A Semester's Worth of Experience

Generative Research

As soon as I heard Professor Walls utter the term “Generative Research,” I found myself thinking about the psychology class I had in 10th grade and the research paper I had to write for it. I had no idea what “generative” meant. All I knew was that that term sounded incredibly academic and even a bit boring. I wasn’t at all excited about this topic. Once we started learning the basics of generative research, I still didn’t quite understand it or how it was supposed to work within the corporate environment. I got that this type of research was a process in which researchers elicited subjects’ emotions, but I was skeptical of how well it would work. The goal of the method is to get people to reveal their true ideas, values, and feelings through different techniques such as photo collages, journal entries, exercises, and/or photo journals. I thought that either people would catch on to these research techniques and try to deceive the researchers, or the subjects wouldn’t quite be able to understand what it was that the researchers were wanting from them. Although there is a certain amount of risk due to bias (as there is with any kind of research), our group’s experience with generative research helped me to see that this method really can and does work, and it provides corporations with invaluable information that they would not have otherwise had through traditional research alone.

Our group decided to have our participants create two different photo collages for our generative portion of the research. With a set number of random pictures cut from magazines, we had our participants first create a collage that depicted how they currently feel in their home office space. Participants were free to choose or exclude whichever pictures they wanted to, and they were free to arrange them in any way. Afterwards, we talked to the participants about the collages that they had created in an attempt to better understand the meanings behind different pictures and the way in which the pictures were organized. Once we spoke to them about their first collages, we asked our participants to create another collage depicting how they would like to feel in an ideal office space. Again, we asked questions to better understand our participants’ choices.

By using this method, we were able to connect with our participants on a deeper level – a deeper than that of our traditional survey. Emotions such as constraint, disorder, and frustration were obtained through the first collage, and emotions such as order, relief, and control were obtained through the second collage. I, along with my group members, was able to see firsthand that this type of research is both successful and extremely valuable. We were able to create a product that addressed these emotions, and companies are able to use the research in the same manner. Companies can use this kind of research to improve products, create new products, and improve customer experiences.

Rapid Prototyping

When I was in fifth grade, my school’s Talented and Gifted program had an invention competition. I was bewildered by the idea of creating a new product. Twenty two years later, I found myself in the practically the same boat. However, this time I was in a much bigger boat – a boat that I needed. I needed this boat to get me to graduation! With my idea of how the product creation process worked, I had no idea how it would be possible to find subjects, gather research, create a rapid prototype, get feedback, and create a final prototype within only one semester. I thought that each step of this process would take several months or even years. And then we were told that these rapid prototypes should only take a few hours (max) to make. Very similar to my early thoughts of generative research, I was skeptical of the ease with which a rapid prototype could be built and also how significant this rapid prototype would be to the overall process. I don’t know if my group members were as frightened as I was, but I was hoping that this project wouldn’t turn out as horribly as did my fifth grade project.

Our team met the day prior to the rapid prototyping day in class to discuss possible product ideas. This meeting was a lot of fun and we eventually agreed on several characteristics and features that our product needed to have. We sketched up a drawing, and then we considered ourselves to be as prepared as possible for the next day! Our rapid prototype didn’t take very long to make, and we used a shoe box, tape, and paper to create it. The materials were cheap, and the construction was simple. Our rapid prototype brought our ideas to life!

It was then that I realized the true benefits to creating a rapid prototype. This prototype was very cheap, which is key when creating a first iteration of a product. We knew that we were probably going to have to make several changes to the first prototype in order to address our participants’ feedback. The function of a cheap prototype would be even more significant for a large company trying to create something to take to market. The purpose of the “rapid” in rapid prototyping was to ensure that a minimal amount of effort was put into creating something that will almost certainly need to be remade many times. It was definitely awesome to see our ideas and shoebox-ingenuity come together and form a prototype that we could then take out to our participants.

