Last Blog of the Semester: 2 Classmates

When we first got this assignment to start a blog all I remember saying to myself, is you’ve got to be kidding me, but at the end of it I am sort of sad that this is our last one because I really enjoyed doing this every week.  This last blog post of the semester is to comment about two of my classmate’s blogs that had to do with experimental research. 

The first person’s blog that I will take a look at would have to be Britney’s.  The main topic of Britney’s blog is media snapshot and last week she talked about Flash Mobs.  When I first saw Flash Mobs as the head of her blog post, I had no clue what she was talking about so I had to read on.  In the blog she gives a definition of what a Flash Mob is but then right under that she says that Oprah has even used a Flash Mob for her 24^th season of her show.  According to Britney, a Flash Mob is when a group of hundreds of thousands of people perform a pointless act for a brief time for really no reason.  Her post explains how the flash mob was originally used as a social network experiment.  The point of the entire thing was to see how many people would partake in this type of thing because people are always looking for new things to do. 

The next person that I would like to comment on is Francesca’s blog which has to do with celebrities and social networking.  I liked this post because I am constantly on facebook and twitter reading and commenting on the things people do.  I know its a little lame but hey, everyone does it even if they say they don’t.  It is so true what Francesca says that public relations people always use social networking and that it is a vital asset to their career because it can get their word out but they can also look up and see what other people are up to in the industry.  The experiment that she found on the web could really help different public relations firms to find out whom and how they want to target specific people and places.      

Experimental Research in the NHL

This week in class we talked about experimental research which is a type of quantitative research.  When conducting an experimental research procedure there are two groups.  One group is the experimental group and the other group is the control group.  Together they are both either asked the same questions or take part in the same experiment except with the experimental group there is normally one thing added to what they have to do or even read.  For example, in class we were given a survey that we answered about investor relations.  After we took that survey we received something that we had to read except we did not know that there were two different pages handed out.  One explanation of investor relations was longer than the other.  In the end the group that had the longer thing to read was the experimental group while the group with the shorter reading was the control group.  Normally the reason for doing this is to see if the same answers are produced through taking the survey again.

Experimental research is often done in the National Hockey League.  For some time now, the rules for hockey have been under research in order to keep the league going and for its survival.  I have written about this topic once before but found other articles about the experiment.  The article mentions how the NHL is probably the most research-friendly amongst all the professional team sports leagues in North America because it wants to make the game more exciting when it comes to the rules of the game.  At the Maple Leaf’s practice facility in August, some of the top junior players were asked to take part in the rule changing experiment.  The experiments consist of changing the amount of people on the ice to a two on two overtime, to a shallower net and lastly to having the second referee view the plays from an off-ice monitor.  The young boys were split up where they played the old way and then the new way.  The article says that instead of making iPad apps like the NFL and the MLB, the NHL is looking to change the game in order to keep the fans and to bring something new to the table.  Towards the end of the article, the Vice-President Brendan Shanahan listens to the scientists when they say that a “negative” outcome could be better than a “positive” outcome because the league will then be able to fix what needs to be fixed. 

As you can see, experimental research helped out the NHL not only with a potential rule change but it also brought the attention of fans to the league.  This was another thing that the researchers were hoping for.  The article also points out, that out of four professional leagues in North America, the NHL is the fourth and they would love to try to make at least a little higher in the rankings.    

Survey's in the NHL

This week’s blog post is about Survey Research.  As we talked about in class, surveys are one of the most popular forms of quantitative research.  The reasons that surveys are most popular is because they are cheap, you can get your responses right away, you  can ask specific questions and receive specific answers and you can also use respondents from any place you want.  When making a questionnaire, you have to make sure you start with general questions and then get into the specific ones.

Surveys are used in every field of Public Relations which made it easy for me to find an article about surveys being done in the NHL.  The Angus Reid Public Opinion company conducted a survey questioning if the Canadians would welcome new NHL team but not with Federal money.  In Vancouver, many Canadians would love to see another hockey team come to their country except they do not think that the federal government should pay to relocate an existing team.  The Angus Reid Public Opinion conducted an online survey with about four questions that had a sample size of 1,009 Canadian adults.   62 percent of the people think that it would be a great idea to bring in another NHL team Winnipeg and a smaller portion of 57 percent think it would be great to bring an NHL team to Quebec City.  Of course it was seen that the Canadians that call themselves “hockey fans” are clearly more supportive of having a new hockey team whether it is in Winnipeg or Quebec City.

The fact that surveys are so easy to conduct, it must make some peoples jobs so much easier especially when they want a fast answer.  Without having survey’s, we probably wouldn’t have some of the answers that we have today unless the researchers did a type of research that was much more time consuming like focus groups or face-to-face interviews. 

Qualitative Research and Two of My Classmates

This week’s blog post is to once again comment on two of my classmates blogs.  I have never thought about looking into non-profit public relations before until I started to look at open classes for me to take in the spring.  When looking at Sacha’s blog, I see that the point of her blog is in fact non-profit public relations.  Sacha talks about how nonprofits rely on research in order to help them see who is donating what and why the people are donating to the cause or company.  She was able to find an article that was about nonprofits and how they do research but not for themselves but they really do it for the community so that they can see what is going on.  Sacha sees that nonprofit public relations do not really understand or know how to conduct research and that if they did, it would be able to help them in the long run.

