Optimize Your PR—Don’t Do Silly Surveys
We are strong advocates of using surveys for public relations outreach. Commissioning surveys that answer interesting questions to help drive news stories and other types of communication can build a...
View ArticleWriting for Journalists and High-Level Executives
Clients tell us that one of the biggest challenges they face is writing great research reports. There is the overwhelming difficulty of turning data into stories — making sense of volumes of data...
View ArticleHere’s Why Silly Surveys Are Actually Dangerous
Silly surveys, in all their forms, have long been a thorn in the side of authentic, truth-seeking research. When I see silly surveys, I roll my eyes and complain (to anyone who will listen) about the...
View ArticleMake Sense of Your Statistics: Advice from Malcolm Gladwell and Steven Pinker
Two paragraphs can be exceptionally thought provoking when they get right to the point. In a simple introduction to the New York Times Book Review some time ago, the editors highlighted two ideas...
View ArticleTwo Ways to Find Data for a PR Story
In an article published some years ago entitled Data-Driven Journalism, Walker Sands, a Chicago-based marketing and PR agency, outlined two ways to get media placement for your company or your client...
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Election Season’s Dumb Statistics
Today I saw my first “dumb election statistics” article of the season, with AP News offering this dramatically titled story: Kamala Harris’ election would defy history. Just 1 sitting VP has been...
View ArticleJournalist Tips on How to Communicate PR Surveys
On Monday I received media training from one of the research industry’s top professional organizations: The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR). They hired Brenda Foster, a career...
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Don’t Be Fooled by the Mean (or How to Avoid Absurd Statistical Claims in...
Even smart people get tripped up by simple statistics, as this statement from a recent New Yorker article demonstrates: A hundred years ago, most Americans died in their mid-fifties. This was written...
View ArticleThe Rigors of Good Research: Three Examples from Thought Leadership
One of the biggest challenges Versta Research faced during the first year of COVID-19 was a huge and puzzling spike in the amount of fraud on research panels. We saw many organizations falling victim...
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This PR Survey Is a Dream Come True. If Only It Weren’t Nonsense.
This data we saw last week reflects the type of data that PR professionals absolutely dream about and hope for when they conduct surveys. It shows hugely dramatic differences among the 50 U.S. states....
View ArticleIf Truth Matters, Prove It with a Survey
The New York Times’ recent brand and marketing campaign is all about Truth. Well, if Truth really matters, then they desperately need a good old fashioned survey to back their flimsy claims in a recent...
View ArticleHow Polls Pass CNN’s Quality Review
This list of 16 questions that CNN will ask before they are willing to publish your polling data is worth reading because somebody at CNN clearly knows their stuff. It is far better than anything I...
View ArticleVersta Research in the News
The Versta Research spring newsletter comes out this week, and highlights some of the work we have done that is in the news and recently published. Here is a sampling: New Index for HR Management...
View ArticleWhy Fake PR Surveys Outperform Real Ones
Sure we laugh at those ridiculously biased fundraising “surveys” from politicians. But for some reason, the poorly (but more cleverly) designed surveys put out by corporate PR departments often get a...
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Election Season’s Dumb Statistics
A favorite pastime in my household is to laugh at the absurd statistics our local weatherman conjures up to make his reports sound dramatic, scientific, and driven by a deep analysis of data. Things...
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Lessons from NYT on Data Dump Research
I often look to excellent journalism as a model for how researchers should turn data into stories: Do investigative work, interview the right people, analyze the details, then lay out a meaningful and...
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Math for Journalists
Communicating statistics is sometimes harder than doing statistics. While statistics is all about formulas and logic and precision, words and sentences are all about communicating layers of meaning...
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NYT Blunders on Sample Size
Readers of this newsletter and blog know how much we value and respect the New York Times. It is one of the few resources we cite regularly, as it always has relevant, authoritative information that...
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5 Research Lessons from Election Season Polling
During a presidential election year there is no escaping the flurry of public opinion polling and the intense scrutiny that surveys get from the media. But love it or hate it, there are excellent...
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The Dumbest PR Survey on Earth
Last week there was a flash of news coverage for a PR-driven survey that documented these important facts: Most Americans think Obama would do a better job than Romney in defending against an attack by...
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