Deciding on a Persona

Initially, I thought that our group’s decision on a specific persona would have a huge impact on our project. While it may have made a huge impact on other teams’ projects, I do not think that our project was very sensitive to the persona that we decided to use. We thought that having children would provide much of the strife that came with using an office space at home; however, we found that most participants were more concerned with the clutter that they had, and this clutter was, in many cases, independent of the children.

With that being said, I do understand the benefits and function behind selecting a persona for a project such as this one. Our team had easy access to people that matched our persona, and it provided certain perimeters/limits for the project. I appreciate the need to have limits or more specifications on a project – I am a person that prefers highly structured assignments and projects. I wouldn’t say that this portion of the project is unnecessary or it that it should be done away with, but I would say that this aspect did not hold as much value for me personally as did other parts of the project.

Blood, Tears, and Fun

I loved this project! I am able to better understand things and, more importantly, retain things if I am able to experience them firsthand or actually put those things to use. Being able to apply almost everything that we learned in class to a project that we were working on during that same semester was very beneficial to me. I feel like this project was a great tool to use in order to hit home the concepts that we learned in class.

This project was personally challenging on many levels. As I mentioned before, I reverted to a terrified eleven-year old when I heard about the project ahead. Working with a group definitely made me feel a less nervous. Discussing crazy product ideas with other people helped me to become more confident about expressing ideas. As you might be able to tell by looking at my class participation grade, I do not speak up very often. I was initially intimidated by being an MPA student in a group with two MBA students, but this actually helped me step up my game!

Our project also provided me with the opportunity to be less afraid of humiliation. After stabbing myself with scissors, fainting for the first time, crying in front of my class and professor, and needing to refuse emergency services after EMTs and a stretcher were already on-scene, I’m pretty sure that the chances of me being more humiliated in an academic or professional setting are slim! =) This ordeal is now quite funny to me, and it makes for a great “you’ll never guess how I got this scar” story.

In all honesty, I took this class because I knew that Professor Walls was teaching it. He was my professor for the undergraduate marketing class, and I loved how he made the subject matter interesting and relevant. I greatly enjoyed this class (much more than the undergraduate class for some reason), and I am very grateful for the experience that I have gained and will take away from this course. I also will be much more careful when using scissors from here on out!

I Would Rather Be Facebooking =)

Last year, I added unlimited internet usage to my cell phone plan. The reason for this: I wanted to be able to check my Facebook from my cell phone several times a day. Since this change, I’m fairly certain that I have become addicted to Facebook.


According to Groundswell, “one in every four American adults visits social networking sites at least monthly.” Also according to Groundswell, “22 percent of teenagers check in daily.” In my opinion, 22 percent seems low. I believe that if you asked teenagers and college students how often they visited a social networking site (SNS), they would give you answers very similar to mine – at least twice a day. Facebook has become a very popular and very important site for companies trying to promote themselves and their products.

Through requesting to be someone’s friend and becoming a fan of a company’s or person’s page, users are able to connect with one another and share with others what it is that they support or like. I am very selective when it comes to becoming a fan of certain pages – I only become a fan of things that I really do like and enjoy. For example, I am currently a Facebook fan of only 16 pages (some of which include: Chick-fil-A, Einstein Bros Bagels, Sonic Happy Hour, Dawson’s Creek, and Ashley Furniture HomeStore Killeen, TX). Fans of these pages are free to post whatever they want, and as Groundswell mentions, “fads can spread rapidly through [social networking sites], displacing, undermining, or (sometimes) boosting brand awareness.”

Chick-fil-A and Einstein Bros Bagels have both done an excellent job of promoting their brands through Facebook. Every time a new Chick-fil-A opens, I am made aware of this through their status updates. Einstein Bros Bagels updates their status to remind fans/consumers that free coupons and deals are made available on their page. These pages include pictures, fan comments, games, and links to other pages of which Chick-fil-A and Einstein Bros Bagels are fans. These things not only enhance the customer experience, they also provide fans/consumers with an outlet to either boast about or criticize things that the companies are doing or selling.

