Need research, won’t travel?

As technology strengthens its presence in the research industry at an ever-increasing rate, qualitative researchers have been seeking out ways to streamline the focus group: videostreaming, Webcams, remote viewing, online focus groups, bulletin boards, etc. Each of these substitutes aims to lessen the cost, time and travel involved with qualitative research and, with any luck, make the experience more convenient and enjoyable for all concerned.

As it stands, the traditional focus group is still alive and well; no replacement method has sufficiently replicated the in-person experience (see: choppy video feeds, reduction in group interaction, observers missing the nuances of the group on location, etc.). But hang on to your hats because we’re getting closer.

Round Rock, Texas-based Dell has found that using one kind of technology - telepresence - for some of its focus groups not only approximates the in-person qualitative feel but it also allows it to gather highly-specialized customers in far-reaching locales for valuable discussions.

Dell began using telepresence after being approached by one of its research partners, Mindwave Research Inc., of Austin, Texas. Mindwave had been investigating the technology as a research tool after working with Cisco to conduct focus groups regarding Cisco’s telepresence technology.

Telepresence was first developed by Cisco to simplify virtual business meetings but Jonathan Hilland, president and CEO of Mindwave, sought to determine if this Star Trek-like technology could be useful in the public marketplace.

Mindwave originally conducted focus groups for Cisco by inviting respondents in multiple cities and countries into telepresence rooms on Cisco campuses to discuss what they would expect if they were to go into a publicly-rentable telepresence facility. What would they want that experience to be like? What kind of resources would they need at their fingertips? The Cisco groups confirmed that with minor adjustments and some coaching this technology could be an asset to the research industry.

Thus, in 2010, Mindwave launched TruView Research, a separate, wholly-owned subsidiary. TruView negotiated with both Cisco and Tata Communications to use their network of public telepresence rooms located in 30 cities around the world at a discount for the research industry.

How it works

To understand how telepresence can work for research, it’s first necessary to understand how it works. Each telepresence location features three 1080p HD video screens in a semi-circle (to create an identical room on the “other side”); reflective lighting for a more three-dimensional feel; full-duplex audio; 4MB connections on each side; directional, voice-activated video and audio; simultaneous sharing of laptop screen; and the ability to conference multiple locations at once (Figure 1).

“Compared to traditional videostreaming, the big difference is that this isn’t a remote viewing technology. This is a remote participating technology. You can moderate from another city. It’s not videostreaming over the Web to your desktop. It’s everyone sitting around what appears to them to be the same table, engaged in dialogue as if we were physically in the same room,” Hilland says.

Participants arrive at the telepresence facility in their city. The moderator is often in a telepresence room with other participants. The participants in each location sit around a semi-circle table facing three television screens. The screens display a live feed from rooms in one city or in several other cities that are set up to look identical; the screens appear to “complete” the room. Up to two participants can be seen on each screen for a total of six persons seen on the screens at one time. Above each television screen is a camera, aimed at the two-person section of the semi-circle directly across from it. In front of each two-person section of the semi-circle is a microphone. The audio is designed to be directional so the voice of the person speaking feeds only from behind the screen on which s/he appears.

Multi-point focus groups

Telepresence allows for several cities to connect at one time though linking more than four at one time is not recommended for focus groups. In these so-called multi-point focus groups, who is seen and heard on the screens is voice-activated. The last person to speak appears on the screen, until the participants seated at that section of the table in another city speak. Although only one location can be seen on each screen at a time, the full duplex audio allows everyone to be heard at the same time. In the case of a heated debate, the first person to be picked up by the microphone will be shown.

Additionally, when conducting a multi-point study, one location can be muted and - since the video feed is voice-activated - therefore be invisible to all other locations. This is ideal for client viewing, as clients are either in the room with the moderator but out of view of the cameras or in another telepresence location. “The muted location can see and hear everything but no one else knows they’re there. It’s even more of a veil than a two-way mirror because in a focus group facility as a respondent, you may not know who’s behind the glass but you at least see it,” says Hilland.

Proposed a research project

After Mindwave approached Dell, a current client and a company known for experimenting with new technology and methodologies, Barry Jennings, director, global insights group, at Dell, proposed a research project involving approximately 50 IT managers who use storage area networks in their businesses. Dell needed access to CIOs, CTOs and senior-level technology executives from all industries who were responsible for making decisions about a very specific type of technology within storage area networks. However, these decision makers were hard to come by in focus group-able numbers; most tend to be concentrated in financial or scientific and engineering sectors.

“These weren’t people that I could go to Dallas and find 20 of very easily,” Jennings says. “There are probably three of them in Dallas, a bunch in New York and San Francisco and another handful in London and Sydney. But the ability to talk them all at once about a single issue was compelling for what we were trying to do.”

Dell needed to reach as many geographies as possible, as quickly as possible. Telepresence took Dell’s storage area network research to New York, London, San Francisco, Australia, Hong Kong, Seattle and Chicago via several multi-point studies in a week and a half. Such an undertaking would be significantly more time-consuming with in-person research, given the travel required.

“We were able to do excellent groups with just the right people who have very focused and specific needs and requirements for this type of technology,” says Jennings.

Some concerns

While Jennings and his team are keen on using technology to enhance their research, there were some concerns in introducing this new medium. “One was, will they really talk? Will they really act like they’re at the same table? We’re talking about putting a piece of technology between people when the methodology is all about people talking. But I honestly was quite surprised how well people got over the uniqueness factor of the technology. For a guy in London to talk to a guy in New York about the same thing with no lag, no latency, no glitches and have a conversation real-time is valuable,” says Jennings.

