David Schneer

How Many Interviews Do We Need to Do?

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By David M. Schneer, Ph.D./CEO

4-Minute Read

We’ve been asked that question so many times that I was compelled to write about it.

The real answer is, “it depends.”

But “it depends” to our clients is as useful as a sliding glass door in a submarine. We must give them an answer.

So, here are the variables we consider when providing a research approach plus insights gleaned from a dynamic discussion paper written by The National Centre for Research Methods. The report was written to help guide graduate students on the number of qualitative interviews they would need to do for a dissertation.

This report included the opinions of 19 academic research experts. A good number of them also concluded that “it depends.” But they also raised some excellent points to consider.

For Academia

The paper indicated that the number of qualitative interviews in academia hovers between 20 and 60 interviews with 30 being the average. Still, others indicated 20 for an M.A. thesis and 50 for a Ph.D. dissertation.

For Market Research

But what about applied consumer or B2B qualitative research? Here are some variables to consider when determining the actual number:

  1. Research objectives. See below.
  2. The complexity of the topic. For example, if you’re trying to understand how the process of photosynthesis works in trees, you don’t need to talk to a hundred trees. You can talk to a handful of trees and understand this process, even though the process can differ from tree to tree.
  3. The size of your population/interview pool. I once conducted a focus group among supercomputer users and at the time there may have been a total of 20-30 users of such equipment in the US. But we were able to recruit 6 scientists in Southern California for one focus group.
  4. Theoretical Data Saturation, meaning that new interviews no longer provide substantially different information or insights. [1] That is, if you continue to talk to a certain number of similar people, you are likely to begin to hear the same thing.
  5. Cost.
  6. Timing.
  7. Homogeneity of your sample.

To us, homogeneity is key.

To illustrate, here’s a simple example. Let’s suppose your client wants to market to people named Karen. Yes, we know. Karen’s are extremely difficult, but then this is why the client wants to interview them.

Ideally, you could talk to 20 or 30 Karens, but is that too much? The question then becomes how many Karens do you need to talk to before you start to experience theoretical data saturation?

Here’s what we think, and it is backed up by the research and our experience. If you talk to 12 Karens there is a pretty good chance that Karens 13-20 or even 30 will begin to say the same thing, as we have discussed earlier. So, in this example, 12 Karen’s would suffice and 30 is likely too much, wasting the client’s budget, time, and money.

But now suppose the client wants to also market to Bobs. Now the sample becomes heterogeneous, and tradeoffs need to be made.

If the client has budget for 30, the problem can be easily solved by conducting 24 total interviews, 12 Karens and 12 Bobs.

But what if the client has budget and timing for only 12 interviews?

You can likely get away with six interviews among Karens and six among Bobs, but you may not get to theoretical data saturation or even begin to see patterns develop. But it may be better than no investigation at all.

Often, we will conduct a small pilot interview of three to five interviews and determine if more are warranted based on early results.

But remember, qualitative research is based on depth of information and not statistical reliability or predictability.

Let us help you determine the optimal number of qualitative interviews you need.

Ruh-Roh!

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Are Your Product Introductions Based on a Shaggy Strategy?

By David M. Schneer, Ph.D./CEO

4-Minute Read

What’s a Shaggy Strategy You Ask? Well, just ask Shaggy’s best friend, Scooby Doo, a massive Great Dane.

His buddy is Shaggy Rogers, and he’s a bit of a fraidy cat. He eats constantly—especially biscuits known as “Scooby Snacks” and gets himself in all sorts of scary trouble. While he’s quite the loafer and does nothing for his food, occasionally, despite his trepidation, he prevails.”Zoinks!” Mostly, however, he is unreliable.

Let’s put it this way: Shaggy would not make a good CMO.

And as the age-old adage goes, you can pay now or pay later (Shaggy).

Pay Now (Proactive—Not Shaggy)

Some of our clients have R&D pipelines with projects to fund. They can’t fund them all, so they turn to companies like ours to help them determine feasibility. That is, will this dog hunt?

Let’s put this into perspective. If your total product introduction cost is less than a hundred thousand dollars, it makes no sense to earmark one to five percent of your overall product budget for research.

But suppose your new product introduction is going to cost you millions of dollars to design, tool, manufacture, market, and sell. The cost of a wrong decision increases without data. Perhaps earmarking between one and five percent helps to ensure a smooth debut. Think of it as insurance for a decision with high-risk exposure.