Companies can definitely benefit from having advertisements and pages on Facebook. Coupons and status updates can result in increases in sales, especially for food and beverage companies like Chick-fil-A and Einstein Bros Bagels. Companies can also be hurt by comments made about them on this SNS as well. Either way, companies can use this information to improve upon the products it sells and/or the experiences they provide. Feedback is one of the most important tools a company can have – feedback provides companies with direct consumer sentiment.

Another personally prevalent social media source is consumer reviews. Consumer reviews, similar to Facebook in terms of feedback, allow consumers to post freely whatever it is they want to share. While I am not really a user of consumer reviews myself, my boyfriend makes many of his purchasing decisions based on consumer reviews. We have made purchases of all our big electronics (computer, television, camera, etc) after first reading consumer reviews on different brands and key features and functions. The information that consumer reviews provides (although sometimes biased and skewed) is very important for other consumers and more importantly the companies selling the products that are being reviewed.


Companies can use reviews to monitor current public opinions and sentiments towards them and their products. Feedback provided by reviews can be used in many ways. It can be used to help design new products, redesign current products, revamp marketing strategies, adjust pricing, readjust consumer help models, and even restructure companies. Reviews are really an invaluable source of information for companies, and companies should take every advantage of them. Groundswell mentioned that “before consumer reviews, companies only had to worry about influencing experts.” Before meeting my consumer review-loving boyfriend, I really only thought about reviews that came from sources like New York Times, Siskel and Ebert, and the Travel Channel. Now, I realize that everyone who has an opinion is able to share it, and millions of other consumers perusing the internet can easily view that opinion.

While I only used Facebook and consumer reviews (in general) to discuss social media as a way to gain customer insights and create customer experiences, there are hundreds of other social media outlets – all of which are becoming more and more important for companies worldwide. I think that these outlets are invaluable to companies and their efforts to gain information and improve experiences. Social media provides a way to directly communicate with consumers and also receive up-to-date feedback. I think that companies are going to need to utilize social media such as blogs, SNSs, reviews, forums, and wikis in order to help keep themselves current and relevant in today’s society. Social media is something that touches people on a daily basis, and companies want that – they want to be able to reach out to consumers on a daily basis.

Wal-Mart: Data Collection, Technology, and Privacy

My mom has worked for Wal-Mart for the past 20 years, so that company has been a part of my life for about as long as I can remember. My mom makes (and always has made) almost all of her purchases at Wal-Mart. Once I moved to Austin and started living on my own, I continued to do most of my shopping at Wal-Mart. Before reading this article, I never really stopped to think about what kind of information this retail giant has been collecting from my mother and I over the last 20 years, and I never stopped to think about how much data is being collected from Wal-Mart consumers.

To know that Wal-Mart has collected and surprisingly saved more than double the data that the Internet has is mind-boggling. I do feel that the collection of this data has proved to be very useful and beneficial for Wal-Mart. The technological capability that Wal-Mart has in collecting all of this data is astounding… and expensive. Wal-Mart, being the retail giant that it is, can easily afford to pay for such technology, while other smaller companies are unable to do so. This creates a competitive advantage for Wal-Mart. The company has been using this data to predict consumer behavior and purchases and to also react accordingly. Personally, I feel like Wal-Mart sells and always stocks just about everything a person needs on a daily basis. Since the information that Wal-Mart collects is stored for indefinite amounts of time, it can always look back through the data to discover purchasing trends. The example used in this article about strawberry Pop-Tarts and beer is very interesting – I would never have thought that the sales of these two items would increase so much right before a hurricane. Since Wal-Mart was able to see the trend through the data and respond before another hurricane happened, the stores in the area were able to make sure that they had enough Pop-Tarts and beer. This move resulted in more profits for the company.

