the art of conversation

Inside the innocent AGM

I spent last Saturday (sunny!) in a warehouse on an industrial estate off the Goldhawk Road. It was the innocent AGM and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

This was no ordinary AGM, despite featuring one quite interesting graph. But innocent is no ordinary company and their third 'grown up meeting' is quite hard to describe. Imagine a cross between a jamboree, a comedy gig, a hall test and a CBeebies awayday.

There were large bean bags to sit on and smoothies and veg pots to try (including new recipes, details of which we couldn’t possibly divulge for less than six figures). There were treasure hunts, talks, smoothie demos and games to play … all sorts.

Dan was the compere of the event and claimed to be its originator. He was a great host and was very funny (he writes innocent’s jokes). He also looked a bit like a pirate on a day off.

Innocent's three founders have been called hippies but they're too sussed for that. Plus, did you ever meet a hippie who played tennis, or worked for Bain and Co?

Mind you, innocent is quite beardy, especially the blokes - not only Dan, but Joe the good-looking one (tests prove it). Even Richard seemed a bit wispy on the day.

They say never trust a man with a beard but innocent admit to their mistakes. Like making a veg pot which was not suitable for vegetarians. Or sending supermarket buyers fermented fruit juice which exploded. Or getting into trouble for joking that one of their smoothies contained ‘two plump nuns’ when it didn’t.

Or forgetting in 2008/9 to ‘keep the main thing the main thing’, as sales dipped dramatically. Not helped by a global financial meltdown. 

WHAT'S A PICTURE WORTH?

In 2006 I went to South Africa to raise money for SOS Childrens Villages, the world's largest orphan charity. I'd just bought a Nikon D50 and hoped to sell some prints and donate any proceeds. 

I took pictures of children in an SOS orphanages and in nearby townships, including these ones:

.  

I was struck by how incredibly resilient and seemingly content the children were. Extreme poverty and hardship was usually portrayed as so downbeat, resigned, hopeless. I called the exhibition Child's Play. Original post here.

Then, nothing much happened. Except that my wife gave birth to a child of our own (nearly two-and-a-half now).

Until last week, out of the blue, I got a mail from someone representing a very large, global company who wanted to buy the rights to these images, for cash. All uses, in perpetuity.

I had to ask a professional photographer friend what this meant. I had never heard of a release form before this point, never mind had used them in South Africa.

But it made me think, what is the right thing to do? Take whatever money is offered and give it to the charity? Drive a hard bargain, negotiate on the rights and the cash offered, then pay the charity? Or should I try to ensure the individuals in the photos be recompensed financially? Or again, would they be thrilled just to know that they could become slightly famous and appear in the world's media?

The people who want to buy the images know that any payment would not go to me. But not having release forms is a bit of a problem for them. The kids could sue. The chance has probably passed.

Just a little story. Notice that I spared you the thousand words.

SHOCK HORROR ! FOCUS GROUPS IGNORED!

According to Tim Montgomerie's analysis of the Tory campaign:

'For a period, the 'Big Society' was put at the heart of the campaign. Amazingly, the Big Society was never tested in focus groups and it failed on the doorstep. One leading adviser to the campaign complained of a 'cavalier' approach to research. 'They latched on to research that backed their views and ignored any research that challenged it.'

Hmmm, the Big Society, also described by adliterate as an 'overcomplicated planning thought', seems to have been less than popular with the Tory faithful. They were probably asking the sort of questions people ask in groups such as 'What does it mean?' From David Cameron, the heir to Blair, it sounded like a Big Promise, to go in the Big Promise section of the manifesto, and to Sound Good, but without meaning anything that costs money. However as Kate Fox rightly pointed out in Watching the English, the national catchphrase is 'Come off it', so trying to put one over on the British is tricky at the best of times never mind at an election.

But I digress, this post is really about the use of focus groups in politics. Here is a respected right wing commentator complaining that policies were being put forward at an election without first being 'tested' in focus groups and without an impartial approach to research, which respects challenging findings. Halleluiah ! We researchers have come a long way since the dark days of Tony Blair when focus groups were seen as a left wing plot akin to witchcraft. One can argue with the word 'tested' but that's just a quibble really, the point is that politicians of whatever party now openly acknowledge that policy can be clarified and even improved by consulting 'real' people. Now, that is a step forward.

Dominic

NEUROSCEPTIC

The day after the General Election and the overall winner was the exit polls, which predicted the outcome with uncanny accuracy. Evidence of the enduring value of asking the right people the right question.

But if you’d gone to the annual research industry’s conference, Research2010, you’d have thought that asking people things was an outdated and frankly useless idea.

 As MRS Conferences go, Research2010 was Really Rather Good.  Hats off to co-chairs Simon Lidington and Nick Coates, not least for mentioning Roland Barthes in their introduction (that must have been a bet).

Trending strongly were co-creation, ethnography, online communities … and ‘brain stuff’.  The first three of these approaches build on what people say and are essentially generative or productive approaches.  All good stuff.  You try to learn from people-as-people, holistically.  There are no easy answers, interpretation is everything. 

But using fMRI scanners to show parts of people’s brains light up as they perform various tasks, is trying to replace what people say and is entirely reductive.  It treats people not as people, nor even as consumers, but just as lumps of grey matter. 

Presumably, brain scan advocates would exit poll by wiring up voters’ heads, to overcome the ‘limitations’ of verbal research techniques. Ethnographers would watch people while they queued then went into the private booth to vote. And co-creationists would invite voters to take part in a workshop, do some collage work and write about their experiences on a blog.

Instead, MR rivals GfK NOP / Ipsos MORI talked to people. (17,607 of them, working collaboratively with each other and with the broadcasters). 

The pain of election leaflets ...

 

I was woken at 6:15 this morning with my letterbox snapping loudly. Mistaking it for a knock on the door, I went to answer it only to find an election party leaflet asking me to vote for their party today.  

Mildly incensed to be awake so early, I added the leaflet to the ever-growing stack of political leaflets in my recycling bin and returned to bed.

Living in the Lewisham East constituency, this election has proven a battleground between Labour and the Lib Dems. Having predominantly been a Labour constituency since its formation in 1974, the current  Labour MP, Bridget Prentice, is standing down. With no incumbent candidate, this has meant the Lib Dems believe they have a real chance of getting a seat and both parties have been going hammer and tongs to get votes. 

Unfortunately, this has resulted in relentless leafleting (even at anti-social hours). And often they are the same leaflets as the week (or even day) before and end up being binned. 

Arguably, this does create excitement. There is a feeling of the political rumblings of 'change' happening on your doorstep. And from the parties' perspective, they will want to be getting clear, consistent and sustained messages to potential voters over the course of a campaign.

But the effect of repetitious (and somewhat intrusive) leafleting may be opposite to the one desired. For the overwhelmed electorate, feeling saturated by information and pestered by parties may discourage political engagement. 

At the next General Election, my vote would be for fewer, better timed communications, a more creative, considerate and voter-centered approach that encouraged a better conversation between party and electorate. And, hopefully, I'd then get a better sleep. 

Simon

P.S. some votes just in ...