The Difference Engine - Research + Strategy

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How EVs could disrupt the car category hierarchy

How EVs could disrupt the car category hierarchy

Hi, happy 2023! A funny thing happened over the holidays: I discovered that electric cars remind me of vodka. Several years ago I did some work testing campaigns for the vodka brand Smirnoff. In talking to vodka drinkers, we discovered the category was essentially a vertical stack, with well brands

Why work with us?

Why work with us?

We're researchers and strategists who help leaders make big decisions. That's it. That's the pitch. Our partners come to us because they have to choose a direction for their brand or business. They want to address new markets around the world, appeal to new audiences, develop new products and services,

Politics & College: Do politics play a role in how students evaluate their college choices?

Politics & College: Do politics play a role in how students evaluate their college choices?

The other day I was listening to the latest Pivot podcast — Scott Galloway said he thought it was pretty unlikely that a state’s abortion regulations would have any impact on students’ decisions about where to go to college. Here’s the quote: “I don’t think 18 year olds

Civic Trust is a (Legal) Design Problem

Civic Trust is a (Legal) Design Problem

Reflections on a Primary Election in a Small Town June 28 was a primary election day to select governor and lieutenant governor candidates in the state of New York. I am what’s called an election inspector in Suffolk County, New York, which means when you come in to your

The “New Normal” of Qualitative Research

The “New Normal” of Qualitative Research

What we found in our competitive review of the market research industry Especially over the last couple of years, when everything was about, well, coping — just getting on with it — we had sort of lost track of what was happening for the broader market research industry. We saw companies and

The Medium is the Mask-age

The Medium is the Mask-age

There won't be one way to be after the pandemic, because there was no one way to be before it - and certainly not during it. Masks are just one example. We’re in that in-between space, again, which seems to come just before a new wave of a COVID

Inclusive & Accessible Research:

Inclusive & Accessible Research:

How to Set Up Remote Interviews, Focus Groups, and Digital Diaries As we’ve written about before, we’re exploring how we can be more inclusive and accessible in conducting research. Here are some initial things for any team to consider when attempting to make research more inclusive and accessible:

Trust, Community and Your Customers

Trust, Community and Your Customers

We should probably finish learning how to do community well in web 2.0 before we take all our bad habits with us to web3. In 2009, when we first started talking to consumers using online video diaries, the platforms were set up to function a lot like early Facebook

Normalize talking to people

Normalize talking to people

We're done apologizing. Last week someone got in touch about attending the Qual360 conference in DC this spring and they were offering a discount, so I took a look. After scrolling through the program and the featured speakers, I was left wondering why on earth anyone would still be spending

We Could All Use a Little Grace

We Could All Use a Little Grace

Brief reflections on 2021, our plans for the future, and our faves from the cusp of 2022. Hi. 2021 ended for our little team with a grim flourish of grief, illness, and other forms of bad news, so we’ve all been simply trying to recover from that before we

A Representative Sample

A Representative Sample

We're trying to create the conditions for a truly representative sample in market research - want to help? The tl;dr - we’re building a qualitative research recruitment panel that is designed to be inclusive and accessible from the ground up. If you or someone you know would like

Checking our Assumptions

Checking our Assumptions

What marketers take for granted about how people make decisions; why it took the pandemic for researchers to adopt remote methods; the value of the beginner's perspective Only a day late this time (and we’ve switched to Substack, because, well, we want the option of alt-text on images, and

Why Talk About Inclusive & Accessible Research?

As you probably already know, The Difference Engine conducts qualitative research, and we’ve spent some time over the past few months discussing industry trends & patterns and analyzing our own methods for running research. In a recent conversation, we concluded that there is not much information out there about how

Look at My Face

Look at My Face

Today’s lesson: Emotional Leakage and Facial Recognition Software in Market Research There are lots of ways that facial recognition technology can be put to use; but one industry that has already demonstrated a lot of interest is the marketing business. Advertisers, market researchers have dabbled in facial recognition both

“Eliminating Groupthink”

“Eliminating Groupthink”

A note about a thing you don’t need to worry about and a technology you don’t need to use. I recently stumbled upon an article in Axios about how the $15 minimum wage is unpopular with swing voters. It suggested that President Biden might abandon including the proposal

Personas That Govern

Personas That Govern

Chuck Schumer has imaginary friends OH MY GOD DO USER RESEARCH DON’T SOLELY RELY ON PERSONAS https://t.co/g6VDC7e4hY — Dan Hon (@hondanhon) February 16, 2021 This pictured text is from a profile from 2007 in The New Yorker by Jeffrey Goldberg. Let’s just quote the thing: Schumer

Podcast Appearance

"Is there truth in advertising?" - Joseph Jaffe is not Famous

In December 2020, Farrah joined Joe Jaffe on Joseph Jaffe is not Famous to talk about the way we find truth in market research - and politics!

Before the Brief: How to do desk research

Before the Brief: How to do desk research

With a brief explanation of why you absolutely should I had such a good time explaining how to do observational research, that I thought I’d also take a moment to explain how to do secondary (a.k.a., “desk”) research. In my view, you can’t even begin to

Before the brief: Observation

The first in a limited series about what brand & communications strategists should do *before* they write a creative brief Author’s note: Yesterday I wrote a series of tweets about this, but thought it might be useful to assemble them in one short article, and address some of the feedback

The problem is the metaphor

The problem is the metaphor

To understand the conditions for more meaningful civic participation, we need to get off The Ladder. (All these beautiful drawings below were created by Vinay Kumar Mysore) When it comes to discussions about how to get those who seem to be “unengaged” more engaged with civic life, one metaphor comes

Market Research's Surveillance Problem

Market Research's Surveillance Problem

First of all, hi. It’s been a minute, and you might notice that we’re no longer meeting each other over on tinyletter. I’ve migrated to Substack. I have reasons. Hopefully it won’t make a bit of difference to your experience at all. Though probably that logo

Conference Talk

Doing it Wrong: 10 Problems with Qualitative Data

In 2015, Farrah spoke at Strata+Hadoop NYC about the perils and pitfalls of qualitative data.

Conference Talk

Knowledge as a product at The Conference

Farrah spoke at The Conference in Malmö, Sweden in 2015 about Brands as APIs. What happens when brands use, create, and become software, specifically APIs? They open up a world of collaboration, co-invention, and value creation.

Conference Talk

Startup Fest 2015: How to Make Decisions

In 2015, Farrah was invited to talk about making good decisions at Startup Fest in Montreal.

Conference Talk

What Happens to Everyone, When Everyone "Learns to Code" - RailsConf 2014

In 2014, Farrah was invited to keynote at RailsConf in Chicago, talking about how teams and organizations can be transformed if and when everyone "learns to code".