The benefits of paying now for research include, but are not limited to:

  1. Identify, analyze, and understand your customers, prospects, and stakeholders.
  2. Identify naturally occurring segments in your customer base.
  3. Determine Pricing Strategies.
  4. Differentiate your company from the competition. This helps you craft positioning strategies and the channels best suited for your messages.
  5. Prevents the launch of a product that is searching for a problem to solve.
  6. Solicit product improvement advice directly from customers.
  7. Help with forecasting.
  8. Identify effective distribution channel strategies.
  9. Identify unseen pitfalls such as regulatory or compliance obligations.
  10. Help determine where to invest in improving product performance, communications, and adoption resulting in better ROI.

Pay Later! (Reactive—Shaggy)

But if you don’t do anything, you’ve just magnified your risk. Here’s how.

  1. You develop a product that does not solve any market needs.
  2. You squander valuable time, capital, and employee resources making decisions in the dark.
  3. You leave yourself vulnerable to competitive activities without market feedback.
  4. You create strategic communications (advertising, positioning, branding, logs, etc.) that do not resonate with a target audience that you don’t understand.
  5. You miss market signals that make it difficult to steer through risk.
  6. You lose potential concepts for innovation, thereby stifling your R&D.
  7. You shorten your product’s life cycle without adequate market feedback.
  8. You risk alienating your customers and stoking dissatisfaction, leading to decreased demand.

While Shaggy is eating, lying around and generally being useless, your new product development effort just got a whole lot more expensive with a reactive Shaggy intro.

Let us help you with your next product introduction.

By the Father and the Son

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How Listening with My Eyes Led to A Serendipitous Reunion with My Son.

By David M. Schneer, Ph.D./CEO

6-Minute Read

I am a behavioral scientist; I get paid to observe how people act and try to understand their motivations.

I am also a father, and, until very recently, a poor listener. Let me explain.

The father-son relationship is often complicated and conflicted. This narrative is as old as the Bible. Of course, Christian theism is grounded on the importance of the Trinity—The Triune Godhead of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

But a deeper look reveals that the words “father(*)” and “son(*)” appear in the Bible together 886 times, 761 times in the Old Testament and 125 times in the New Testament. The graph of the appearance of the words looks like this:

The graph itself looks conflicted. The juxtaposition of these two words often describes conflict, but not always. Some of the more notable father-son conflicts include, but are not limited to, The Prodigal son in Luke 15:11-32; King David and his son Absalom in 2 Samuel 15-18; Jacob and sons in Genesis 37. And there are more examples.[1]

The Quran also mentions father-son conflicts in Surah Al-Ankabut (29:8; obey your father) and Al-Luqman (31:14; be good to your parents).[2]

So it is in the secular world. There are boundless examples of father-son conflicts in Modern American literature (1900-1945). Faulkner wrote extensively about this topic in several of his works including, but not limited to; “Barn Burning’’ and “Absolom-Absolom”.[3] However, other contemporaries of Faulkner wrote about the topic too (cf., Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Hughes, Miller, Steinbeck, and White).

American writers of the modern era also have a lot to say about the father-son relationship (cf., Diaz, McCarthy, Chabon, Franzen, Lahiri, Saienz, and Ward).

Lest we forget our European writers, here is a short list of notable father-son conflicts penned by this group (cf., Camus, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Ibsen, Joyce, and Werfel). English authors also weigh in on the subject (cf. Barnes, Dickens, Fowels, Ishiguro, Lawrence, and, of course, Shakespeare).

Historically, it would seem, the father-son relationship appears to be doomed.

To wit, I had my share of conflicts with my father. When I was born in Staten Island, New York he sat in the parking lot and drank a six-pack of beer with his dad in the car. Not that this was a precursor to conflict, but when my son was born, I was in the delivery room. But we had conflicts too.

Over the years, our relationship dynamic changed, we became estranged, and my son and I drifted apart. Somewhere along his path, Michael developed a vision, a yearning to be creative, and a place where he could belong. And I missed it.

That is until one day I just sat and listened—with my eyes.

I always knew that my son Michael had artistic talent. But I had no idea just how much until one day I watched as he described the power of his graphics software program and his prowess in manipulating it. He was so animated, punctuating the air with his hands as he spoke. His eyes were wide open, he was leaning in and smiling. I never saw him so throttled. He spoke and gesticulated as though the energy to do so came from deep within his soul.

“Yeah,” he said. “It can do motion capture, body positions, facial expressions and it is all FACS-based!” He exclaimed.

Suddenly, my head racked into full tilt like a wobbly pinball machine.

“What did you just say?” I asked.

“FACS?” He replied.

