerosis costs the community $660 million a year
In March, MS Australia released key findings at a Federal Parliamentary briefing launched by Senator Meg Lees whose daughter has MS. MS costs the community $660 million each year and out of pocket costs for people with MS in Australia totals $160 million says Tribe Research and the Australian MS Longitudinal Study’s Economic Impact Working Party. People with MS have health-related quality of life 30% below the general Australian population. There are over 15,000 people with MS in Australia and another 1,000 are diagnosed every year – mainly females 25-40 years old. Visit: http://www.msaustralia.org.au
GP, Pharmacy and Hospital communication links improve patient care outcomes
Tribe Research was commissioned by The Pharmacy Guild of Australia NSW Branch to advise on the evaluation of continuity of care between the Prince of Wales Hospital [Sydney] Heartlink Program and Home Medicine Reviews program. The study recently published in the Australian Journal of Pharmacy found an improved link between hospital, GPs and community pharmacy that resulted in positive patient outcomes.
Developing Client Risk Assessment that doesn’t discriminate
In May 2004 the NSW Ombudsman produced a report: Assisting Homeless People – the need to improve their access to accommodation and support services. The inquiry found that exclusionary policies and practices were adversely affecting access by the most vulnerable groups to Supported Accommodation Assistance Program [SAAP] services. In some cases, this seemed to contravene significant legislated guidelines and antidiscrimination legislation. People with alcohol and other drug dependency issues, mental illness and brain related physical disabilities were affected.
One response by peak bodies was to develop a client assessment risk tool and risk management process that would be implemented through training. Age Communications won the tender and Tribe Research is helping in a variety of areas to support this research on various service foci and levels. We have been working with Age Communications on the Supported Accommodation Assistance Program [SAAP] Client Risk Assessment Project and the Workshop evaluations of the trial training program. They are being run successfully throughout New South Wales.
Education & Training News
Telephone interviewing and quantitative analysis reveal market insight
Earlier this year we worked with Reading Systems, producers of Phonica, a phonics based literacy software system for children and adults with reading difficulties and an accelerant system for younger children. Reading Systems Managing Directors, Dr Norman Swan [also presenter of The Health Report on the ABC] and Dr Jeffrey Tobias wanted to know more about their customers and where their prospects were positioned in the buying cycle. It was also important to uncover the prevalent attitudes and perceptions of parents and guardians about reading.
We conducted in-depth telephone interview surveys to understand the decision paths made by parents looking for ways to help their child learn to read. We created a market segmentation model to illustrate where contacts were at in the buying cycle and already, “Reading Systems has put this model into practice with excellent results” says Dr Norman Swan, Managing Director, Reading Systems.
How entrepreneurial are Aussie kids?
Youth2Youth [Y2Y, now The FRANK Team] provide youth-led training, workshops and resources for young people aged 15 to 35 yrs in urban, regional and rural Australia designed to connect, educate and encourage young entrepreneurs and enterprising young people. The Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources’ National Innovation Awareness Strategy helped to fund a series of entrepreneurship workshops in schools throughout Australia. Tribe Research was commissioned by Y2Y to undertake the independent evaluation of these workshops.
What drives your decisions when choosing a school?
Bankstown Grammar wanted to have a better understanding of the decision drivers of parents when choosing a school for their child. Tribe Research surveyed three key stakeholder groups to provide insight into the attitudes and perceptions driving parental and student decision making. The research provided answers to the School’s key questions: ‘What schools were chosen instead of ours’, ‘What were the negative views of our school that motivated the decision’ and ‘What were the positive views of the chosen school that motivated the decision?’ Our research revealed their key strength is their warm and caring student environment.
Feature Article
Online surveys: tips to get the most out of web-based surveys
The online survey boom is having a big impact on business and putting quantitative research under the spotlight. Online surveys are frequently used by researchers and non researchers alike to access consumers who would not normally be participating in research.
In the last issue of Tribal Voice we talked about:
- being clear about the objectives of your research
- being aware of potential bias
- collecting comparable data
- asking the right questions in the right order
Email ask@triberesearch.com.au for a copy. The tips below follow on.
Top of mind:
- Manage your participant base and don’t enrage them with complicated and badly structured surveys
- Seek design advice first then you can be assured that your efforts will yield useful results
- Consider time frames (some examples follow)
- Response rates can be affected by the method of delivery and type of recipient
Business and corporate workers are away in January but start to return to work at the end of January and beginning of February. It’s the start of the year and many are gearing up for the year’s work so it can be the right time to email a survey and get a response. The middle or end of the year projects are in full swing, workers and decision makers have less time to answer survey questions.
If you are targeting a specific industry, find out when important conferences are held and don’t send out surveys at this time because your response rates are likely to be low.
If you are conducting health related research consider the impact of the temperature on their disease state and the congruent changes in lifestyle. Are they email savvy? A mail-out or telephone survey might more effective.
Consider if your target group are urban or rural dwellers | Do not assume that a broadband connection is the norm.
There are 4.2 million business and household dial-up internet subscribers and 1.8 million business and household non dial-up subscribers in Australia according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics March 2005 Internet Activity report released 12/08/2005.
Think about | The high proportion of Australian business and household internet subscribers on dial-up connections could mean a fair proportion of your target sample are conscious of subscriber time limits and download costs; seek out self-designed online surveys that upload quickly and test-run first.
Increase response rate | Email out in the morning and earlier in the week.
- The survey only needs to be open for 2-3 weeks.
- A reminder increases the response rate | Distribute this at the beginning of the week your survey is officially closing ie send reminder Monday morning if the survey closes at midnight on Friday of that week.
After data collection | Equally important is what you do with the data post collection. Doing frequencies and percents of each question will help you to answer some of your questions, but it won’t help you to understand the complexities of the data that can come from even a short simple survey. Remember you might need to ‘clean’ your data so you can analyse it accurately.
- Contact us if you are thinking of running your own survey online for design advice and post-survey analysis before you start.
- We can work with your budget to help you get quality research outcomes from online research by ensuring your question and layout design are clear and easy to navigate and your execution plan maximises the desired quality response rate.
