Esomar, the world association for market and opinion research, is holding its annual congress in Montréal between September, 22nd and 24th.
The 2008 Congress is all about Frontiers, in social sciences, in marketing and communication, in research. I will be pleased to take the stage during the "frontiers in technology" session to speak about "social graph theories as an alternative to traditional sampling methods" – although, to be fair, social graph approaches to market and opinion research rather constitute valuable additions to the traditional methodological landscape, especially when it comes to the social web.
The abstract is as follows: “Has the monopoly of traditional population segmentation criteria and sampling methods come to an end? Can demographics (employment, age, sex, ethnicity, etc) or behavioural (consumption and cultural habits) criteria be replaced by new “community membership” criteria? Has the “one voice – one vote” principle long lived for market and opinion research? Guilhem Fouetillou and Anthony Hamelle of linkfluence, a social web research institute, will offer creative and sometimes iconoclast perspectives on these issues. Basing themselves on social graph theories, they will share their insight on the importance of links, how they reveal the existence of true opinion communities, how they help single out opinion leaders and what this all means for the research industry.”
anham