“Yes,” I cried. “You can do FACS?” FACS (Facial Action Coding System) was created to help with deception detection, but the rubric is also used in the movie industry by computer animators to create digital characters with real emotions. Law enforcement also uses it.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Okay,” I said. “Punch in AU=17D!”

After the clatter of a few keystrokes, the image below appeared:

The classical pout, and in the alphanumeric language of FACS, A.K.A. AU=17D. He beamed when it rendered. It was then that I could see that this was his calling.

This was a serendipitous confluence of two skills by the father and the son. My interpretation of body language positions melded with Michael’s ability to creatively render them into beautifully graphic expressions.

From then on, Michael would freshen up my antiquated body language content with the most brilliant depictions—slamming my brand back into the 21st Century. Also, his professional portfolio is rapidly growing.

But this is not about my brand or his portfolio. The pauses in our relationship due to conflict have dissipated. Now, we get to spend more time together discussing, creating, laughing, and, of course, just breaking bread.

Father and son celebrating another trip around the sun.

Now I am beaming that he has found his passion.

I never knew. Until one day I just listened—with my eyes.

Most communication is nonverbal. Are you fluent?

[1] All Christian Bible Verses are from The NASB Translation

[2] Quran Verses are from the A.Y. Ali Translation

[3] Reference Study Corgi. (2022, April 6). Father-Son Relationships in Barn Burning by William Faulkner. Retrieved from https://studycorgi.com/father-son-relationships-in-barn-burning-by-william-faulkner/

The Power Pose—Arms Akimbo.

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Practical Applications for Body Language and the Emotional Indicators of Arms Akimbo

By David M. Schneer, Ph.D./CEO

4-Minute Read

Recently I wrote about the body language of legs apart and hooding as ways to make oneself look larger and hence, more important.

Here’s another posture called “Arms Akimbo”, and it is typically an indicator of confidence, dominance, power, or assertiveness. It looks like this:

If you want to test the power of this pose, do this: silently stand in front of a group of people and place your hands on your hips with your elbows pointing outwards. Pace a little. Chances are people will quiet down and pay attention.

Why? They’ve likely seen this power pose before. Perhaps first with a teacher or Principal at school or maybe later with police or military professionals. This stance is used to gain order and appear more “commanding.”

The Old Norse (North Germanic/Scandinavian dialect) language for “bent like a bow” is the word “akimbo”. Striking this pose is akin to an archer raising his bow in readiness. [1]

When I walk into a focus group or in-depth interview, I will adopt this pose so that the participants understand that I oversee the session.

However, in certain contexts, Arms Akimbo can convey different meanings. People will adopt this pose when they are:

  1. Frustrated: those whose progress has been thwarted in some way will adopt this stance in protest. This can be accompanied by scowls of anger or flashes contempt.
  2. Defensive: people who engage in arguments may strike this pose, again attempting to make themselves appear larger.
  3. Impatient: stand in line for a considerable period and you will see people adopt this pose to signal their impatience and perhaps to relieve the stress on their body.
  4. Intensely focused: When someone is intrigued, they will adopt this pose in response. Moreover, there is a variation of the Arms Akimbo that directly telegraphs a person’s interest. This is when a person puts their hands on their hips but has their thumbs pointing outwards. From the back, it looks like this:
  5. Trying to be Comfortable: Sometimes it just feels good to stand up and put your hands on your hips.

If you want to take command of a situation, you can adopt this pose and chances are people will fall in line.

Contact us for research or body language training.

Most communication is nonverbal. Are you Fluent?

[1]             Axtel, Roger. The Do’s and Taboos Around the Word. John Wiley & Sons, 1998, page. 28.

Are You Sitting Down for This?

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Practical Applications for Body Language and the Emotional Indicators of Legs Apart

By David M. Schneer, Ph.D./CEO

4-Minute Read

How you sit can say a lot.

Earlier I wrote a blog on hooding (WHOSE THE BOSS?) explaining how people spread their arms to take up more space, thereby making themselves look larger.

Well, they can also do it with their legs, and it looks like this.

It’s long been known that those in power or with higher socio-economic stature have required more room. Review any episode of Game of Thrones and you will see, well, oversized royal seats. Some of these ceremonial chairs are cartoonishly large—an attempt to mirror the grandiose power of kings, queens, emperors, dictators, and religious leaders. Other thrones can be situated upon raised pedestals to render the leader on a “higher plane.“ [1]

That was the behavior of Kings and Queens. But what about today? Do these attempted territorial takeovers still exist? You bet they do. Regarding, today’s Royalty, look no further to Buckingham or Windsor Palace and you get my point. But this behavior is not just contained to Kings and Queens; the Titans of business are no “Tiny House” people. Take the corner office, for example. Typically, the offices on Mahogany Row are larger, on a higher floor, can have a nice view, and likely in the corner for more privacy.[2]

When you observe a person, whose legs are parted, they are subconsciously trying to convey superiority and or dominance; they are also conveying comfort. Men are more likely to adopt this pose.

