Robert Bain
Features Editor, Research, London, UK
I look after the features content for Research-live.com and Research Magazine, and contribute to the blogs.
Recent activity
Blog Posts (95)
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No guts no glory
A new award aims to recognise those who have shown exceptional bravery in the name of research.
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Vintage visualisations
A poster display at the London Transport Museum reminds us that data visualisation has been around for a long time.
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The hit parade
2011 has been Research Live’s biggest year yet, and these were our most popular articles.
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When reputation management goes wrong
PR firm Bell Pottinger has been criticised for tinkering with Wikipedia entries about its clients – including ethnographic research agency Naked Eye.
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Are politicians scared of being caught spinning statistics?
The government has once again attracted the attention of the UK Statistics Authority for its handling of official figures.
Robert Bain contributes to:
Comments (12)
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Comment on: Focus pocus
Hi Simon I agree, and I think it goes beyond bad use of focus groups. I fear that the term 'focus group' has become a kind of shorthand for misguided research – very easy for commentators to knock. That seems to be the case in the MediaPost article - as you say, there's no detail on how focus groups were used by these firms - the simple statement that they used them is sufficient condemnation.
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Comment on: Between an MROC and a hard place
Thanks for that Jeffrey – I didn't realise it was Brad that coined MROC. Mike Hall did also make the important point that research represents the 'fusion element' in any branded community – the one business discipline that is central to the use of the community for any purpose, be it marketing, brand building, feedback, whatever. But that still doesn't make it a research community, apparently.
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Comment on: Between an MROC and a hard place
Mike - in the light of your comment I listened back to my slightly fuzzy recording of our chat, and I see I misquoted you above as saying 'branded communities' instead of 'brand communities' – a distinction that I wasn't so sensitive to at the time! Sorry – amended now.
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Comment on: Think first, then speak
Thanks for your comment Ray. I wasn't trying to suggest that 'fast' is a synonym for ‘real-time’, but that 'real-time' gets thrown about without much thought because people think it sounds good. So it's helpful to consider whether you mean anything more than just 'fast' or 'now', which, in many cases that I’ve seen, would be simpler and more precise alternatives. We appreciate that language changes and can’t be controlled, and it gets on our nerves when people see change only as decline. What I’ve tried to highlight here are words that I feel get in the way of communication when they are used without thought. They’re all useful in their place, but people fall back on them because they sound fashionable or clever or businessy or just because they're the words everyone else is using, when there may be a more effective way of getting across what they mean. It's not about arbitrary rules, it's about putting thought into what words mean and what effect they have.
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Comment on: Behavioural economics in the pub
Orlando's suggested changes might seem unappealing to bar owners at first glance, but surely there's an opportunity for pubs to sell themselves on encouraging moderation? Wouldn't most people rather spend time in a pub where people are not off their faces and getting into fights? Having said that, I wonder how many specialist/'elitist' pubs, like the ones Tom describes above, the market can support. Anyway, the challenge here is clearly not just changing drinkers' behaviour but bar owners' behaviour too.
Discussions (2)
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Short story competition: Market research in 2029
You might not have expected to see the words ‘short’, ‘story’ and ‘competition’ together on these pages, but here they are. We want you to embrace your inner novelist and give us your vision of the f
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Pronunciation of "MROC"
Are we saying "em-ar-oh-see" or "em-roc" ? Or are we still saying "market research online community"? Is it different on different sides of the Atlantic? I am intrigued.
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