Here’s a fundamental principle of market research: the less your participants know about the true purpose of your research, the better the quality of the data you’re going to collect.

Why?  When participants think they understand the business issues and information objectives underlying your research, they’re likely to take that as a license to think like marketers, copywriters or managers – instead of just being themselves.  What’s more, sometimes knowing what the study is about will lead them to try to tell you what they think you want to hear.  They might also try to ‘game’ the research in order to achieve some purpose of their own (such as lower prices), or engage in ‘virtue signaling,’ such as waxing rhapsodic about their vegan lifestyle because they think that’s what they’re supposed to say.  In additions, if research participants don’t know the topic of the research, it allows that topic to come up on its own—or not.  If, when, and how key discussion areas enter the conversation organically can be a key source of insight.

This is not to say that I’m opposed to transparency.  On the contrary, I believe that researchers and marketers have an obligation to be fully transparent with research participants, users and consumers.  It’s a question of timing.  While it’s important that participants eventually understand a research study’s purpose and who’s behind it, they don’t need to have that information from the very beginning.  That being the case, while it’s necessary to begin with your purpose obscured, it’s also important to end in a place of transparency.

So, at least at the beginning of your research, treat your participants like mushrooms; keep them in the dark.  With that in mind, here are some thoughts and best practices on how to do that.

• It all starts with recruiting.  When you’re screening for research – whether qualitative or quantitative – make sure that your questions won’t tip off the participants.  This will almost certainly make your screening questionnaire longer, but it’s worth it.  If you’re going to screen out respondents on the basis of attitudes towards the client’s brand, bury that brand in a list of brands.  If you’re screening on the basis of category usage, include the client category in a list of categories.  I will often have someone who is not familiar with the research review the screener to see if she can correctly identify the category, client or topic. Another step to consider – if possible, tell the recruiter as little as possible about who the client is and the topic of the research.  What they don’t know they can’t spill.

• Brief the facility or platform provider.  It’s very easy for somebody at the focus group facility or online research platform you’re using to let the cat out of the bag unintentionally.  If they understand how imperative it is to keep the client and topic confidential, they’ll be less likely to do this.  And – as with recruiters – if you can avoid sharing this information, that might be a good idea.

• When conducting qualitative, how you phrase questions is crucial.  One of my favorite questioning techniques is what I call the ‘Bankshot Question.’  I use it all the time for a variety of reasons.  The idea is that sometimes the direct approach isn’t the best; depending on the situation, a direct question can feel rather confrontational.  An oblique style is helpful when dealing with sensitive topics, or for situations where people might not want to share their honest opinions.  And it’s also a great way to avoid revealing the true purpose of the research.  So, rather than asking the actual question you have in mind, ask a closely related question and see if you get the answer to what you really wanted to ask.  For example, instead of asking moms what they currently feed their kids, ask what they – themselves – are eating these days.  Or instead of asking what participants think about the Affordable Care Act, ask them what they like and dislike about their current health insurance situations.  One bankshot technique I find to be particularly effective is asking for stories.  So, instead of having a participant explain how he purchases power tools, I’ll ask him if he has a favorite story about a home improvement project.  If you’re going to try this approach, be aware that it’s an iterative one that takes some patience.  You might need to attempt more than one bankshot before you put the ball in the pocket.  You might also need to let respondents ramble a bit so that they have the time to get to what you really want to hear about.  This is where silence is your friend.  Just sit quietly, smiling and nodding.  Your participants will feel the need to fill the silence, and might give you the information you seek.

• Be prepared to deflect questions.  There has been a general societal trend toward greater expectations of transparency on the part of governments, companies and other institutions.  As such, I find that participants are more willing than they used to be to ask me directly who my client is, and about the specific purpose of the research.  While it may have once been acceptable to ignore these sorts of questions or provide a vague response, that’s no longer OK.  Now, when I get questions like this, I reply that I’m happy to answer them – but not just yet.  However, I always to make sure that I provide those answers before the group or interview is over.

