UMR boards the blogtrain

Readers interested in science and technology — or the latest sci-tech news from my employer, the University of Missouri-Rolla — ought to take a look at Visions, UMR’s research blog, which debuts today. While this blog is brand new, the site has been around for 2 1/2 years. It began as a quarterly webzine focusing on UMR research and student scholarship. But last fall the UMR communications and marketing staff started planning to convert Visions to a more frequently updated blog site. On the Internet, quarterly publications just don’t cut it.

So, if you want to know what’s happening in the world of UMR research, be sure to add Visions to your blogroll or RSS feeds.

Technorati tags: blogs, blogging, engineering, science, technology, research, education, higher education, University of Missouri-Rolla, UMR, University of Missouri

Ethnographic research aids strategic planning

Ethnography seems to be all the buzz in marketing these days. And maybe that’s for good reason. A recent article about ethnographic research from the American Marketing Association’s newsletter suggests that ethnography can help marketers become more strategic in their decision making.

Citing an article by Richard Durante and Michael Feehan, copresidents of Waltham, Mass.-based marketing firm Observant LLC, the AMA notes that “ethnography offers an alternative to traditional research that leverages direct observation (avoiding the capriciousness of human memory) and ensures that marketing strategies and sales messages are well-aligned, internally consistent, and capable of addressing end-audience needs.”

The authors suggest that to fully appreciate ethnography, research managers need to grasp a simple notion: “Individuals behave in response to events in their environments, including the actions of others.” Furthermore, understanding behavior requires observing it in its natural environment. “This involves asking people—in that setting—why they’re acting in a particular way, not asking them to later recall what they did, said, or thought,” the authors write. “This, in a nutshell, is ethnography.”

Full article.