I just arrived back in the office from a day-long meeting with a client about the first set of findings from their online research community. The goal of the meeting was to present the initial set of community findings, understand what they mean for their organization and brainstorm ways to dig deeper in future months based on the feedback.

While marathon meetings like this can be a bit exhausting, it’s worth it when you hear stakeholders across all areas of the company (e.g., marketing, product development, customer satisfaction, etc…) react to the findings and realize that they now have this extremely valuable ongoing research community that can be used to gather insights much more efficiently and effectively than before…

What struck me as particularly interesting was a comment that came out in one of the early meetings. It was a comment made as we were providing some background on the community and what it was designed to do for their company. In this meeting a member of their core team drew the comparison of the research community to a “focus group on steroids.” I think that’s a great metaphor for an online research community, and here’s why…

Why this metaphor works

Here are some reasons why “a focus group on steroids” is a great way to think about an online research community…

• It draws on an existing schema - First, it uses an existing schema/concept (focus groups) that people know well, and applies it to a brand new methodology that can be tricky to immediately comprehend for anyone outside of a market research or consumer insights capacity.
• It sounds less “risky” - Similar to the above, a focus group is something that people know and are comfortable with. That increases their likelihood of accepting the findings as something that are valid and worth paying attention to.
• It sets the stage for the qualitative findings - It clearly identifies a research community as a qualitative research methodology designed to understand the “why” and “how,” and helps people understand that the community findings cannot be projected to a wider audience.
• It succinctly describes a benefit of an online research community - The “steroids” aspect clearly indicates that an online research community is superior to a focus group in many ways. This association can be made both in terms of quantity of feedback (which is almost always true of a research community) and quality (which is generally true, although focus groups can also generate valuable research insights in their own right).
• It’s memorable - It’s easy to remember and just “sticks” once you hear it. That’s a good thing when you’re hoping to draw attention to the availability of a research community across your company.

What does this mean for you?

Are you a researcher or consumer insights specialist who is having trouble “selling” the idea of an online research community internally? This might be a good metaphor to use to help convince your stakeholders that this is something worth pursuing. Of course, you can always elaborate on the metaphor by sharing some of the benefits of online research communities we share on this site.

Has this worked for you?

What do you think? Does this metaphor make sense? Have you used other analogies to help people quickly realize what a research community is and how valuable it can be? Feel free to leave a comment with other suggestions!