So remember, don’t let the cat out of the bag before you have to.  The longer you can keep your participants from figuring out what your research is about, the better the accuracy of the data you’re going to gather, and greater the quality of the insights it’s going to reveal.

I’ve been encountering the term ‘self-care’ a lot lately. People seem especially preoccupied these days with seeing to their own needs. This concern encompasses numerous dimensions: physical, emotional, spiritual. There’s nothing wrong with this. These are trying times, and who better than you to make sure your needs are being met? I’m certainly part of this trend—just ask my wife. She’ll tell you that I’ve been indulging myself a bit more than usual recently. That said, a focus on taking care of yourself has its limits. While attending to your own needs is certainly important, it’s only half of the task. Because, if you really want to fully care for yourself, you must orient your efforts towards others.

The good news is that, right now, there’s no shortage of people who desperately need your help. So many are isolated, lonely and anxious. So many more are in financial distress. If you direct time, attention and other resources towards their challenges, not only will it help them, it will help you as well. Some specific things you could do:

• Contribute to your local food bank.

• Check in on your neighbors who are particularly vulnerable. Do they need groceries? Is their recycling brought to the curb? Are prescriptions they need being picked up?

• How about the small businesses in your town? In addition to patronizing them to the extent you can, would they benefit from your expertise as a marketer or researcher?

• And don’t underestimate the value of just writing a check. A lot of service organizations really need that more than anything else.

John Donne was correct nearly 400 years ago – none of us is an island. We’re all connected, all a part of a greater whole. Another person’s happiness or suffering is also yours. The true path to well-being lies in focusing yourself on the needs of your fellow humans. Because there’s more to who you are than just you.  Fully caring for yourself requires taking care of others.

I’m going to tell you story.  It’s about qualitative research, but it might not seem like that immediately, so bear with me.  It’s a story about my friends Betsy and Missy.  I’ve known them both for over 25 years.  But they’ve known each other a lot longer.  Because, at the start of their first day of kindergarten – right after Betsy sat down at her desk – Missy, who was a perfect stranger, turned around and asked Betsy, “can we be friends?”  Betsy said, “yes.”  And, all these years later, they’re still close friends.

Why am I telling this story, aside from the desire to tug at your heartstrings? Because it illustrates the boundless potential of each moment we experience.  Who would have expected a simple question posed by one kindergartner to another would result in a decades-long, thick-and-thin friendship?

Qualitative research differs fundamentally from any other kind of research (quant, syndicated, big data analysis, etc.) in that it is a string of moments we experience directly and personally; it is really just a fancy term for conversation.  Think about your own experiences; just about everybody can recall life-changing conversations they’ve had at various points in their lives.  Conversation is – by its nature – unstructured and unpredictable.  While you might know where a conversation will begin, you have no idea where it’s going to end up.

And so, every moment in qualitative research carries unlimited promise.  Every instant has the potential to create something game-changing.  Whether it’s a participant describing her relationship to a brand in a way no member of the brand team has ever considered, or an anecdote related by a shopper that finally makes it clear why shelf movement has dropped so sharply in the past six months, conversation leads to unexpected places that reveal things that are entirely new.

This means, that if we design with this characteristic of unlimited possibility in mind, any qualitative study can reveal unexpected, extraordinary insights.  But this doesn’t happen by itself.

So, when designing qualitative, it’s important to make sure that your design allows for this possibility.  Here are 6 principles and techniques that can increase the chance of having one of these moments:

1. Stay away from a box-checking mindset. Qualitative research isn’t about methodically working your way through a list of discussion topics and making sure you ask all the predetermined questions.  It’s about feeling your way through a dark, unfamiliar landscape and discovering what’s there.

2. Ask open ended questions. Closed ended questions are for quant.  Or, if you’re trying to establish some sort of objective baseline, ask closed ended questions as part of the homework, in the waiting room, or put them in your screener.

