When I set out to write this blog, it was pretty obvious that one of the things that I would be writing about would be qualitative market research. It’s what I know best, at least professionally.
I began using focus groups as a client in the early seventies, then later as a moderator and head of my own qualitative firm. This was against a backdrop of a heavy dose of quant research and econometrics. It took me a while to focus entirely on the qualitative side of market research, but this is where I finally felt I belonged.
Qualitative is the type of research that doesn’t count - literally. No numbers, just listening to words, watching for the little things, looking for patterns, sometimes weaving in a little poetry. It attempts to (and sometimes does) understand people’s decision making in the context of the mess of their real lives. It recognizes that we live with ambiguity. It doesn’t force answers into neat packages that can be squeezed into a behavioral model. It doesn’t assume that people’s attitudes and behavior can be categorized as variables that are treated as independent of each other. There is none of the cetera paribus of economic theory. Other things have a way of not remaining static and equal; they don’t stand still long enough.
Lately, it has occured to me that if more economists had used qualitative analysis, maybe we would understand what is happening now a little better. Just a thought.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Wonderful to see you have a blog! Hope it takes off. Yes, too bad the great economic and political “thinkers” hadn’t done more qualitative research ahead of the recent economic problems. Let’s all throw shoes at them!
@Paul. Thanks for the kind words and the good laugh. Maybe Bush should throw HIS shoes at Greenspan & Co. !