Research using the Social Web

Whenever people asked what it was that I meant by “doing Social Research”, I could talk passionately for an hour. But sometimes it became apparent that a more structured approach was needed. After all, speaking in a passionate way about something you have in your mind might not always get the message across in a clear way. Thus I developed a way of structuring my talks.

I think my main argument for both how Social Research is possible and why it could be useful can be summarized in three main points. I’ve used these three points from then onwards to structure my approach when talking about this issue, which seems to work fine for me now. I’ve made a slide show based on these three main points, which may be nice to share with you here.

First of all of course my three points; these are:

  • Explain survey based research; why are we used to it and why are we using it. Is this type of research flawless, does it have any shortcomings?
  • The future of research is not about presenting you with the crowd, it’s about presenting you with their opinions. Social research makes it possible to tap right into opinions instead of people.
  • We have to set up Research and show it is not only possible, but that it works. Do not wait for demand, be the unique company that can supply this extra knowledge and, in a way, create the demand.

Of course presenting you with this slideshow (Which is horribly transformed by slideshare in this case, by the way.) without me talking might seem a bit useless, but I think you can gather some information from it anyway. And besides; I’m always willing to give ‘a talk’ about this, of course.