We all do research and use it to make decisions. As we pull out to pass on the highway, we form hypotheses about what the driver in front of us is going to do, based on unconscious observations of the behaviour of countless other drivers in the past. And when the phone rings as you sit down to dinner, you just know it’s your good friend and neighbour from across the street, and you know this with such confidence that you’ll announce it to your spouse — your friend is just that predictable. We make silent bets with ourselves that we can safely go to bed without putting the garbage bin on the street because history has shown that the municipality’s trucks will collect from the east side of the street before our west side, so there’s plenty of time in the morning.
Often this informal research pays off. Sometimes not so much. Fortunately, most of the time the stakes of our decisions are pretty low; we get a laugh when it’s a telemarketer and not our neighbour or when we get caught running outside in our pajamas, dragging the bin as the garbage truck rumbles up the street. And other times the stakes are quite frighteningly high, as when it turns out the driver in front of us is distractedly texting when we pass.
As the potential consequences of our decisions increase, so does our need for confidence in the reliability and accuracy of the research on which our decisions are based.
When you need sound research on which to base important decisions, 2sM Research will work with you to design a practical approach to help you uncover the information and insights you need. Research matters as much as the outcomes of your most critical decisions.