Partner Introductions, Chapter 2: Jeff Dougherty

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Another component of our business is in legal opinion based research.  Much like we partner with Marie Mound for her expertise with focus groups and other similar market opinion research, we also work with an expert in this legal area: Jeff Dougherty.

Jeff’s Specialties

Jeff has worked as a trial consultant on high stakes civil litigation since 2002. As a trial consultant, he has seen the disastrous consequences of parties to a lawsuit going to trial without first testing in front of a group of mock jurors similar in makeup to the anticipated jury.

He believes that just as a product developer would never launch its product into the marketplace before performing market research and product testing, a party to a lawsuit should never “launch” their case to the jury without doing the same. When it comes to trial, “market testing” is done in the form of focus groups and mock trials.

But, not all focus groups and mock trials are created equally. This is where Jeff’s training and experience come into play. His post-graduate work in clinical and research psychology and his graduate studies in litigation consulting taught him how to conduct small group research that is scientifically sound with respect to validity and reliability. The problem for the unsuspecting client is that a focus group designed by someone without the right training might look and run smoothly, but something fundamental about the design could be amiss and the client will never know the difference until it’s too late.  

Custom Designed for Each Client

Jeff’s vast experience in designing and executing focus groups and mock trials over the years has given him the ability and insight to design small group research tailor-made to each individual piece of litigation. Because the needs of every case differ, not all pre-trial research looks the same. Sometimes it might take the form of a half-day focus group designed to test mock jurors’ assessment of one or two key witnesses or potential trial themes. Other times it can take the form adversarial case summaries and mock juror deliberations.  Yet other times it might be a multiple-day mock trial containing opening statements direct- and cross-examination of live witnesses, closing arguments and mock juror deliberations. Jeff’s pre-trial research philosophy is that the research design always depends on the needs of the client.

In addition to pre-trial jury research, Jeff is also skilled at designing voir dire questions, assisting with jury selection, conducting shadow juries, preparing witnesses to testify in depositions and on the witness stand and conducting post-trial juror interviews.

For more detail about Jeff’s areas of expertise, see: www.LitigationIQ.com

For “Advice from a Trial Consultant” see Jeff’s Blog: https://www.litigationiq.com/blog/

Partner Introductions, Chapter 1: Marie Mound

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Experience has taught us that managing research projects, as well as accommodating the team conducting the research, is essential to our clients. For this reason, we partner with specialists to assure all your needs are met. While RMR manages the venue and the audio-video services, our specialists manage the research objectives and recruitment.

A Partnership

We partner with Marie Mound, an Albuquerque based consultant who specializes in focus groups, litigation consulting and survey research. She handles both qualitative and quantitative research projects. To find out more about her business, Insight Out Research, please visit www.insightoutresearch.com.

Marie’s Specialties

Marie has worked with a wide range of clients in many different industries.  In health care, she has helped Lovelace Health Systems and University of New Mexico Healthcare.  On the commercial front, she has worked with Coca-Cola and Intel. She has also worked with many governmental entities including the City of Albuquerque and Sandia National Laboratories.  For a more complete list of her clients, please click here.

Opinion research takes the guesswork out of major decisions. A well-designed approach to qualitative research, professional execution and a thorough analysis is Marie’s goal. She believes in delivering research findings on a silver platter so clients sleep better at night.

Focus group research probes the less tangible, sometimes hidden attitudes and opinions affecting a business or organization. Most professionals become so committed that they become insulated from outside perspectives. Focus group research gives them the opportunity to hear from the outside world.

Marie conducted a series of focus groups for a high-tech company bewildered by low enrollment in the educational program it sponsored through local colleges. She identified and suggested changes to confusing language and enrollment went up tenfold.

Research into a new ad campaign for a chain of convenience stores identified the need to remodel the stores and update the lighting – before any change in marketing could be effective.

Just the Beginning

There is much more to what Marie does than can be fit in a weekly blog.  Please take a second to look through Marie’s website and the services that she offers (there is also a brief bio on our ‘About’ page).  If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to either of us at the addresses below:

Marie Mound – insightoutresearch@gmail.com

Record My Research – events@recordmyresearch.com

We look forward to working with you.

Focus on Moms

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We at Record My Research want to take a moment and recognize all of the Moms out there. We all have one. We work with many of them. And it is Mother’s Day as this post is being written.

Think for a moment about how a Mom would be presented in a Focus Group. The main features get presented:

  • Brings you into this world
  • Loves you
  • Is always there for you
  • Keeps you on track

Then the participants (all of us) are asked to comment on them. What do we like? What would we change? Why? Why not? What experiences have we had with Moms that either support or contradict these basic features? What other benefits would we like to see in Moms?