However, the precise interpretation of this position can only be made in context. Context is to body language what location is to real estate. For example, a person may simply be sitting with their legs apart just because it feels good. Or they may be signaling openness.

Here are some possible interpretations of the legs wide-apart position.

  1. Self-Assurance: showing confidence and authority.
  2. Accessibility: legs wide apart can connote openness as if to say, “I’m not hiding anything.”
  3. Relaxation: people will sit in this position for no other reason than it is relaxing,
    comfortable and just feels good.
  4. Protection: In some cases, a person may feel threatened and adopt a wide, defensive position with open legs. Beware. This could be a precursor to aggressive behavior, especially if you see flared nostrils (oxygenation before physical activity) or clenched fists (anger). This would be a signal to back off.

I often see participants in my research studies who adopt the legs apart position. This is a clue to me that this person will likely be opinionated, confident, and, in some cases, hostile. In any event, I am prepared when I see this posture.

So should you.

Contact us for research or body language training.

Most communication is nonverbal. Are you Fluent?

[1]             Givens, David B.; White, John. The Routledge Dictionary of Nonverbal Communication (p. 47). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.

[2] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/communication-success/202001/3-ways-physical-space-defines-power-in-relationships

Mirror-Mirror on the Wall

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Practical Applications for Nonverbal Intelligence and the Emotional Indicators and Benefits of Mirroring

By David M. Schneer, Ph.D./CEO

4-Minute Read

ἴσος πρᾶξις These two words in Greek mean, literally, “same behavior”. Phonetically, it’s Isos Praxis and it is a critical part of nonverbal intelligence. Here’s why.

Mirror Neurons, Monkeys, and Babies

Found first in monkey brains, “Mirror neurons” are a special type of neuron that fire up when a person physically acts or when a person observes another person doing the same thing. [1]

If you have an infant child or grandchild, do this. Lean in and crack a big old smile. The baby’s mirror neurons will recognize your smile and the baby will mimic you. It happens the other way too, when a baby smiles at an adult who automatically smiles back. [2]

The Basics of Mirroring

Mirroring is a nonverbal way of building rapport, trust, and strengthening relationships. This is one of the reasons US Presidents invite dignitaries to Camp David, where they can stroll in unison among the peaceful grounds.

Walking is a wonderful way to mirror. You can see this in couples as they walk, or when they sit together, which looks like this:

When you meet someone for the first time, you can mirror their facial expressions, body positions, and even their tone of  voice. For example, if you are talking with someone and they suddenly cross their legs, you can do the same. Or, if suddenly the person with whom you’re talking leans in, so should you. Perhaps you’re talking with someone and they suddenly lower their voice. You should too. This is a nonverbal way of building rapport. And, of course, when you build rapport, you increase the chances of more effective communication.

If you are in a leadership position, the ability to mirror a subordinate shows empathy, a key character trait of effective leaders.

The Use of Mirroring in Research

During my interviews and even in focus groups I mirror with the respondents. This creates an atmosphere of psychological comfort and helps the respondent relax and speak their minds more effectively and candidly. However, it can backfire if I am too obvious, making me look insincere.

Learn to Mirror

You can learn to mirror too. At first, you can practice with someone you know preferably in front of a mirror (they tend not to lie).

Here are a few tips on how to mirror without appearing like a mocking mime.

  1. Observe carefully. So that you can determine how to mirror, you must be aware of the person’s posture.
  2. Practice “Active Listening”. Prepare for the conversation, silently observe verbal and non-verbal cues, and then provide feedback.
  3. Use Smooth and Subtle Gestures. When actively mirroring, avoid sudden, jerking movements.
  4. Pivot With the Context. That is, not all people or events are the same so levels of mirroring may vary.

Mirroring is one of the most important things you can do in a conversation. Learn to mirror and you will enhance your conversations and relationships with this technique.

Most Communication is Nonverbal. Are You Fluent?

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3510904/#:~:text=Mirror%20neurons%20represent%20a%20distinctive,first%20discovered%20in%20monkey%27s%20brain.

[2]             Givens, David B.; White, John. The Routledge Dictionary of Nonverbal Communication. Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition.