Comment on Katie and Whitney's Qualitative Research Blogs

Whitney's blog discusses an article that is encouraging small businesses to conduct focus groups in order to be more successful. The article gives ways small businesses can conduct an effective focus group and use the results to help them better their business. Whitney makes a good point by stating that a focus group can be a useful research method to any kind of business--big or small. Katie's blog focuses on non-profits coming up with more innovative ideas by using more qualitative research. She mentions how a lot of non-profits conduct surveys and other kinds of quantitative research so they can have an measurable result. However some non-profits are still struggling for funding and audience awareness. Katie includes an article that says that non-profits would become more successful if they got to know their audience more. According to the article the best way to do this is through Qualitative research--a study of the consumer's thoughts, insight, behaviors, etc. Katie also agrees that this will be a great solution to a non-profit's problem. By getting to know the audience you can know what methods actually work.

In both Whitney & Katie's blog, its interesting to see how small businesses and non-profits are now starting to use more qualitative research. Both kinds of organizations have a small budget and are competing with big corporations for consumer's attention. Small businesses especially have to find new, innovative and better ways to gain consumers because they have so much competition. Non-profits don't make a profit so they have to find economical and innovative ways to provide their services.

Sports Teams use Focus Groups

Professional sports teams such as the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers have conducted focus groups over this past year to get input on making modifications on their stadiums. It is interesting to read how Qualitative research, like focus groups, can be used for not only a product or good but also a service like a sporting event.
This shows that sports teams highly rely on their fans and consumers to make a profit. So why not have their input when making a big decisions such as expanding a new stadium. The consumers are the ones who are going to be spending money to enjoy the game. The articles below prove how qualitative research has proven to be very helpful in the long run.

The article on the Minnesota Vikings, included PDF files of the Focus group questions and guidelines. The questions started off with an icebreaker, speaking about the state of Minnesota then slowly progress into talking about the Minnesota Vikings and then finally the new stadium they wanted to build.



Using both sports fans and people not interested in sports. They were surprised to find that their results were very positive, and people seemed really interested in the new stadium.

With other teams having great success in decision-making using focus groups, the Green Bay Packers are also rumored to hold their own focus group in hopes to attract the community about their new stadium.

Even a team like the New York Yankees could benefit from doing such research.

This article shows a poor marketing decision by the New York Yankees. Maybe if they would have researched more they wouldn't have problem selling tickets in their new stadium.

The Yankees recently built a new stadium that opened for the 2009 season, and although they have had many success on the field, the Yankees have not been able to sell out games like they did in the old stadium. Why? Because by building the new stadium they have put themselves in a little bit of debt. Therefore they increased ticket prices to attend games, and now a lot of fans can not afford to go. If they have done more research, the Yankees organization would've been able to make the new stadium more appealing to the wants of the fans and consumers.

Commenting on Two Students Blogs

Social Media has become such a hot topic today in the Communications/Public Relations field. Everyone from celebrities, athletes, politicians and regular private people have partaken in some social media website. No wonder researchers may use social media to find out more about a person. So many people use it and put all kinds of information about themselves on these websites. We've seen a lot of athletes and celebrities get in trouble today because of what they have posted on the web. They don't realize that although they are connecting with fans and friends, they are also connecting with paparazzi and reporters. As stated in Devon's blog, whether or not it is ethical has been a huge question in unobtrusive research. He makes a good point that it depends on the situation, but when it comes to social media and unobtrusive research, the subject can decide how much information to put out there on these websites like twitter.

Kevin's blog also touches base on the importance of social media in the Public Relations field. "Social media has become such a prevailing tool in the world of Communications that it is becoming a necessary component of education." He goes on to write about an event at the graduate school at Quinnipiac, which will hold several times throughout the year, that teaches students and professionals about the uses and the importance of Social Media.

Social Media is a huge tool in the Public Relations field as it is a easier way to find information on someone that is already public and it is also a way to reach hundreds of people with just posting information online. Both students wrote very interesting blogs about the importance of social media to us students as PR majors.

Observing Fan Behavior

After having numerous incidents involving fans at sporting events, many teams across the world of sports have taken manners in to their own hands. The NFL Code of Conduct went into effect after HBO's "Real Sports" program aired a segment that featured scenes of drunken and unruly behavior by football fans. Among the highlights: Redskins fans getting falling-down drunk in the parking lot, and a crowd of New York Jets fans at Giants Stadium chanting at women to take their tops off.
The National Basketball League instituted a code in 2005, after a fight between fans and players broke out at an Indiana Pacers-Detroit Pistons game. Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League do not have leaguewide policies, but fan behavior is discussed and monitored by the individual clubs.
Major League Soccer is known to have the rudest and loudest fans. The league has also recently enstated a fan code of conduct. These codes of conduct are rules on how to behave when attending the sports game. There are serve consequences like fines and jail time for those who don't comply.

Some professional sports teams have more security cameras to monitor incidents, they do not need consent to video tape people since they are out in a public, televised event. This is one way to unobtrusively keep an eye on fans and fan interaction. They want to see how they can create a family-friendly atmosphere. Some idea included having seats divded into section: loud, very loud, quiet, etc.
Since they can’t observe the thousands of fans at the games, they have a system where fans can do the unobtrusive observing for them.
They are urging fans, who are bothered by other fans, to send an anonymous text message to team security. The security members will stop by the seats and handle the situation. This motivates fans in a way to observe eachother. They can tell security annonymous what people are being disruptive and security can immediately remove the subject without them knowing they were being watch by other fans.


Is this TOO extreme? Well this ESPN article shows the consequences of some bad-behaving fans.
The only way to research and know what is going on at big games is unobtrusively, without the fans knowing. You want them to enjoy the game and not worry about being hurt at a game. The team has to observe and study the behavior of fans to avoid someone getting serverly hurt.