As with all companies that collect data, people are going to be concerned about the privacy of their information. As I mentioned before, I never really thought about the fact that Wal-Mart collects information from me, and the majority of people probably don’t think about it when they go in to a Wal-Mart store to make a purchase. The article did comfort me by reiterating that Wal-Mart does a lot to keep the information it collects private. I also support the decision to no longer share data with outside companies. I feel like sharing some type of personal information is almost inevitable when it comes to retail purchasing (like your name and address), but some of the information that Wal-Mart has access to does make me feel a little uneasy. I did not know that Wal-Mart has access to social security and driver’s license numbers. I do not understand how a company like Wal-Mart can utilize information about mortgage payments, court dates, or driving records. While there have been no major information leaks or data sharing issues in the past, the possibility of this “exception” does raise concern now that I know that Wal-Mart has access to such detailed information.

The way that Wal-Mart organizes the data that they collect is very important. They separate information into different categories, and the company is able to pull certain information from database whenever they need it. This allows Wal-Mart to have a lot of power essentially at the click of a mouse or the push of a button. The article also mentioned that Wal-Mart does not provide loyalty cards. Although I do not know any of the implications of cost for such an endeavor, I do think that Wal-Mart could benefit even more with the implementation of a loyalty card or rewards membership. A personal example that comes to mind is a punch-card that I have for Terra Burger. The location of the closest Terra Burger is somewhat inconvenient for me, but if I buy 7 burgers, I get the 8th for free! The idea of getting something (an 8th burger) that I might otherwise have had to purchase for free excites me. So far, I have purchased 3 burgers, and I do plan on going buying 4 more so I can get one for free. This concept is very powerful with consumers, and Wal-Mart could get people to purchase more and more often if they did something like this.

This article makes me think of Wal-Mart in a slightly different light now. I knew it was a giant before, but now I feel like it is even more of giant – a very powerful, super giant. I don’t even think my mom, or most other Wal-Mart employees, realizes how much information Wal-Mart collects from its consumers. As technology improves, I think that Wal-Mart and Wal-Mart consumers need to be even more careful with their data. I feel like the issue of information privacy and security is going to become even more prevalent and even more dangerous.

Research Techniques

Gerald Zaltman’s article, “Metaphorically Speaking,” really highlighted the fact that it is very difficult to get consumers to reveal their true feelings and thoughts. One of the most prominent questions I’ve had concerning our group project concerns the success that we will have in getting our subjects to really open up to us. I sometimes have trouble expressing my deepest thoughts and feelings, and I think a lot of people would have even more hesitance when being asked to express those things to researchers. Zaltman’s ZMET provides a method for eliciting this important information. ZMET involves asking people to collect a number of images that represents their thoughts and feelings on a particular topic. Subjects are not allowed to use images of the actual topic; therefore, it is necessary that they use images that contain metaphors about the topic. For example, if I were asked to provide a picture that describes my feelings toward my son, I could provide a picture of a fire burning in a fireplace on a snowy day. The strongest feeling I have towards my son is love, and that love is like a fire – it feels warm and comforting and is very inviting on a cold day. These metaphors can be extremely helpful to researchers and marketers. I also think that describing things and emotions through metaphors is an excellent idea. Metaphors provide several insights about the consumer that the consumer may not even know exist. As for the consensus mapping, I did not quite understand this process; however, I do understand the meaning behind the process. The purpose is to highlight relationships between certain thoughts and feelings and to also ensure that these relationships are shared across multiple subjects. These maps, along with the multimedia reports, provide an excellent way to present the data obtained through the images collected and the interviews conducted.

“Turn Customer Input into Innovation,” written by Anthony W. Ulwick, is somewhat revolutionary in my opinion. On one hand, I think that the idea behind this article is based on common sense. On the other hand, I think that companies may not quite understand the real potential behind adopting this method. The following quote drives home the point that Ulwick is trying to make:

“Imagining the unimaginable is for the R&D departments, not customers.”

