The new focus groups?

The New York Times published a piece last week about “new” approaches to qual research including collaging and journaling: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/business/media/30focus.html?_r=4&hp=&pagewanted=all

I have a couple of issues with the piece. First, these approaches aren’t new—I personally have been employing them since the mid-90s, and they've likely been in practice longer. I'm pretty sure that I wrote an internal white paper about this very same topic—up-and-coming qual approaches such as collaging and participatory design—in 1997.

Second, the “here’s why focus groups are bad” example that they cite is the New Coke launch from 1985.

It's disheartning that such an outdated piece is coming from The Times. And I'm becoming increasingly annoyed with all of the "focus groups are bad" griping. Yes, there are downsides to focus groups. And they can sometimes be a useful tool.

Rather than bash existing research tools to make our "new" tools look better by comparison, can't we just explore the new tool's strengths, weaknesses, and promise? If in your explanation of a new research approach, you use focus groups as a comparative foil, you have turned me off.

You lost me at "better than the New Coke focus groups"...

Social shopping enters the big leagues

Google Offers launched in Portland today, and of course I signed up right away. I'm not really a coupon gal, but there's something appealing about these online "coupon" services such as Groupon and LivingSocial. Maybe it's the fact that they seem to be appealing to slightly younger and hip-er clientele than typical coupon users. Maybe its because they're hooked into the online social media. If it's cool to use Facebook, it must be cool to use Groupon and then tell all of your Facebook friens about it, right?

For me, the proof shall be in the pudding: Which one will send me better deals -- deeper discounts on things that are actually of interest to me?

Part of me is rooting for the underdog(s). Google dominates in several categories now. I'd like to see the category-creators continue to do well, at least for the time being.

Now...where's my daily Google offer email?!