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Since you're reading this
newsletter, you probably understand the value of conducting
research on your communication program. But if you're
like many other communicators, you may be putting off
conducting your own measurements for a variety of what seem
like good reasons:
- No time.
- No budget.
- Lack of research
expertise.
- Lack of management
support.
This month's column offers a variety
of ideas for overcoming these obstacles, many of which I've
used myself before becoming a consultant. I've organized the
ideas roughly into categories that address each of the above
potential obstacles, although many of the suggestions
actually address two or three barriers to conducting
research of your own.
Recruit volunteers
Even if you are a staff of one, you
can create a temporary team of research
assistants.
- Provide your friends and
colleagues with a short list of telephone survey
questions, the names and phone numbers of five to 10
randomly selected individuals to call, and a tally sheet
for responses. This won't take much of their own time
during the course of a week, but if you have enough
friends, you can contact enough respondents for
statistical validity.
- Use your editorial board to gather
input from their colleagues on selected questions you
provide them with about communication.
- Find an administrative assistant
looking for more interesting work and a chance to move
ahead.
- Find employees who are pursuing
degrees in communication part-time, but are currently
working in non-communication jobs. They may be eager to
help to gain knowledge that will be useful on their
resumes&emdash;and to have you as a reference one
day.
- Hire an intern.
- Contact a communication professor
at a local university. The research you need done could
become a class project.
Use other people's
budgets
- When your department hires
temporary help for another project, tap into that
person's down time to make calls, tally survey responses,
etc.
- Your information technology
department probably has a library of software, which may
include some for measuring the usage of intranets or Web
sites. If they don't, they may be able to order it for
you out of their own budget.
- Your organization may have an
ongoing contract with an outside research firm, PR agency
or human resources consulting firm. See if you can use
some of the budgeted money for help with your own
research projects, especially near the end of the year if
not all the allocated funds have been used
up.
- Build small research steps into
existing projects that have already been budgeted. For
example, if an intranet site is being developed, add some
questions about how aspects of the site are working into
the pages themselves.
- If your function acts as an
internal consultant, when you're developing production
budgets for your client departments' projects, build in
some extra money for pre-communication research and
post-communication measurement of success.
Borrow other people's
expertise
While you may not know much about
conducting a survey yourself, you probably have access to
internal and external resources you may not be
tapping. Of course, they may want to borrow your own
expertise in exchange for theirs.
- Someone in your human resources
department may have a degree in organizational
development or industrial psychology and can advise you
about focus groups and surveys.
- Your organization may have an
in-house market research function that can help with
internal research.
- Find a colleague at another
company who has conducted several research projects and
solicit his or her help in developing your own research
tools.
Be sneaky
- As you walk around, make phone
calls and send e-mails as part of your regular job, ask
one or two questions "by the way" about communication and
tally them on a log sheet you keep with you at all
times.
- Invite a group of 10 to 12 people
to join you for free pizza at lunch. In exchange
for the food, you'll ask them some questions. Voila!
You've just conducted a focus group.
- Befriend project managers of
already authorized research projects being developed for
your target audience and get them to include some
questions you'd like answered on their survey or in their
focus group discussion guide.
By no means is this an exhaustive
list, but I hope it gives you some ideas you can use to get
started on some measurements of your own. And when you
provide your management with the findings of your informal
research, they very well may be intrigued enough to provide
more resources and support for more formal
research.
© 1999 Angela D.
Sinickas, All rights reserved
Angela Sinickas, ABC, is
president of Sinickas Communications, Inc., a communication
consultancy specializing in helping corporations achieve
business results through targeted diagnostics and practical
solutions. You can visit her new website,
CommToolbox.com,
to see the automated planning, measurement, and benchmarking
tools she has developed based on her manual, How to
Measure Your Communication Programs.
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