Archive for April 16th, 2010

We need to transform ourselves. Transparency would be a good start. Our methods have to rise to the level of acceptable standards and the only way to get there is to have them in full view. End users need to see what they are buying. In the end they will get what they pay for. If they want to move forward without looking in the rear view mirror than they have to encourage those of us who will watch their backs.
And how do we protect them from themselves? We must protect them from us. The debate must shift away from client involvement and toward a more responsible transformation by the industry itself. We must create meaningful quality standards, discourage meaningless rhetoric, and encourage truthful dialogue. Poor quality poisons us all. It rots the foundation of what we do. If we don’t move on they will move on.
The new normal must include standards for respondent engagement, an open dialogue on conditioning/attrition effects and a battery of new quality metrics. If we fail to keep score then we cannot expect to know which road to travel.
This is not the forum to detail everything that we must achieve in a short time. It would be enough to agree that if our clients must look over their shoulders while they drive than someone will get hurt. Most likely they want us to share with the vision out front, there can be no better time to set aside proprietary differences and come up with a joint vision.