A message to academics who are interested in collaborating with businesses or working for one.
A message to academics who are interested in collaborating with businesses or working for one.
I've spent the last three years working to bring social science insights to both large and small businesses. This involves conducting new research within organisations and assisting in the dissemination of current research to product managers' hearts and minds.
What did this seem to be like?
What did this seem to be like?
It seemed to include organising large conferences to bring behavioural economists and startups together, serving as a founding member of the Google Behavioral economics team, and manually connecting top researchers with businesses that might benefit from their study.
Prior to this, I led consumer research at a startup called Lytro and launched the first in-product A/B testing platform at Intuit's QuickBooks Online.
How many articles have we written as a result of our efforts? Make an educated guess. Go ahead and make a guess.
THERE IS NONE.
What was the reason for this? We came up with some fascinating experiments and hypotheses. MTurks research, Google market studies, and in-product trials with real users were all conducted by our team.
Though we would have preferred to research more (more testing is always beneficial), we can't blame businesses for being reluctant to experiment. Companies are eager to research, as demonstrated by the strong demand for tools like Optimizely and Mixpanel, as well as significant engineering investments in developing custom testing tools.
The reasons we haven't written, in my opinion, have less to do with the research concept or the methodology and more to do with fundamental issues in the relationship between social science academia and businesses.
What is the most compelling proof that the bond between business and academia is shattered?
With each new feature, companies re-invent the wheel, conducting new research without reviewing existing academic findings. Before developing a feature, when was the last time the product team requested a lit review? Either businesses dismiss social science studies as irrelevant, or they just aren't reading.
Academics aren't helping matters. They choose research topics by looking at previous papers written by others.Academic Master is a US based writing company that provides thousands of free essays to the students all over the World. If you want your essay written by a highly professional writers, then you are in a right place. We have hundreds of highly skilled writers working 24/7 to provide quality essay writing services to the students all over the World. Many conference paper presentations begin by citing holes in other people's research or by delving into the tiniest detail left unexplored in a well-studied field. There seem to be almost no partnerships with companies at the SPSP (main social psychology conference). Even in an academic field, this is very surprising.
What's on the line?
Nothing could be said about businesses. There is currently very little to lose by avoiding social science academia. They do not get any points for submitting a document. This isn't part of their work responsibilities. Furthermore, businesses are recruiting UX researchers without a Ph.D. in social science (however unethical this may be) and introducing popular goods in the market. Companies are still learning whether what they tried works or doesn't work, even if they aren't conducting interesting trials that result in core mechanism learnings. This is both rewarding and reassuring in the short term.
Academics...have a lot on the line if they continue to disregard industry's impact. The world around us is changing. We have the technological means to conduct real-world research (and I'm not referring to Mturk). To quantify social interactions, we have large and ubiquitous social networking sites. We have extremely fast test cycles. Companies are conducting experiments and receiving results in as little as a month (in some cases, as little as a day)! We now have smartphones that can collect data on real vs. self-reported social activity, location, and movement. And, perhaps most intriguingly, it's almost become standard for businesses to experiment on their customers. It's not unreasonable to predict that traditional academic research approaches will become obsolete.
This ensures that Academia bears the brunt of the responsibility.
Here are six things (social science) academia should do to strengthen its relationship with industry in a systematic way.
COMPANY INTERNSHIPS ARE REQUIRED FOR PHDS
This accomplishes two goals. It motivates you to do market-related analysis. And, rather than forcing your research agenda on them, it lets you determine the exact experiment you can pitch to the organisation that suits their roadmap.
INVEST in technology as a research tool (apps, Facebook advertising, mobile sensors). Create anything by hiring an engineer. Are you researching why and how strangers collaborate? Create an app that allows people to share an object in real time. Companies who might adopt or test your research will find it more relevant/interesting if you create more practical, quick, and scalable testing environments (and btw make yourself more desirable on the job market).
FIX THE MOST SERIOUS Issue. Experiments that do not advance the company's top goal will not be conducted. They are more concerned with the results than with the learning. We must keep in mind that studies consume resources and can jeopardise a company's reputation. You can't come up with a way to partner with an organisation at any stage. You must begin with the issue.
INCENTIVES FOR COMPANIES TO OPEN SOURCE THEIR LEARNINGS CREATE INCENTIVES FOR COMPANIES TO OPEN SOURCE THEIR Companies are experimenting at a breakneck pace, but there is little motivation for civilian marketers, researchers, or data scientists to report their results in prestigious journals. We need to provide a forum for these market researchers to share their findings in order to incentivize good methods and repeatable outcomes at businesses. This forum should take into account the limitations of field research, lower the barriers to follow-up studies, and establish new criteria for feasible and suggested methods.
SIMPLIFY your (and others') study into bite-sized pieces.
Insights into human behaviour are in high demand among product managers, advertisers, and designers. Our behaviour workbooks were recently distributed by Jawbone and One Medical, and Aetna's sales staff received our Regular Bits email. These businesses have experienced a bizarre phenomenon: their workers are clamouring for more! People are questioning the science, questioning their intuitions, and suggesting experiments. Companies may look to academia for partnerships rather than reinventing the wheel as a result of democratising the literature.
