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Often, all researchers see when evaluating the outcome of a study are survey results. Underneath any mean, however, there are genuine responses, as well as those that were made haphazardly, without careful thought. SurveyMonkey explains the havoc these satisficers can wreak on your survey results in a previous blog post. The danger, ultimately, is that satisficers in your sample will pull your means in all sorts of directions, leaving you with unreliable data.

The image below shows this process in theory. The red line is the satisficing group and the blue line is the “true” group. The purple dotted line shows the average of the two groups. (Illustrative only, not real data.) 

The Academy Awards—the event where critically acclaimed films face off against box office hits. Every year after the winners are announced, the same question inevitably arises: are Academy voters out of touch with the movie going public?

A recent profile of the members of the Academy conducted by the Los Angeles Times, revealed that Oscar voters are 94% Caucasian and 77% male, with a median age of 62. Members of the Academy are meant to represent the most accomplished men and women working in film industry, but clearly these demographics are hugely inconsistent with the with the audiences who watch these films.

So, in the spirit of award season, we decided to let the public try its hand at voting for the Academy Awards. Last week, we revealed the results of our own Oscar survey. Using SurveyMonkey Audience to get a general population sample, we collected over 500 responses to determine winners in the major categories. In the chart below check out how our Audience respondents choices compared to the Academy’s.

The votes have been cast, the ballots have been counted, and the Academy Award goes to…

Well, you’ll have to wait until Sunday night to find out the winners, but in the meantime, we decided to make our own predictions of who will be taking home Oscar gold.

Using SurveyMonkey Audience, we collected over 500 responses from a general population sample that selected their favorites in each of the major categories.

Check out our list of winners below, which for good measure, we’ve placed along side the expert predictions from Entertainment Weekly.

Let’s say you want to ask 1,000 people that represent the US population a question – whether a particular brand of toothpaste will sell, or which car color they prefer – so you go to a panel company to buy sample for your study.

How can you be sure that your sample is of good quality, that people are responding honestly, that they are in the US, and that their responses are trustworthy enough to guide potentially expensive decisions? That’s where SurveyMonkey’s TrueSample comes in.

TrueSample is a comprehensive data quality solution – it helps make sure that the answers you get are of the highest quality by approaching the problem from all angles.

How does it do that? Let’s think about the two primary things that can affect the quality of data from interviews taken by people – the people themselves and the interview design.

Do you want to make your business better? One of the simplest ways to improve your business—and your sales—is to find out what your customers really think about your company. While it might be tough to hear about things you’re not doing well, you need to know the truth in order to make changes. The good news is, there are more ways than ever to survey your customers. Here are some ideas to get you started.

In person: If you have a business where you interact with customers, like a restaurant or retail store, surveying is as simple as talking to them and asking how you’re doing. If you regularly interact with customers, you’ll get a feel for what they like and don’t like.

Get social: You do use social media, right? Whether you’re on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, you can pose quick questions to your fans and followers as often as you like. Keep in mind this isn’t a scientific method, but it can be a good way to get a quick read on consumer sentiment.

Online surveys are a great tool to learn useful information about your customers, friends, donors, or whoever. Your survey can provide you with all sorts of insights about what you're doing well, what needs work,and what people are thinking and feeling. In order for it to do so, however, you have to make sure you create a good, methodologically sound, survey. Here at Zoomerang, we want you to have the best, most reliable survey results possible, so we put together these 3 tips for trustworthy results.

1.    Define One Objective
It’s important to be clear with yourself about the objective (yes, that’s right just one) you’re trying to accomplish by sending your survey. If you don’t even know what your goal is, it’s going to be awfully tough to accomplish it. And if your respondents don’t know what you’re really asking them because you tried to pack everything you ever wanted to know into one survey, they’re going to have a hard time telling you what you want to know. Make it easy on them. Choose one, well-defined objective.

Leaders in the research industry met in New York on January 26th to kick off the Foundations of Quality 2 (FOQ2) initiative, the most ambitious Research on Research project ever attempted. The initiative, which met at the Advertising Research Foundation, has attracted leading thinkers from all across the industry to reduce marketers’ risk in decisions made based on online survey research.

Last year, we decided to give back to 3 non-profits for their good work in our community. We created a survey and let you vote on who should win $3,000 for their charity. You all really came out strong in support of your favorite causes, but at the end of the day Phantom Regiment came out on top with 10,839 votes! Congratulations!

We had a few questions for the winners. Read what they said here:

1. First things first. What are you planning to do with the money?

Well we always have a "wish list" of items or services that we can't budget for yet. I'm going to put this money towards something on the wish list. Not sure exactly which one just yet - we have everything from a new vehicle for the organization to iPads to help our educational team. There are a few items that we could cross off the list now with this donation though. 


2. How was your experience mobilizing your followers to vote? What worked, what didn’t?

The below post was written by Dorian, a SurveyMonkey customer, for the SurveyMonkey blog. But it’s just so cute that I had to post it here too. Since Zoomerang and SurveyMonkey are part of the same team now, it seemed appropriate.

A bit of background. Dorian is a 10-year-old who co-created Zibkids, a super cool startup which teaches kids about business and even empowers them to start their own. He uses SurveyMonkey to get feedback about how kids were using ZibKids and how it could be improved.

All of this is very cool in and of itself, but there’s an extra reason I’m posting it here. For those of you in the Bay Area, Dorian will be hosting a workshop in the Innovation Lab at the Children’s Creative Museum on Saturday January 28 and Saturday February 11. Stop by to check it out and give a fellow survey-maker your support!

Now Dorian’s post:

Is it worth it?

We have a new feature out that our product guys are really excited about. It’s a simple addition, but our customers have been asking for it for some time now.

The illusive feature in question? The “Add Explain” button is one more option in your multiple-choice question toolbox. It gives you the power to ask not just what your respondents think in one easy-to-answer, multiple-choice question, but also why they think it. It does this by providing a box that asks them to do just that: explain.

Let’s just say, for example, that I want to know who your favorite Simpsons character is. I’m including answer choices other than Ned Flanders (it wouldn’t be a very good survey if I didn’t), but to me the answer is so obvious it’s hard to understand why anyone would choose otherwise.

In comes the Explain feature to the rescue. Just click the “Add Explain” button under “Question Settings,” and up pops a box that prompts them to do just that. Clearer responses are that simple.

Just select this: