meaning: The Macer View/16

	The Macer View
	Comment and analysis from Tim Macer Number 16, May 2006

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The Macer View

Tim Macer reports from the ASC Conference: Powerpoint slammed as research results delivery device

There is an urgent need to move beyond PowerPoint, the ubiquitous but woefully inefficient delivery mechanism of research findings, onto smart and truly interactive delivery mechanisms, according to Steve Taylor of Inputech. He opened the ASC’s April conference on “Delivering results” with some research he had conducted among both commercial and public data collectors. Criticising PowerPoint for “Shoehorning results into low-resolution letterbox format” and “a total lack of cross referencing [leading to the] isolation of data”, Taylor revealed that the industry is still struggling to adopt web-based, interactive results delivery. Among the ten large research organizations, only half currently offered comprehensive web-based delivery with interactive analytics, and it featured in only around 15% of projects delivered. Looking five years ahead, the same agencies predicted this would reach 50%, yet they voiced concerns over finding the right tools to achieve this, and over data security.

The rest of the day provided seven highly illuminating and refreshingly candid illustrations from those putting interactive dissemination into practice, from software suppliers and data collectors.

On the vendor side, Askia, showed how they found they needed to completely re-engineer their AskiaVista web-based analysis package when it was selected by TNS in France as the platform to move its massive TNS Secodip SIMM consumer market indexing survey from paper to web-based delivery. The result is a fully scalable online reporting system. Another vendor solution, E-Tabs Enterprise, was presented by Ipsos MORI as having allowed the firm to slash production time and costs in preparing and distributing results - it now creates hundreds of informative, individually tailored Excel-based management summaries of data for different audiences in a few days, rather than weeks or months previously.

Jane Gentlemen, from the US National Center for Health Statistics, described how an early release program of data based on controlled subsamples, from its definitive annual survey of 100,000 individuals, has relied on electronic delivery in order to bring forward data release to the public by between 12 and 18 months. Of particular interest was the innovative style of presentation of tables and particularly charts which superimposed the differences in confidence levels and sample reliability in a way that would be clear to anyone. Another visually stunning example of user-friendly presentation of complex data came from Callum Foster, speaking for ONS. The process ONS went through in developing this using Java, scalable vector graphics and a tool called PopChart was as compelling as the results.

John Lyons from GfK and a team from Kantar Operations including Rosemary Ford offered two different agency perspectives on how e-delivery can transform the relationship between user and data. At Kantar, this had led to an explosion in the demand for data all levels and in formats they had never anticipated. For Lyons, the goal was to offer “intelligent connections between projects and purposeful access [for users]”. Yet he warned, on the technology front “There is no silver bullet for building portal systems. This is hard work. But I hope that it will become the replacement for PowerPoint.”