Dan – Good Karma Consulting

Establishing your “bracket”

Dan — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:39:58 +0000

March Madness is here and as always there is a great deal of debate about which teams get in and which teams stay home. How does the selection committee decide? They follow set Principles and Procedures. Of particular interest is the mix qualitative and quantitative factors they use:

“The RPI is one of many resources/tools available to the committee in the selection, seeding and bracketing process. Several independent elements are combined to produce the RPI. These elements are a part of the statistical information that may or may not be utilized by each member in any manner they choose. Computer models cannot accurately evaluate qualitative factors such as games missed by key players or coaches, travel difficulties, the emotional effects of specific games, etc.”

Do you know the qualitative factors to accurately evaluate what the computer model might miss for your brand, product, packaging or advertising?

Great Printer Paper

Dan — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:35:41 +0000

From WSJ this week:
“One of the Web’s little secrets is that when consumers write online reviews, they tend to leave positive ratings: The average grade for things online is about 4.3 stars out of five. Many companies have noticed serious grade inflation. Google Inc.’s YouTube says the videos on its site average 4.6 stars, because viewers use five-star ratings to “give props” to video makers. Buzzillions.com, which aggregates reviews from 3,000 sites, has tracked millions of reviews and has spotted particular exuberance for products such as printer paper (average: 4.4 stars), boots (4.4) and dog food (4.7).”

The lesson here is that you need to understand the “why” behind the numbers to really understand what consumers are thinking and saying about your products and brands. Otherwise you might be like me and think that all printer paper is about the same.

Listen Closely, Watch Even Closer

Dan — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 13:59:25 +0000

According to various studies, during interpersonal communication only 7% of the message is communicated by the words used. Vocal tone makes up 38%. Facial expressions and body language make up the largest share at 55%. So in addition to listening closely to what respondents say, peer through that mirror to see what they are saying as well.

Green Shoots and Future Seeds

Dan — Thu, 14 May 2009 12:23:20 +0000

Leading economists are starting to talk about seeing, “green shoots” of a economic recovery. Seth Godin reminds us that there are two parts to the consumer value equation. With the downturn putting additional focus on the price side, are you spending enough time and energy planting the seeds of future benefits?