3. Get diversity in your participants. If your participants are recruited to be alike, they’re probably going to give you a limited range of points of view.  So diversity is a virtue: economic, ethnic, attitudinal, demographic, experiential, the list goes on and on.

4. Get diversity in your data. In addition to conversation, projective, creative and story collection techniques can provide unexpected insights.  And, if you’re looking to push the envelope a bit more, consider tools like biometrics and textual analysis.  I also like to diversify my data by mixing interaction methods; group discussions, IDIs, online bulletin boards, intercept interviews and social media listening can all peacefully coexist in one study.

5. Allow time for tangents and discussion of new issues. If you set too many guardrails around the course of discussion and don’t permit participants to talk about what they want to talk about, you’ll never wind up someplace new.  So let people ramble a bit.

6. Prepare for unexpected insights to be uncovered after the fact. Whether you’re observing or moderating research, you don’t always realize in the moment that something important just happened.  That’s one reason to make sure the research is fully documented and recorded.  Transcripts and good-quality videography can go a long way towards ensuring your post-analysis is as successful as it could be.  And relying on a single person to analyze the findings and create the final deliverable may not be the best idea.  Analysis and reporting – at its best – is a team sport.  The more eyes, ears and brains you have reviewing the data, the better the chance that somebody will spot something remarkable.

Mr. Richter – my high school biology teacher – used to tell us incessantly that Louis Pasteur wrote ‘fortune favors the prepared mind’.  In order to have that lucky, blinding flash of insight, you have to lay the groundwork for it.

In case you don’t already find it difficult enough to analyze and report on qualitative research, here’s a tip to make it even harder: start too soon. 

 One thing that I’ve noticed about myself  – you may have experienced this as well – is that, once I’ve read a novel or seen a movie, it takes me some time to work out for myself what I thought about it.  It’s very hard for me to make a judgement or express a coherent opinion immediately.  But, after a while, my thoughts start to take shape.

Similarly, I’ve noticed that if I try to start analyzing qualitative research data immediately upon completing the research, it’s really a struggle.  However, if I wait a couple of days between conducting research and beginning my analysis, the task is much easier.  It turns out, I’m not unusual.  We need some time for the brain to absorb and internalize information, particularly large bodies of ambiguous, disorganized data (like qualitative research).  This phenomenon actually has a name: it’s called consolidation.  It’s an internal, cognitive process that involves converting short term memory to long term.

People often say that they have a terrible problem with procrastinating before starting a task.  Maybe they do, but it’s also possible that they’re simply consolidating the information they need to draw upon to execute that task, and so they’re actually not ready to begin.  Unfortunately, because consolidation is not something of which we are consciously aware, they don’t realize this, and they attribute their delaying to some sort of dreadful character flaw.

For the most part, you can’t rush consolidation, but there are things you can do that might move things along a bit faster.  There’s data that indicates getting enough sleep is one.  Taking good notes while the research is underway, and then reviewing those notes afterwards seems to help me.  I also find that watching video footage of the research and reviewing key research documents such as discussion guides, stimuli, transcripts, etc., helps as well.  But, ultimately, consolidation is still going to take as long as it takes—it really doesn’t care about your schedule.

I’m going through some consolidation right now having just returned from the QRCA Annual Conference which took place last week in Austin TX.   It was a great event; I attended multiple presentations and roundtables, and stuffed my head full of valuable information.  However, despite the conference ending on a Friday, it wasn’t until the following Monday that I was really able to start thinking clearly about what I had learned.  At that point, I was able to ruminate on what I had seen and heard and what I planned to do with that knowledge.

So, here’s my suggestion: give yourself a break—literally.  If at all possible, after an activity that involves absorbing a lot of information, ALLOW yourself some time to consolidate.  Do something else for a day or so.  If you’re like me, you don’t lack things to do, so just focus on other priorities for a little while.

