About the FGD Homework

Hi all,

Some quick news and views before I get to the FGD part:

1. On Session 7 Updates and Conjoint exercises:

• Yesterday, in session 7, we covered an important and powerful MKTR tool - the Experimentation approach - and a famous special case - the conjoint experiment.
• I ran into a bit of time trouble towards the end and felt that the Conjoint aspect (esp its MEXL implementation) could have done with some more time.
• Hence, like I promised, a detailed write-up is coming up - on how one may use Metric conjoint in MEXL (for your projects perhaps?) to get to specific results and insights.
• However, given that there's no HW for Session 7, that post'll have to wait till the weekend.

2.  On HW submissions and progress in general:

• I and the AA are grading each HW component out of 10. This is an interim measure. After all the HWs are in, we'll normalize the scores and re-weight them to fit in with the HW % weight.
• If you're interested in seeing your progress with respect to HW scores, kindly meet with the AA Mr Sreenath today during working hrs.
• Any other concerns, queries etc you may have, pls feel free to write or talk to me (over the phone or in person).

3. Session 4 group HW - the FGD

•  The group submission for the FGD piece has come in. I am going over the submissions and some interesting facets have come out.
•  First off, great effort all, in pulling this off. A special mention to five teams: Disney, Nike, Fastrack, Brainjuicers and Happily unmarried - who also submitted snapshots/highlights of their FGD via Youtube links.
• I think its worthwhile sharing these links (in no particular order) with the class and well, with the world.

Team Brainjuicer Arvind, Naveen, Richa and Swati have put up: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2pkkkhv440ci3sg/FGD-discussion1.mp4 Team Nike with members Srinayana, Apurv, Shaheer and Saptarshi have putup their link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaDuMb6i7_o&feature=youtu.be Team Fastrack with members Bharatam Shivaraman, Anubhuti, Piyush and Pragya have putup the link:  http://youtu.be/cOUNV8EUEcw Team Disney with members Deepti, Shobit, Shweta and Vaishnavi have putup their FGD highlights here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjL6UgDEoFI&feature=youtu.be Team Happily Unmarried with members Anant, Benjamin, Namrata and Sanjit have put up link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIvvthI1yEM

4. Some quick notes on the FGDs:

• Not that I claim great expertise in FGD analysis, however, some things did become quite apparent even to my untrained eye.
• The FGD relies and thrives on interactions among the panelists. Its a semi-unstructured 'discussion' and in the course of those interactions, sometimes, insight emerges.
•  - Some of the FGDs I saw gave me the impression more of a dialogue between the Mod and the panelist rather than one among the panelists themselves.
• Its not a big issue however - given the rather challenging FGD topic you had and the fact that many of you are probably running one for the first time - I'm happy that you as MKTR students have gotten first hand exposure to the challenges one faces in planning, running and analyzing FGDs.
• I hope this exercise will serve to keep you more grounded, realistic and sceptical about claimed FGD insights than you would otherwise have been.

Alrite. That is all for now. Am busy going through some of the feedback you gave y'day and also busy prepping for tomorrow's R heavy class - "Hypothesis Testing and Modeling secondary data in MKTR".

See you in class tomorrow.

Sudhir