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Politics & College Selection – an Update
The Difference Engine

Politics & College Selection – an Update

It turns out, we were right. Sorry, Scott. Last August, in response to a discussion on the Vox Media podcast, Pivot, between co-hosts Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway about the salience about state level abortion bans, we conducted a small survey of young people either evaluating which colleges to apply to; in the process of…

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The Reality of Remote Work
The Difference Engine

The Reality of Remote Work

And the problem with vibes-based data analysis We’re back with the newsletter & blog – expect to see us on a more regular schedule (bi-weekly!) with a mix of announcements, “that survey doesn’t say what you think it says” analysis, and strategic thinking about a variety of topics, from electric vehicles to politics to media…

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Inclusive & Accessible Research
The Difference Engine

Inclusive & Accessible Research

How to Set Up Focus Group Facilities, In Person Ethnography, and In Person Interviews Thanks for following along as we dive into inclusive and accessible research! If you missed our earlier posts about how to conduct inclusive and accessible research, you can find them here and here. It’s been a minute, so a little refresher…

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How EVs could disrupt the car category hierarchy
The Difference Engine

How EVs could disrupt the car category hierarchy

Hi, happy 2023! A funny thing happened over the holidays: I discovered that electric cars remind me of vodka. Several years ago I did some work testing campaigns for the vodka brand Smirnoff. In talking to vodka drinkers, we discovered the category was essentially a vertical stack, with well brands on the bottom, premium brands…

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Politics & College Selection
The Difference Engine

Politics & College Selection

Do politics play a role in how students evaluate their college choices? The other day I was listening to the latest Pivot podcast — Scott Galloway said he thought it was pretty unlikely that a state’s abortion regulations would have any impact on students’ decisions about where to go to college. Here’s the quote: “I…

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Civic Trust is a (Legal) Design Problem
The Difference Engine

Civic Trust is a (Legal) Design Problem

Reflections on a Primary Election in a Small Town June 28 was a primary election day to select governor and lieutenant governor candidates in the state of New York. I am what’s called an election inspector in Suffolk County, New York, which means when you come in to your local polling place you talk to…

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The “New Normal” of Qualitative Research
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The “New Normal” of Qualitative Research

What we found in our competitive review of the market research industry Especially over the last couple of years, when everything was about, well, coping — just getting on with it — we had sort of lost track of what was happening for the broader market research industry. We saw companies and products come and…

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The Medium is the Mask-age
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The Medium is the Mask-age

There won’t be one way to be after the pandemic, because there was no one way to be before it – and certainly not during it. Masks are just one example. We’re in that in-between space, again, which seems to come just before a new wave of a COVID variant, or just as the weather…

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Inclusive & Accessible Research:
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Inclusive & Accessible Research:

How to Set Up Remote Interviews, Focus Groups, and Digital Diaries As we’ve written about before, we’re exploring how we can be more inclusive and accessible in conducting research. Here are some initial things for any team to consider when attempting to make research more inclusive and accessible: It starts with us challenging ourselves to…

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Trust, Community and Your Customers
The Difference Engine

Trust, Community and Your Customers

We should probably finish learning how to do community well in web 2.0 before we take all our bad habits with us to web3. In 2009, when we first started talking to consumers using online video diaries, the platforms were set up to function a lot like early Facebook – reverse chronological order, everyone able…

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