Month: August 2010

Munich > Zurich > Paris

Preparing to take my first vacation in 3 years (not including conference and work travel, of course; they are work to some extent after all!), we are traveling to Munich, Zurich, and Paris. In a week. With an excursion to Rouen to see the show Une ville pour l’Impressionnisme: Monet, Pissarro et Gauguin à Rouen as part of the Normandy Impressionist Festival this is shaping up to be a wonderful trip!


Facilitating Focus Groups

I am beginning to work with and facilitate focus groups at my work, and wanted to share a resource I found to be rather helpful. While the book Focus Groups: A Practical Guide for Applied Research is probably the best text on the logistical practices of preparing for, facilitating, and analyzing focus groups, it can be a bit tough to use for a quick, need-to-know reference.

Enter the Richard Krueger, the author of the above-mentioned book, who also freely makes his Focus Group Interviewing website information freely available. While the website materials are bare-bones, they are an excellent primer and ready-reference for those involved in focus group work. While this often includes market researchers, those of us within organizations who are trying to better understand the “whats” and “whys”  behind the numbers can make wonderful use of this form of data gathering and organizational feedback.