Another classmate that I wanted to comment about was Meagan’s blog which is about qualitative research for the Quinnipiac Women’s Soccer team.  Meagan talks about how she never knew that the women’s soccer team was under observation during one or even most of her games.  She mentions that one of their trainers works for Yale University and that he conducts many different types of observation with the girls.  At first she says, none of us knew we were being studied until he finally told them.  One type of observation that he used was surveying.  He surveyed the girls to see how healthy they were eating and to see if that had any effect on them as they played in their games.  At the end, the whole purpose of his study was to see if by being away of what the girls were eating and doing would improve them as a player. 

Qualitative Research in the NHL

This week’s blog post is about qualitative research.  As we learned in class and through the text book, qualitative research tires to describe things, like meanings, comprehension, and processes.  A qualitative study is often done through personal interviews, in-depth interviews, panels, focus groups, field studies and similar research methods.  When a qualitative research study is being done, people are often asked to respond to general questions that later on, the researcher will formulate those answers into additional questions to get a better understanding of what the person means and to figure out the respondent’s feelings, interpretations and responses.

It wasn’t hard for me to find an article about qualitative research with in the national hockey league.  For those who don’t know, the Ducks formally the Mighty Ducks are from Anaheim California.  A couple of years ago the Mighty Ducks organization did not know if they should keep the Mighty or get rid of it and just be the Ducks.  After Samueli and his wife Susan bought the team, they decided that in years to come there would be some changed made to the team, one being the name.  After interviewing some season ticket holders, as well as a few of the teams players, they decided to take away the “Mighty.”  It was said that everyone was alright with the change of the name because it was not changed completely.  A quote in the article says that qualitative and a formal use of quantitative research was used in this decision. 

Another article that I found has to do with the NHL and Sling Media Inc.  Together, the league and the company have come together where Slingbox owners can record their favorite hockey moments on Slings’ website.  People that have SlingPlayer software are able to share their favorite clips with family and friends.  Even though someone has to have an account in order to view the clips, the company will organize the clips according to the different teams to see who is watching the clips and where they are from.  Also, the NHL will post its own content on the website as well.  The article says that this study will last one summer to see the outcome.  By being on this website, the league is the first one to be on this website and they are excited to give their viewers this service.

These two site’s really show how research is performed in the NHL.  Although, the research conducted was for two different reasons, one can still see that there are ways to conduct research in any area of an organization.

2 Responses to Unobtrusive Research

This week’s blog post is to comment on two of my classmates blogs from last week about unobtrusive research.  It seems to me that people could be using unobtrusive research without even knowing that they are.  This is what Charlie realized once he knew what unobtrusive research was.  In his blog post from last week, Charlie talks about his internship and how he used these types of research on a day to day basis.  Charlie explains that he used historical and legal research as well as content analysis in order to find government representatives that support regenerative medicine and stem cell research.   Mainly he used historical research because he had to look up data that was already processed, analyze it and report to the managers with what he found.

In another one of my classmate’s blogs, unobtrusive research was done at ballparks concession stands.  Andrew found an article that talks about how Sports Illustrated conducted unobtrusive research at all Major League ballparks.  Throughout the country, the article gives specific foods that are most common as well as how much the product is and how many calories the product is.  Actually when reading this article, I thought to myself, “how gross is this? The Northside Twist at a Chicago ball park is 1480 calories!  What are people thinking?”  Now not everything at the ballparks are this fattening but actually seeing how much a pretzel with some sauces is in calories is mind blowing!  As Andrew mentions, unobtrusive research is not always that reliable but it does help out with finding answers in a fast and easy way.

Unobtrusive Research and Hockey

As we talked in class, unobtrusive research is when one performs research without the outcome being affected.  This is an easy way for researchers to observe ever day behavior without having to pay for the research or even having the hassle of interviewing consumers.  Unobtrusive research forces the things being studied to act normal because they do not know someone is intruding in their everyday behavior.  Unobtrusive research often uses secondary research in order to figure out if what they studied actually does occur or even if they just want to get more information about the product. 

When looking through the web I was able to find an article that talks about how West Chester University did a study about players from the Heat, who is currently working with the Philadelphia Flyers.  The article talks about how they studied the core temperatures and sweat rate of the players once they were done on the ice.  The way that they got the idea for this is by looking at what they do for the professional football players.  This is the first time that they are doing this for professional hockey players but when talking about secondary research, they are using what they know about the football players to use towards the hockey players.  If the company did not perform this research first for the football players, than they would have no idea how to do this for the hockey guys.

Without unobtrusive research, we would not know some of the things that we know now.  It is an easy and cheap way to get answers and outcomes that researchers want.  Like I said before unobtrusive research is just another form of secondary research where we can use information that we already know and apply to it what we are observing.