Not quite on topic, but a plea for help!

[LivKarin]

Dear PDA street forums participants.

I am a PhD student at The Norwegian School of Management (BI) in Norway. Currently we are conducting a research study trying to build knowledge about how we, as consumers, are sharing our experience as customers of products or services in discussion forum such as this one. The data collected through this survey will form the basis for my PhD dissertation. I find the discussions in this forum very interesting, and invite you to participate in the study on the link below. Answering the survey will take approximately 10 minutes of your time.

http://www.questback.com/NorwegianSchoolofManagementBI/WOM/

To those of you that take this posting offensive, I apologize.

Many thanks to those of you who take the trouble and help me in my PhD work.

All comments, positive or negative, are welcomed, but please mail me directly (liv.karin.slattebrekk@bi.no) so we don't spam this forum unnecessary.

Best regards, Liv Karin Slåttebrekk
PhD Student, Department of Marketing, NSM BI

[Moose Man]

The great thing about discussion forums is that they can be helpful to others in need, informative to those contemplating purchasing and generally entertaining.

Also, you can peruse anonymously and you can then log in and comment if you so decide. You also have the freedom of choice in how you respond or not.

With the above said:

LivKarin's post was polite, requested assistance and apologized upfront if there was any offense taken.

I chose to take the poll in the hope that perhaps some good will come out of it. I could have easily choosen to ignore it and let it slide.

I beleive that if a person is perusing this board and asks for help in a polite manner regardless of topic - then I will endeavor to assist - if I believe I have something to contribute. What better place to "poll" a discussion about "discussion forums"?

LivKarin - as far as this Moose is concerned - you may visit anytime and request assistance again - we may not choose to help - since that is our option.

IQUE FORUM NOTE - I posted this over at the T3 forum as well after some comments were made. :)

[reinbeau]

I answered the survey, too. I thought it was interesting, to see where the questions were going. I've been on lists long enough to know that things wander a bit off-topic once in awhile, but the world continues to spin
:)

[Curious Cat]

I have a very simple way of looking at these things; if the posts have nothing to do with selling something then I see no problems with it and will help when I can. If they are selling something unsolicited (without a request) then either give them hell or ignore them. I don’t believe in taking polls simply to help some corporation sell more products but this request seems to be innocent. OTOH, if I was a smart corporation and wanted to gather this type of information this would be a good way to go about it, in disguise…

[Skata]

Originally posted by Curious Cat
...OTOH, if I was a smart corporation and wanted to gather this type of information this would be a good way to go about it, in disguise…

That would make you more of a Cynical Cat than curious, Cat.:rolleyes:

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by Skata
That would make you more of a Cynical Cat than curious, Cat.:rolleyes:

Yes that curious cat who’s not a cynical cat often becomes that infamous dead cat.:)

[jonasolof]

There is no reason to doubt that the request is with the intention of academical pursuit. But having seen the questions,, I think it is a pity that the author, or her professor, seems to have made up the questionnaire before having studied forum and newsgroup (sub)culture. There is much more to these activities than only relating to the parent company of the product. It is also a lot about expanding the ways the product can be used. Examples could be Planetarium, russian maps, tide informtion. Also, the extensive bug-hunting and clarification of shortcomings known or unknown to the manufacturer.

This could have been an interesting study of why people like Anders, me and Moose make 3500 (together) posts in a couple of months incl. what that implies as regards time spent and why it is that this product has the lead in the number of posts for a single product on the pdastreet forum. Instead it risks to be a dull survey of customer satisfaction/frustration. That is not academical. The forum/newsgroup phenomen is much more interesting than that. But then it has to be studied as a phenomenon in its own right and not just as a reflection of corporate activities. As the GNU and LInux projects and countless others show, there is a great deal going on that does not relate to corporate activities, rather the contrary.

I mailed the nowegian author and tipped her of alt.celullar.ericsson and alt.cellular.nokia also. She first posted on sci.geo.satellite-nav. I also asked what the research hypothesis for the dissertation is. She answered that she wanted to study what effect the web communication had on the relations to producers and distributors and how this affects the propensity (?) to buy. At a later stage she would try to link this with corporate results.... Hohum boring. That's the thing Coca Cola and McDonald's would ask for. Why should we consumers help with that?

BTW, the work is done at the "institute for marketing research". So it is as close to a corporate survey as you can come. Cynical Cat, I jump over to join you.

[Curious Cat]

Jonas,

A researched answer always trumps an educated guess. Good job!

[Moose Man]

Originally posted by jonasolof

This could have been an interesting study of why people like Anders, me and Moose make 3500 (together) posts in a couple of months incl. what that implies as regards time spent and why it is that this product has the lead in the number of posts for a single product on the pdastreet forum. Instead it risks to be a dull survey of customer satisfaction/frustration. That is not academical. The forum/newsgroup phenomen is much more interesting than that. But then it has to be studied as a phenomenon in its own right and not just as a reflection of corporate activities. As the GNU and LInux projects and countless others show, there is a great deal going on that does not relate to corporate activities, rather the contrary.


This is scary because I actually concur with this point of view. I believe the request to be valid but at the same time it was very "boring" in its content and questions........

so to the pyschos on this board I pose this question: Why do Anders, Jonas and I have 3500 posts? ;)


EDIT: The post count is over 3,800 combined.

[Curious Cat]

Originally posted by Moose Man

so to the pyschos on this board I pose this question: Why do Anders, Jonas and I have 3500 posts? ;)

I don't know the answer but you could always post this question, uninvited of course, to every forum you can think of in the form of a survey....:D

[Moose Man]

Originally posted by Curious Cat
I don't know the answer but you could always post this question, uninvited of course, to every forum you can think of in the form of a survey....:D

The term "psycho" was meant to prevent anyone from "quoting" but since you did - you must be. :D LOL

[LivKarin]

To all of you who have commented on my survey!

First of all - thank you!!!!!
Second - Jonas, you are right, there are many issues concerning forums like this one, that are more fun, interesting and inspiring to look at than what we do in this survey. As you said in your mail, this is a world most women don't even know exist!

However, one drawback with academia is the fact that we are always lagging at least one step behind the "real world". This survey is an attempt to test a model that was built after reading 1000's of discussion group postings within several different forums. The model is trying to capture the content of what we call "e-word of mouth" - discussions about products/companies on the internet.

As for the research question of my PhD thesis you might just have inspired me to change the direction!!! If you can't adventure new ground as a student, then when?

best regards Liv Karin

[IAUDI]

No disrespect to Livkarin, but, IMHO academia can be many steps behind. Many professions require licenses and classes to get them. Many of these classes are not based on realty but "ideal conditions." For me, a thesis was the closest thing to realty in school. So, I say to you, Livkarin, dig deep and be flexible in your search for wisdom and good luck.