If you absolutely cannot take a pause between the completion of your research and beginning your deliverable, it’s a good idea to plan for that.  Creating templates in advance and retaining a report writer can both be good options.  ANOTHER POSSIBILITY:  See if a quick, short topline report will suffice while you’re taking a bit more time to create the full, final deliverable.

Consolidation really is a thing.  If you plan for and take advantage of it, it can be your secret weapon—you’ll do better work, and you won’t drive yourself crazy.  But if you pretend it doesn’t exist, it can become your worst enemy.

Has it occurred to anybody other than me that The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is an absolute must-read for marketers and researchers?  Those of you who’ve read it – and if you haven’t, you REALLY should – probably remember the point in the story in which the massive supercomputer, Deep Thought, after 7.5 million years of intense mentation, finally reveals the answer to The Great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.  That answer?  Let’s all say it together:  “Forty-two.”

This is one of the great jokes of the book.  And, not to belabor the point, it’s funny because, after seven and a half million years of nonstop computation, Deep Thought comes up with an answer that’s thoroughly useless.  Even Deep Thought knows this.  Before giving The Answer, he warns his audience, “I don’t think that you’re going to like it.”  The two poor guys who are tasked with communicating The Answer to the masses, Phouchg and Loonquawl, are horrified.  “We’re going to get lynched, aren’t we?” whispers one to the other.  And then, Deep Thought provides a crucial insight, observing: “I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.”  After fumbling briefly trying to articulate the question, Phouchg and Loonquawl realize that Deep Thought is correct.  They have no idea what they’re actually trying to ask.

And so, what does Deep Thought do next?  Well, like any consultant worth his salt, he proposes a follow-up study.  He’ll design a new computer.  One comprised of living beings.  It will be called – The Earth.  Over ten million years, this human computer will work to formulate The Question.  And, Deep Thought promises, “once you do know what the question actually is, you’ll know what the answer means.”

In other words, Deep Thought proposes a follow-up qualitative phase that will explain the results of the just completed quant study.  Because, as we all know, without a human element, most research is of limited value.  Let’s ignore the fact that this whole project comes to nothing when the Vogons destroy the Earth to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.  There’s just no standing in the way of progress.

Why do I bring this up?  Because it’s important to remind ourselves that, while quantitative research is essential for delivering answers, it’s rarely helpful when it comes to providing precisely defined questions.

Let’s say you’re trying to understand the applicability of a new technology to a category, and whether it could lead to new product opportunities.  Typically we ask these questions in the form of written concepts.  However, before you put a concept into a quantitative test, it’s crucial to make sure the concept is clear—that it’s actually communicating what you want it to—that it uses the consumer’s own vocabulary to communicate key ideas, and that it’s sufficiently specific that it will provide measurable responses.  The only way I know to do this sort of thing is through qualitative exposure: showing the concept to some potential consumers and talking it through.

Here’s another example: perhaps you’re planning to field a segmentation study.  Segmentation questionnaires often contain lists of attributes for respondents to evaluate for their association with a brand, as well as attitudinal statements to see if the participants identify with them.  How can you be sure your attribute lists are correctly worded, complete, and don’t contain unnecessary elements?  And how can you be sure you’re describing the correct consumer attitudes?  Again, there’s only one answer – qualitative.

And here’s the thing.  If you go into your quantitative research without conducting a qualitative phase, you risk getting results that are, at best, useless and at worst, misleading.  So, not only is the cost of your research at risk, but the potential cost of an unsuccessful product launch might loom in your future.

One last point – and get ready for some shameless promotion of professional qualitative researchers. This sort of research is very difficult.  It requires an experienced marketing and research professional who not only gets your category, but who also understands the quantitative research being planned, and who knows how to do things like test vocabulary and conduct appropriate creative and projective exercises that will help participants describe key attributes and attitudes.  There are certain types of qualitative research non-professionals might be able to conduct themselves, but this isn’t one of them.

So, next time you’re considering doing some research, think about whether you’re looking for answers or questions.  That will tell you a lot about how to proceed.