My grandfather-in-law, who lives in England, recently turned 100. I was very excited for him, greatly anticipating the obligatory telegram from the Queen.

“No”, my father-in-law said. “We have to write to them to request one.”

WHAT?!

My local video store knows my date of birth, along with my local pharmacist, my local library, my hairdresser, my beautician and just about all the major retailers with whom I have a loyalty card. But the Queen’s Anniversaries Office, can’t find out when I turn 100? I thought digital technology was making it easier to find out such information!

OK. So we get over that hurdle and request a telegram.

“No”, my father-in-law said. “He got a birthday card.”

A BIRTHDAY CARD?!

I was disappointed. It’s not the quaint, old fashioned telegram that I was expecting and I’d never seen a real telegram before so I was looking forward to checking out this traditional form of communication. But neither was it a new and innovative way to send your wishes like a tweet or a Facebook message (don’t you just love it when your Facebook page gets filled with birthday messages? – but I digress). No, it’s somewhere in that grey area of being almost – dare I say it – common.

I wonder if when it’s my time to turn 100, I’ll be receiving a tweet from King William? Or perhaps that will be considered too “quaint”, “old fashioned”, “traditional” or “common” by then. I can just hear my daughter now…. “Oh Mum, tweeting is so yesterday!”

It’s incredible to think so much has changed over the past three years. As Charleni Li points out in her recent blog Groundswell Paperback: A Look Back Three Years Later, it was only back in May 2008 that Facebook and Twitter were still emerging trends. Even more incredible, the iPhone had no apps! Can any of us now imagine a world without our iPhone, without Facebook or without Twitter? I know I can’t!

And marketers and researchers alike are embracing these technologies to reach their different audiences.

This then led to me on to a bit of a tangent, wondering whether MROCs (market research online communities) or insight communities have yet fully ‘emerged’. It seems the world of marketing research may be lagging a little?  There are still many who are wedded to the idea of focus groups sufficing for all qualitative research.  Which continues to amaze me, because once the richness, depth of information and honesty online research community members reveal, there’s really no going back.

News.com.au has launched a visual map, Cabinet Confidential, which charts the political relationships within the Labor government. Interactive journalism at its best, this venture captures a wider audience – one that may not be partial to reading long political articles. Essentially, it’s a snapshot of major players, positions held, and powers of “Labor’s top ranks”.

Digital has made data visualisation progressively more interactive. In the NewMR’s ‘New approaches to presenting data’ webinar, Peter Harris introduced a range of data visualisation tools that allow researchers to take advantage of the digital sphere. Gradually, these tools will become commonplace for information industries, where the ‘entertainment factor’ in presenting data will deliver the highest impact.

News.com.au’s editor, Paul Colgan initiated the Cabinet Confidential project saying, “One of the things that the news media rightly gets accused of is not harnessing new technology enough to improve storytelling”. Are there lessons here for market research?

A few days ago I was leaving a meeting with my boss. We were in dire need of petrol. No problem I announced, iPhone to the rescue! Perfect scenario for the smart phone: in an area of town I didn’t know very well, no idea where the closest petrol station might be, not near any obvious main roads or shops. So off we set, blue dot blinking happily on the screen indicating our current location, with a choice of dots indicating petrol stations. Too easy!

Or so you would think.

To cut a long story short, we did find a petrol station before the car started coughing and spluttering, but just barely. It was a good 20 minute drive from where we started. Completely missing the petrol station that was a mere 30 seconds drive away.

New technology is a splendid thing, offering us easier ways to get around, easier ways to keep in contact, etc. You no doubt know all of this. So what happened??

It seems that the lovely comforting blue dot was just slightly off. Only a few metres mind you. But this meant that we turned left instead of right. And we drove for a ridiculously long period of time in the wrong direction before realising that the petrol station dot was not getting any closer.

Sounds like one of those stories where people drive into a swimming pool because their sat nav told them to, right?

I’ve always laughed at those stories in a smug superior sort of way, thinking ‘idiots’. Ahem, it appears I have now joined their ranks! It was not just my reliance in technology and not just my trust in the technology that steered us wrong. It was the fact that I abandoned my common sense along with it. If I had actually taken a minute to look around at the actual road and surroundings rather than the blue dot, the mistake would have been obvious much earlier on.

So why is this relevant in a blog about research? This incident got me thinking. Partly because I keep getting teased about it… ;)

But seriously. We embrace lots of new technologies and new techniques in our research. Because of the multitude of benefits that they offer us and our clients. But this has inherent dangers. The danger of relying on the technology in the absence of common sense and abandoning ‘old school’ ways of doing things just because they have been around for a while. To remember that sometimes a pen and paper questionnaire is actually the best way of doing something. To look up from the blue dot and think ‘does this actually make sense’? To notice the real world and not just the virtual. To remember that new techniques and new technologies are great. But should be an addition to our repertoire, not necessarily a replacement for other ways of doing things.

Basically, I will be reminding myself not to blindly drive headlong into the research swimming pool.

Since April Fool’s day has just gone, I wonder how many of you fell victim to a hoax in the online world? I know I did.

My friend, Donna, is on Facebook and has about 500 friends. She has been with her partner for about 23 years, so it was a bit of a surprise when she suddenly changed her status to “single”. I flicked her an email asking her if she was OK and what was going on….. not a thing as it turns out!

She did it as an April Fool’s joke. When she turned her mobile and computer back on about 24 hours later, she had about 20 text messages and 100 email messages, not to mention all the Facebook threads! Surprisingly, only about 1 or 2 people picked up that this could have been a hoax (admittedly I was not one of them!).

