8/6/2019 Putting Research Into Action Handout June 12 2011

1/1

Note: These resources are the personal recommendations of Robin McCasland and Ryan Williams only.

Putting Research Into ActionAdditional Resources

Learn more about studies available from the IABC Research Foundation. Some research is available at no cost, including the Information Overload study and the

Employee Engagement Survey results: www.iabc.com/researchfoundation

Youll find even more studies, books and other useful information within IABCs Knowledge Centre: www.iabc.com/publications/library

Top five research tips to impact your communications:1. Aim to see the world through the eyes of your audience2. The research process changes those who participate3. The research process will focus your thinking

a. What are your needs?b. What are the right questions?c. Who needs to be involved?d. How do they need to be involved?

4. Use multiple sources of information to increase the strength of your evidence5. Research involves people in your communications and predisposes them to

change in attitude or behaviour

Types of research to inform your decisions:Think tanks discover innovationsFocus groups identify emotions and contextualize your tacticsSurveys find the degree to which an opinion is held and set benchmarksAcademic studies identify evidence for a specific communication strategyObservational validate the actual behaviour

Helpful Links:

This article provides insight and advice on how to conduct your own focus groups: Employee Focus Groups: A Reality Check for your Communication Strategy: http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2008/0808/McCasland.htm

Marketwire is an IABC Research Foundation sponsor. The company offers a wealth of useful free information (current articles, blogs and more) that can help you produce more meaningful, actionable, measurable communication: www.marketwire.com.

Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that helps researchers organize their work, collaborate with others online and find new research.Although it is geared to researchers, its a great place to search for academic research that may help you with your communication strategies: http://www.mendeley.com/

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is the worlds largest association devoted to human resource management. Representing more than 250,000 members in over 140 countries. http://www.shrm.org/Research/

Jeremiah Owyang blog provides an aggregation of the latest web-trends and data.http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/01/19/a-collection-of-social-network-stats-for- 2010/