Quick Fix

by admin on May 11, 2012

Throughout the years I’ve attended numerous “how-to” sessions on a variety of topics. Research implementation, data visualization, social media, among many others. At every session the idea of time and money is brought up. Someone will ask:

“How do I do perform this action effectively if I don’t have any time or money?”

Unfortunately, they’re looking for the magic bullet. Rarely can this be accomplished. When I’m leading a session on eliminating research attrition, I usually respond to this type of inquiry with another question:

“How important is it that you find these people?”

I believe your investment should directly link to the value returned. If a 0 – 25% follow-up rate is OK with you, then you may not need to invest much in the effort. However, if you need 80% to succeed, and this factor will either make or break your project, you will need to invest time and/or money into your effort.

A few years ago I began working with a group performing follow-up research for a national collaborative project. They realized the importance of tracking their participants and invested in numerous aspects of the follow-up process, including staff time and training, while always focusing on maximum efficiency. They’ve been tracking participants for months and they still haven’t even reached the first window to do an interview.  That’s investment, and it will pay off in spades for them.

So think about the importance of follow-up in the planning stage. Know that your follow-up rate generally correlates with your investment. If you do this, you will have a clear path to achieve your goals, whatever they may be.

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Shake the Bushes

by admin on April 29, 2012

When you’re tracking participants, you may not be able to directly contact them. If you’re getting in touch with the occasional collateral contact to no avail, there is a method that may work for you – Shaking the Bushes. This involves contacting all collateral contacts within a short period of time. One of two things will happen: they will offer you help or be annoyed by your contact. Either result will benefit you because they will likely contact your participant to relay the information or express their frustration that your research project is contacting them.  Now multiply this by the number of collateral contacts, and you have a loud shakin’ going on.

Even if your participant contacts you with an attitude, your participant still contacted you. This is the ultimate goal. You can always apologize and stress that you only utilize collateral contacts when you can’t find the participant. Maybe they’ll give you a better way to directly contact them in the future.

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Quick Tip #15

by admin on April 22, 2012

Social security numbers are potent pieces of information for follow-up. There’s even a hidden value. The first three numbers signify the area where the number was produced. It’s an extra piece of history about your participant. So if your leads dry up, consider looking in their state of origin (if you haven’t already). They may have family and friends there.

 

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A Few More Thoughts About Incentives

April 8, 2012

After my last post on Freakonomics, I kept thinking about the importance of incentives. I realized that I didn’t elaborate on a crucial point. Your incentives can be disincentives. Strange, but true. Let’s take a look at the kinds of incentives again: Financial: If you barely offer any financial incentive (or none at all), your participants [...]

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The Incentive of Freakonomics

April 1, 2012

In the documentary based on the book “Freakonomics“, Steven Levitt states that if you figure out someone’s incentives, you can predict their behavior. When I present on tracking research participants, I talk about discovering the motivations of the participants and marketing to those motivations. “Incentives” refers to the same idea as “motivations.” Before someone performs [...]

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Minimize the Steps

March 26, 2012

A certain family member of mine admits to watching Dog the Bounty Hunter. Out of admiration or horror, the motive is not clear. I’m sure the show gained its popularity due to the personalities, get-ups and family dynamics. However, when I finally checked out an episode I saw a skilled tracker below the crazy shenanigans. [...]

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Quick Tip #14

March 21, 2012

Never throw away historical contact info for participants. You may think it’s useless because the participant isn’t associated with the old address or phone number anymore. However, the participant is likely linked to it in public records. This is crucial. Say you have a phone number provided by the participant years ago. You input the [...]

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So Close

March 12, 2012

  Last week I checked out a film about the troubles in Ireland entitled “Five Minutes of Heaven.” The first part of the film focuses on the media’s attempt to orchestrate a conversation between a former UVF member and the little brother of a man he murdered years ago. The media did everything right. They [...]

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The Argument for Door Knocking

February 26, 2012

Efficiency is key when performing follow-up. Your time is limited and your attrition rate hangs in the balance. Calls, emails, letters – all can be done from the comfort of your office. You need to to maximize those efforts. However, there are times when the seemingly inefficient method is your most efficient option – door [...]

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Jigsaw Puzzles

February 14, 2012

Public records databases are powerful. Basic searches produce five times more records than they did ten years ago. This is great news for any organization looking for people. However, this isn’t where the true power lies. If you know how to manipulate databases, you can produce leads that defy the naked eye. When I produce [...]

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