But it amazed me at how widespread her April Fool’s prank actually was. With 500 friends, that’s a lot of simultaneous pranking. Usually, you’re restricted to just one or two friends on whom you’re playing your joke. I guess social media has changed all that.

Of course, the BBC still goes down in history as pulling the greatest April Fool’s joke of all time. I wasn’t even born when this prank was pulled, but I still know about it (thanks once again to the web). The Spaghetti Tree Hoax was a 3 minute broadcast by the BBC on April Fool’s Day in 1957, on their popular current affairs program Panorama. Being a reputable program, many people fell for the story that spaghetti grows on trees and that this year was shaping up to be a bumper harvest. Many people called the BBC to ask where they could get a spaghetti tree from. If you want to watch the original broadcast, click here

Now that really was pranking on a mass scale (about 8 million households). But it took a major corporation to have the resources to do it. With social media, anyone can pull a hoax on a mass scale (people like my friend Donna). But with many of the pitfalls associated with social media the real question is, do you really want to?

And the best April Fool’s prank for 2011? It would have to be Ikea’s Hundstol Highchair. At $59, you can set a place for your dog at the table because “not only is the dog a part of the family, they are like a trial run for kids”.

Remember the movie called Six Degrees of Separation starring Stockard Channing (you know Rizzo from Grease?). O.K. so I’m showing my age now. It also starred a young Will Smith and Donald Sutherland, but enough of that! I had the pleasure of recently reading the script of the play upon which the movie is based. It was written by John Guare in 1990 and it raised this fantastic concept that we are separated at most by only six other people from every other person on this planet. The line itself is said by one of the main characters in the play, Ouisa, and she says…..

“I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet. The President of the United States. A gondolier in Venice. Fill in the names. I find that A) tremendously comforting we’re so close and B) like Chinese water torture that we’re so close. Because you have to find the right six people to make the connection. It’s not just big names. It’s anyone. A native in a rainforest. A Tierra del Fuegan. An Eskimo. I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people. It’s a profound thought.”

You can watch the movie trailer where this line is repeated (more or less) or find out more about the history of the theory which apparently came from Nobel Peace Prize winner Guglielmo Marconi who attempted to find out the number of radio relays he would need to cover the earth.
Either way, it sure is a profound thought. There was even a game that someone dreamed up called “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” game…… you had to figure out how you were connected to the movie actor, Kevin Bacon (again, it’s an age thing).

But that was back in 1990 (or ’93 for the movie). It’s now 2011 and with social media being the “connection mecca” that it is, I started to wonder how many degrees of separation there are now between me and every other person on this planet. Surely it has to be less than 6……. 4?……. 3?…… who knows? And is it still comforting that we’re now even closer or is it even more torturous because we’re so close. Am I really that bothered about not being connected to an Eskimo or a gondolier in Venice or even Kevin Bacon? I have to admit that I like using Facebook and LinkedIn as a way of connecting with people I might not otherwise have had the chance to. But there are also times when people have tried to connect with me and I’ve thought “I wish it hadn’t been quite so easy for them to find me!” So maybe it’s not about how many degrees of separation there are but how quickly we now can make those connections. Finding “the right six people” (as Ouisa put it) is easier and faster than it’s ever been.

Perhaps John Guare needs to write a sequel to this much loved play and movie to bring it into the 21st century. If he did, what do you think the title of the play would be today? Would it be “Three Degrees of Separation” or would it be “Six Degrees of Separation at the Speed of Light”? Or perhaps you’ve got a better idea?

A first for Australian television, Channel 7’s live coverage of Cyclone Yasi via Skype kept the station ahead of the pack. Whilst other networks were travelling with the customary camera crew, Grant Denyer (Sunrise) lightened his load, by reporting live with an iPhone, Skype and a handheld camera.

In the information age, breaking news has fallen into the hands of bloggers, tweeters and basically anyone with a social media account.  Journalists have to compete as much with ‘citizen journalists’ as those in their own profession. Our thirst for immediacy has gravitated us towards digital news consumption and many are predicting the death of the newspaper.

Nevertheless, Channel 7’s approach illustrates how an industry can adapt with the new to continue delivering to their audiences.  A game changer, it won’t be surprising if we see a lot more of this on our screens in future.

I think it only fitting that in honour of Australia Day, we take a moment to look at 2010’s top 10 most trusted brands.

How are brands related to Australia Day? Well, when Brand Asset Consulting released the results for the top 10 most trusted brands as rated by Australians, 9 of those 10 were overseas brands.

And 9 of those 10 most trusted brands were also technology brands.

BUT! The number 10 most trusted brand, was bizarrely and brilliantly, VEGEMITE!

Gotta love that. And yes, I know it’s now officially a Kraft brand, but I think that still counts.

What is it about Vegemite that has it up here with these other brands? It’s clearly a very different brand in terms of a product, so is this indicative of Australian’s nostalgia for the past? Particularly in the light of all things new and techy?

While immersing ourselves thoroughly in technology, social media and the internet, does Vegemite keep us grounded?

Or perhaps what it is saying is that we are now so comfortable with technology and it’s providers that it has become as entrenched in our day to day lives as a slice of Vegemite toast for breakfast?

Definitely food for thought. ;)

So to my fellow lovers of all things Vegemitey, I salute you. And here’s hoping that more Aussie brands make it into next years top 10 list!

Here is the full list of Brand Asset Consulting’s top 10 most trusted brands:

1. Google (search engine)
2. Microsoft
3. Google (portal)
4. Microsoft (office)
5. Nokia
6. Sony
7. Apple
8. eBay
9. Apple iPhone
10. Vegemite