Academics HAVE COME TOGETHER. Let's say an organisation wants to collaborate with academia to conduct an experiment. How is a business supposed to track down an academic who is worried about the issue they're trying to solve? There is currently no easy way for a UX researcher at a company to recognise you unless they have extensive knowledge of the academic scene. Companies should have access to an up-to-date database of academic research agendas.
Prior to this, I led consumer research at a startup called Lytro and launched the first in-product A/B testing platform at Intuit's QuickBooks Online.
How many articles have we written as a result of our efforts? Make an educated guess. Go ahead and make a guess.
THERE IS NONE.
What was the reason for this? We came up with some fascinating experiments and hypotheses. MTurks research, Google market studies, and in-product trials with real users were all conducted by our team.
Though we would have preferred to research more (more testing is always beneficial), we can't blame businesses for being reluctant to experiment. Companies are eager to research, as demonstrated by the strong demand for tools like Optimizely and Mixpanel, as well as significant engineering investments in developing custom testing tools.
The reasons we haven't written, in my opinion, have less to do with the research concept or the methodology and more to do with fundamental issues in the relationship between social science academia and businesses.
What is the most compelling proof that the bond between business and academia is shattered?
With each new feature, companies re-invent the wheel, conducting new research without reviewing existing academic findings. Before developing a feature, when was the last time the product team requested a lit review? Either businesses dismiss social science studies as irrelevant, or they just aren't reading.
Academics aren't helping matters. They choose research topics by looking at previous papers written by others.Academic Master is a US based writing company that provides thousands of free essays to the students all over the World. If you want your essay written by a highly professional writers, then you are in a right place. We have hundreds of highly skilled writers working 24/7 to provide quality essay writing services to the students all over the World. Many conference paper presentations begin by citing holes in other people's research or by delving into the tiniest detail left unexplored in a well-studied field. There seem to be almost no partnerships with companies at the SPSP (main social psychology conference). Even in an academic field, this is very surprising.
What's on the line?
Nothing could be said about businesses. There is currently very little to lose by avoiding social science academia. They do not get any points for submitting a document. This isn't part of their work responsibilities. Furthermore, businesses are recruiting UX researchers without a Ph.D. in social science (however unethical this may be) and introducing popular goods in the market. Companies are still learning whether what they tried works or doesn't work, even if they aren't conducting interesting trials that result in core mechanism learnings. This is both rewarding and reassuring in the short term.
Academics...have a lot on the line if they continue to disregard industry's impact. The world around us is changing. We have the technological means to conduct real-world research (and I'm not referring to Mturk). To quantify social interactions, we have large and ubiquitous social networking sites. We have extremely fast test cycles. Companies are conducting experiments and receiving results in as little as a month (in some cases, as little as a day)! We now have smartphones that can collect data on real vs. self-reported social activity, location, and movement. And, perhaps most intriguingly, it's almost become standard for businesses to experiment on their customers. It's not unreasonable to predict that traditional academic research approaches will become obsolete.
This ensures that Academia bears the brunt of the responsibility.
Here are six things (social science) academia should do to strengthen its relationship with industry in a systematic way.
COMPANY INTERNSHIPS ARE REQUIRED FOR PHDS
This accomplishes two goals. It motivates you to do market-related analysis. And, rather than forcing your research agenda on them, it lets you determine the exact experiment you can pitch to the organisation that suits their roadmap.
INVEST in technology as a research tool (apps, Facebook advertising, mobile sensors). Create anything by hiring an engineer. Are you researching why and how strangers collaborate? Create an app that allows people to share an object in real time. Companies who might adopt or test your research will find it more relevant/interesting if you create more practical, quick, and scalable testing environments (and btw make yourself more desirable on the job market).
FIX THE MOST SERIOUS Issue. Experiments that do not advance the company's top goal will not be conducted. They are more concerned with the results than with the learning. We must keep in mind that studies consume resources and can jeopardise a company's reputation. You can't come up with a way to partner with an organisation at any stage. You must begin with the issue.
INCENTIVES FOR COMPANIES TO OPEN SOURCE THEIR LEARNINGS CREATE INCENTIVES FOR COMPANIES TO OPEN SOURCE THEIR Companies are experimenting at a breakneck pace, but there is little motivation for civilian marketers, researchers, or data scientists to report their results in prestigious journals. We need to provide a forum for these market researchers to share their findings in order to incentivize good methods and repeatable outcomes at businesses. This forum should take into account the limitations of field research, lower the barriers to follow-up studies, and establish new criteria for feasible and suggested methods.
SIMPLIFY your (and others') study into bite-sized pieces.
Insights into human behaviour are in high demand among product managers, advertisers, and designers. Our behaviour workbooks were recently distributed by Jawbone and One Medical, and Aetna's sales staff received our Regular Bits email. These businesses have experienced a bizarre phenomenon: their workers are clamouring for more! People are questioning the science, questioning their intuitions, and suggesting experiments. Companies may look to academia for partnerships rather than reinventing the wheel as a result of democratising the literature.
Academics HAVE COME TOGETHER. Let's say an organisation wants to collaborate with academia to conduct an experiment. How is a business supposed to track down an academic who is worried about the issue they're trying to solve? There is currently no easy way for a UX researcher at a company to recognise you unless they have extensive knowledge of the academic scene. Companies should have access to an up-to-date database of academic research agendas.
