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An article in the New York Times, “Which Records Get Shattered?“, analyzes the prospects for record-breaking at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Nate Silver returns to sports analysis – his old stomping ground before he started the FiveThirtyEight blog which covers election polling. Michael Phelps, 4x100m relay, Beijing 2008 Olympics John Nunn winning his [...]
Many marketing people have been promoting the value of QR codes for quite a while. After all, the promise seems obvious – post a targeted code somewhere, make it easy for someone to reach the website, and track the results of different campaigns. Studies such as this February 2011 survey from Baltimore based agency MGH [...]
James Murray is principal of Seattle IT Edge, a strategic consultancy that melds the technology of IT with the business issues that drive IT solutions. When James gave me a list of things that are central for IT professionals, I thought it might be fun (and hopefully useful) to connect these terms with online surveys [...]
Why survey creators need to pay more attention to the details of wording, question types and other matters that not only affect results but also how customers view the company. A recent survey from Sage Software had quite a few issues, and gives me the opportunity to share some pointers. The survey was for follow [...]
We asked entrepreneurs, consultants and small business owners how they were spending their time over the holiday period. The question asked about the TOP activity, so people needed to prioritize. The most popular answers were “planning next year“, and “delivering to customers“, recognizing both looking forward and (presumably) the need to complete tasks. It would [...]
Whether you are a political junkie or not, recent articles and analysis about mobile phones as part of data collection should be of interest to those who design or commission survey research. Cost, bias, and predictability are key issues. In years gone by, cell phone users were rarely included in surveys. There was uncertainty about [...]
A recent article in the Seattle Times covering a poll by Elway Research gives me an opportunity to discuss statistical testing. The description of the methodology indicates, as I’d expect, that the poll was conducted properly to achieve a representative sample: About the poll: Telephone interviews were conducted by live, professional interviewers with 405 voters [...]
I saw the oddest question in a survey the other day. The question itself wasn’t that odd, but the options for responses were very strange to me. 1 – Not at all Satisfied 2 – Not at all Satisfied 3 – Not at all Satisfied 4 – Not at all Satisfied 5 – Not at [...]
A tale of three types of cheating. If you are going to fudge the numbers, you’d better be very clever. Last December’s Annual Year in Ideas issue of the New York Times magazine included an idea titled “Forensic Polling Analysis” describing how Nate Silver analyzed results published by a polling firm called Strategic Vision. Silver [...]
I came across a published report recently that made me wonder why people persist in reporting that there is a causal relationship when the data doesn’t justify the assertion. Actually, the reasons aren’t all that hard to figure out. Usually, it’s because the relationship seems obvious, and sometimes it is when the person writing the [...]
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