On a recent study, a new client team came with me into the front room in immersion sessions with respondents, followed by a day of debriefing, idea generating, and communication development. Most of them had only been in the back room, observing until this particular project and some were hesitant about the new approach. Their willingness to embark on a new adventure in qualitative along with their warm and welcoming approach helped consumers explore the possibilities of a new product with care and consideration. The result was a higher level of engagement and inspiration.

Bravo to all those brave enough to keep moving out of their comfort zones and into new terrain.

I am confident that I have had respondents who are not literate in past groups–some known to me and some who flew under the radar, but this was the first time I had been made aware and made the conscious decision to include that person in our group. As my client said when I confirmed with her, “We have all types of customers, and we care about all of their experiences.”

This man contributed to the group with honesty and openness, and we all benefited tremendously from his participation.

At the end of that day, I was haunted by the unheard voices of so many potential participants. It made me wonder who we haven’t heard from when we screen so carefully for articulation, higher incomes, and higher education and what they have to say on so many topics and what else we might discover during their participation?

It has been a challenging spring with rain, cold, tornadoes, and flooding. We’ll remember it and someday reminisce about Spring 2011.

Why did teachers always assign us this essay on the first day of the new school year? Stories are the way we connect to each other as friends, family, neighbors, as well as customers and consumers. We listen to our target population–the ones whose perspectives we strive to understand. We tell the story of our brand, our services, our products and hope they will listen and join the narrative.

The change of seasons reminds us to open to new experiences and most of all, new stories being continuously created and retold.

Great care had been taken at this lovely hotel to create a relaxing, inviting outdoor space where people could seek rejuvenation in the perfectly-maintained pool or in one of the cabanas or chairs meticulously placed along the edges of the sky blue water. And yet here the only visitor was a duck—presumably with better prospects in ponds nearby with underbrush to provide cover and soil rather than cement, in which to build a nest. This lone duck, heading for the ladder looked so out of place.

It made me wonder why the intended audience never showed up and why the unexpected did. As product developers and marketers, a lot of thought goes into this aspect, of course. Yet, I wonder if we get in the narrowly focused zone too often and limit our possibilities for success by staying with slices of the population we already know well or have tried to please with our offerings in the past. As a market researcher, it seems as though every year the specifications for who we recruit to learn from and talk to become narrower and narrower, squeezing out other possibilities for learning and understanding. It might be refreshing to learn from the opposite or adjacent point of view in our research—the grandparents rather than the parents of targeted children, the male head of household rather than the primary grocery shopper. It might feel surprisingly cool when we dip a toe into a new pool of knowledge, but with summer around the corner, maybe we are ready for a new perspective.

I often lament how I miss life in the Midwest, and being buried in snow today let me assure you it is not the weather but the people that make the place. People react very differently here. Take a simple two inches of snow, for example. We were officially “snowed in” last weekend. The Midwest is mostly flat. Maryland is a maze of hills and turns that make driving in even the slightest snowfall treacherous. In the face of the two feet (and counting) presently being unloaded from the heavens, we here in the Mid-Atlantic region race to the grocery stores, cancel plans, and prepare to be home-bound for days.

So, how do we choose and how many markets do we need? It depends on the objectives. If you are looking to make a major business decision with the learning (yes, you can, even with qualitative!), I recommend a minimum of two markets, preferably three. If you are searching for a certain type of consumer–brand loyalist or early adopter, there are markets better suited to that. And I propose that finding aesthetically intuned, super-creative types (hello warm, sunny West coast) should often be balanced with your average Joe or Jane if you truly want to innovate while developing a product appealing to the masses. I love any excuse to take a trip home to the Midwest and meet with warm-hearted, level-headed types we so easily find there.

Sometimes the party asking is visioning new possibilities for their future. I always include in my answer the one key to how I traveled this path: the support and encouragement of others.

We are all being called to lend a hand along the way–whether it is basic necessities for victims of natural disasters or mentoring and advice for colleagues and co-workers. I propelled forward toward my passion for qualitative research because other moderators and marketing research colleagues encouraged me by sharing their stories and being incredibly open and honest about the benefits and challenges they had experienced.

It has been said that those who teach, learn. Sharing information and knowledge with others solidifies and deepens what we already know. Mentoring and training offer classic cases of karma, of giving and receiving in return.

These days, so many people are pursuing alternate career paths. I encourage you to consider mentoring or sharing ideas in support of those around you. It will surely energize you in whatever direction you are moving forward.

Is it any different than the uppermost senior management sharing their five and ten-year vision with employees at all levels? At its best, it offers inspiration to move forward…something we should all strive to do daily.

As with most things, the more (information) we give, the more we receive. Respondents work even harder to find the right combination of elements once they have more context. They will discover solutions the brand team can then meld into a harmonious and meaningful message. This exchange of information is a powerful step in the right direction, out of the dark and into a promising future.

Before the concert, I assumed I had little in common with the people around me. I have never lived in a large city though I am learning that, at heart, I am a city girl by nature. By the bittersweet end of the second encore, the audience and I were connected in our discoveries and left having been part of a collective experience.

Focus group respondents must feel awkward in the waiting room, wondering how their views resonate or depart from others in the session. As a moderator, it is my job and my joy to create a comfortable, collective, memorable experience in which we all leave with a little more understanding of the objectives and even ourselves.