Did they read what you
really meant
to say?
November 14, 2004
- by
Robert E. Stevens, GENESIS II
(The
Second Beginning) E-Mail: views@aol.com
Market research is
really all about effective
communication. Some will say it is about conducting research or
learning and
understanding. Yes, it is, but it all starts and ends with clear
communication,
communication from the client to the researcher, the researcher to the
participant, the participant back to the researcher and finally the
researcher
to the client. Communication includes spoken and/or printed words,
actions,
voice reflections, punctuation, body language, etc.
During a
recent presentation of a
shortened version of "Researching Research," where I discussed the
five major weak areas of consumer research and the four primary root
causes of
the weaknesses, I had written the following question on the board.
Do
you agree
or disagree with the following statement?
Woman
without her man is useless.
[ ] agree
[ ]
disagree
I did not address the
question until
well into the presentation. I wanted the participants to reflect on the
question. When I did address the question, I asked, who agreed
and who
disagreed. Not surprisingly, the responses were split across gender
lines. Most
of the women present disagreed with the statement. I mentioned that I
thought
their disagreement was unusual since the last time I asked members of
the
audience the same question, the females present voted over-whelmingly
in
agreement. Needless to say this came as a surprise to those present
until I told
them I had not completed the statement. I then went back to the board
and made
the following additions.
Woman,
without her, man is useless.
Now
the women were in agreement with the statement. But one of the young
men in the
back of the room stated that I had made a mistake. He suggested that I
had the
second comma in the wrong place. He said the statement should read as
follows.
Woman,
without her man, is useless.
Imagine,
one comma
resulted in a 180
degree change in meaning. But without the comma, who knows how to read
the
sentence? When designing your research how careful are you of dual
meanings?