As mentioned in the article, consumers have a hard time being innovative, because they only know what they have already experienced. Since this is true, it is not easy for most consumers to come up with new and original ideas. Researchers are better off finding out what it is that consumers need a product to do – not what they think that product should be. Ulwick’s process for this innovation consists of five, sequential steps: 1) plan outcome-based customer interviews; 2) capture desired outcomes; 3) organize the outcomes; 4) rate outcomes’ importance and satisfaction; and 5) use outcomes to jump-start innovation. In terms of applicability, I feel that this approach is practical, and the steps are easy to follow. I also think that this process helps to lead to products that are much more innovative since researchers aren’t at all bogged down with consumers’ ideas of what product it is that needs to be created.

Martin Gladwell’s excerpt, “Kenna’s Dilemma,” adds to the idea behind Ulwick’s article. Oftentimes, consumers do not know what they want, or they might not be able to constructively describe what it is that they want. In these situations, it is important to ask for and understand what it is that consumers need. It is also extremely helpful to observe consumers (whether the consumer knows or doesn’t know) and develop an opinion about that consumers’ needs. The process used here can definitely get very particular and complex. For example, the article mentions a study that broke Oreos into ninety different attributes. I think that analyzing things in such detail and observing consumers rather than just asking for their needs can lead to very successful research and product creation.

I think that Ulwick’s method of research would be the most helpful in our research for our project. This method seems to be the least complex, and it would still provide our group with the information we need concerning our subjects’ needs.

My Persona

I am a 23 year old female finishing up my 5th year in college. I will be graduating in May with my MPA degree. I live in an apartment in northwest Austin with my 30 year old boyfriend and his 4 year old son. We met each other while attending community college in Killeen, Texas (both of us finished 2 years there before coming to UT). I am currently doing an audit and tax internship with an accounting firm (yes, it’s busy season… and yes, I will have very very very little free time unitl after April 15th!). My boyfriend has a merchandising/counseling job with The Scotts Company (the company that makes Miracle Grow). We also have a 4 year old German Shepherd who we adopted from a no-kill animal shelter. We have very hectic lives, and we greatly appreciate any chance we have to spend time together. We spend our free time playing together, finding cheap family activities nearby, and keeping up with household chores.

While trying to find a persona that would best describe myself, I realized that a combination of two pre-existing cohorts (described in the Cohort Personas reading) most closely resembles my life. I feel that I fit in both the “Young Families” and the “Young Married Starters” cohorts. In order to more accurately describe myself and my family, I have decided to create a new persona. Below is the persona I have created for myself:

Dan & Jess

“Young Working/Schooling Families”

Young up-and-coming families with modest incomes who are balancing children, pets, work, and school.

Personalities
• I can drop him off at daycare in the morning, but I need you to pick him up.
• Do you want me to pick up anything on the way home?
• I only have one semester left of school and so does he.
• We spend a lot of money on toys, especially for birthdays and Christmases.
• We like to have family movie nights and family bookstore visits.
• I can walk the dogs if you get him ready for bed.
• We should go to visit our parents this weekend if we don’t have to work and don’t have homework.

Demographics
Median Age: 25
Median Income: $25,000
Children: mostly under 5
Most rent
Few graduate from college

Lifestyles
Audio/Video: rent movies; buy few CDs; DVR recording; play video games; own a camera; watch sports on tv; own smart phones.

Outdoors: pool; park; neighborhood bike rides; zoo; fishing.
Sports/Fitness: yoga; running/jogging.

Home life: play-time; movies; scrapbooking; cooking; baking; cleaning; studying; visiting with family.

Investor: tries to put money into savings account after monthly expenses.

Shopping habits: likes to buy things on sale; cuts coupons; splurges on children but not themselves; does research on large purchases; brand loyalty; purchases online for special occasion gifts; grocery shops bi-monthly.

Traditionalist: family time is very important.

Other interests: small family trips; family-oriented events/shows; education; planning for the future.

After re-reading what I have written about myself and the persona I have created, I am confident that you will have a much better understanding of who I am and what I do! I love my family, and I am very grateful for all that I have in my life!