Telepresence is not a straight replacement for traditional focus groups. Part of making the process work is knowing when and when not to use it, Jennings says. “It’s not for everything. But when it’s in the right application it really does make a real, meaningful difference in terms of travel savings, cost savings, time-out-of-office savings and the overall efficacy of the work we are doing,” says Jennings.

Jennings says that Dell uses the technology across many projects but tends to stay away from telepresence in purely exploratory projects or when there is a vast amount of stimuli involved. The setup does allow for the moderator to present virtual stimuli via a screen underneath the three television screens but doesn’t accommodate anything physical. “I like to be able to control the distribution of the pieces. I like the tactile element. If there is a lot of stimuli, coordination via telepresence is a little suboptimal,” he says.

Up close and personal

Clients may also find that the time they do spend observing the research yields above-average insights. Because there is a camera pointing directly on each section of the table, respondents can see via the screens in front of them how up-close-and-personal they appear to respondents in other locations. As a result, they tend to be more engaged and more self-aware.

“What that translates to is actually less of the nose-picking, BlackBerry-playing, falling asleep, reading e-mails or generally not paying attention to the focus group,” says Hilland. “We find that it causes people to be much more engaged either because they’re enamored with how the cool the technology is or because they’re hyper-aware of how all eyes are on them.”

In addition, a client observing a group from a muted telepresence facility can enjoy a comprehensive viewing experience. Participants are fully in-view and audible, with a dedicated camera and microphone per every two seats. “You see every squint, every shift in their body weight, when they’re moving and squirming. You get all of the nonverbal cues and body language that we pitch as being benefits of qualitative but that a lot of people don’t actually get from the live experience,” says Hilland.

Clients are also more likely to observe when it doesn’t require being away from the office for an extended period of time. Jennings was able to sit down with two high-level senior executives, who typically do not have three days to spend traveling, with some pizza in a telepresence facility in their hometown to observe groups.

Isn’t available everywhere

In terms of cons, while telepresence is well-suited for research in the majority of major-commerce markets, it isn’t available everywhere. For researchers looking to reach, say, Salt Lake City and Milwaukee in addition to Boston and Chicago, the project would need to be supplemented with traditional focus groups.

Further, with telepresence not being available in focus group facilities, some additional downsides center around the lack of standard focus group facility-based niceties and practices, Jennings says. “Some of what I’m accustomed to in a facility, like being able to slip a note in to the moderator, takes a different path. It’s a very small, minor thing but an important thing. There are some administrative luxuries that you kind of take for granted. When we first started we had to go to specific sites that were not facilities. So when we were going in, we were going inside of office buildings where this technology was housed and they didn’t have the easy places to sit, to work, to interact with one another in the back room. That’s changed over time as we’ve figured out that [the client] can sit at a site to view multiple sites,” says Jennings.

Not the cheapest

And for that experience, clients must be willing to pay. Telepresence’s main objective is to save time, improve the remote-viewing experience and deliver more geographically-expansive focus groups - not just save the client money. The standard public rate of $500 per room per hour (not taking into account the TruView discount) is about four times what most moderators are accustomed to paying for a traditional facility. Granted, research companies have a discounted rate available and there are other savings in travel time and other soft ROI but the initial cost can be a shock.

“This is not the cheapest methodology. There may be a bit of a premium on the direct cost of the research but that is often times washed out by cutting back the travel and by the productivity,” says Jennings. “At Dell we value conversations with our customers. If we can put the right person in the right conversation - that’s meaningful to our business in a way that’s difficult to calculate the ROI on.”

Planning and logistics

For all the benefits that come from bringing together a multi-city or multinational focus group using telepresence, those projects require careful planning and logistics. Evening on the West Coast is morning in Asia-Pacific. Lunchtime in Central U.S. is early evening in London. Knowing which cultures are more accepting of morning, afternoon or evening groups is essential. A moderator in New York conducting a group with respondents in Bangalore needs to be prepared to keep odd hours.

In fact, moderators need to be prepared professionally to manage this technology and stay ahead of the learning curve. TruView offers training services to help with the process. The main obstacle comes in familiarizing the moderators with the technology and building a comfort level. For instance, moderators need to be aware of the camera. If a participant on a screen to the moderator’s left speaks and the moderator turns his head to the left to look at the person speaking, it will appear to the person speaking that the moderator is looking away. “You have to train yourself to turn your eyes toward him and see him in the periphery but keep your head more or less facing forward so you can give the appearance that you’re paying attention to the guy - which you really are,” says Hilland.

Overall, though, a focus group is a focus group and most moderators with some tech savvy will be quick to pick it up. The telepresence technology may seem high-powered and complicated - and only suitable for high-powered and complicated projects - but it can be used to improve research projects of all kinds. Dell is increasingly using telepresence for its simpler projects.

A unique opportunity

Of course telepresence isn’t the answer to all focus group woes but it does introduce a unique opportunity to contact respondents who would otherwise be off the grid and put those respondents in communication with others like them - without spending weeks living out of a suitcase.

Telepresence allowed Dell to reach out to its widespread storage area network users and gain insights into their technology experience. “For my people doing global messaging and global product development to see where there are commonalities and where there are differences is invaluable. The amount of time saved out of the office and the ability to get like people - regardless of geography - in the room is just very, very powerful,” says Jennings.