Some of us will voice our differing experiences of Moms: that they did not have all of these traits or that they passed on before we were ready. That they were stricter than we wanted them to be or that they did not cook the food we wanted to eat. Maybe they argued over everything or did not pay enough attention.

Our moderator, if he or she is doing their job, will let this discussion go on for a moment or two and then bring us back to the basic point:

Without our Moms, no matter their faults, we would not be here to praise them or complain about them.

So, from all of us at Record My Research: Thank you to all of the Moms out there. We know that you are doing your best to help us work through this life we all live.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Albuquerque?

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One of the questions that we are occasionally asked is: “Why did you setup shop in Albuquerque?”

It is a fair question as most people only know our fair city from Breaking Bad and old Bugs Bunny cartoons.

The Short Answer

The short answer is that most of us at Record My Research are natives to Albuquerque. Our roots are here and we know the area well. When we started this enterprise, it made sense to stay close to home.

The Longer Answer

Albuquerque also offers some real benefits for a us and our customers. Beyond the beautiful skies and high desert landscape, The Duke City is a great place to do business.

Properties are comparatively inexpensive compared to the larger metro areas allowing us to put together a comfortable and flexible venue for both our local customers and those willing to come to us.

For those of you that need to do your research in a specific place, being based in Albuquerque allows us to control our travel expenses. We can drive to two major metro areas in a day (Phoenix and Denver) and flights to most others are either direct or a single hop. On top of that, for the past decade or so, our various mayors have kept gate fees low at our International Sunport which translates into more affordable tickets.

Take that Left Turn

So, if you like great sunsets and green chile, then book your next event here in New Mexico. If that does not work for you, then we are glad to come to you; we know we can get there on time and under budget.

Behind the Curtain

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Recently, Record My Research hosted a focus group at our facility in Albuquerque. While we can’t go into details about who and what was being researched, we can show a little bit about how we set up for an event like this.

All of the pictures below were taken during setup and a few things were still being worked on, namely the wire management.

A look at our main room. The camera and tripod are what we use for our standard setup, which we used at the client’s request. We do offer more advanced options including multiple cameras and 360-degree panorama cameras.
This is the view that the camera provides to the client viewing room. Because this is not the more traditional one-way mirror, we can show our clients the best view of their attendees depending on their requested room layout.
Another look at the client viewing room. There is another row of tables behind where this image was shot.
This is the alternative audio mixing desk; you can see it in the back of the image above. Normally, this equipment is in another room and not part of the client viewing room. However, these sessions were being conducted in Spanish and the translator needed more space than we could offer in our equipment room.
This is our client lounge with snacks and a separate restroom from that used by the attendees. If your clients need to break up into teams or a few of them need a break from the rest, then this is a perfect space to accommodate them.
Snacks and coffee. We are happy to handle any food requests given enough time. We are also next to a winery which often brings in some of the better local food trucks.

We hope this gives you an idea of some of the ways that we can use our space. We are very flexible and can take on most requests, with enough lead time. And we can recreate this kind of experience in almost any venue, anywhere in the United States.

Let us know how we can help.

Just the Gear

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At Record My Research, we love our employees. We believe that they provide a real benefit to any event: from setup to real-time troubleshooting to tear-down. They are worth every dime that they get paid.

However, we also recognize that on-site technicians also have their drawbacks. They have to eat and take breaks and sleep and travel. All of which costs money. With that in mind, we offer solutions that do not include that level of support.

For the Technically Inclined

If you or someone on your team is familiar with audio-video equipment, you are comfortable with setting it up and running it during your event, then we are happy to ship you just the gear you need.

We include everything that we think you will need: power cables, signal cables, tripods, etc. If you have to run the wire a long way, let us know we will most likely be able to accommodate your needs.

Instructions for the common setups are also included: where the wires go, what buttons to press in what order, and how to ensure that you are recording what you think you are recording. We will also do our best to help you out over the phone should the instructions be unclear or something starts to go wrong.

Cater to Your Comfort

Keep in mind that we will always recommend that one of our technicians accompany our gear to your event. They are familiar with each of the pieces and will be better able to deal with any issues that arise if they are on-site and not trying to visualize what is going on the phone.

But, if you are good with electronics and feel that you have a grasp on what you are doing, then we are happy to rent you our gear, complete with all the necessary shipping documents to and from your venue.

If this is something that interests you, then give us a call. Tell us what you need and we will put together a package just for you.

Putting It All Together

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In the past couple of months, we’ve talked about some of the equipment options that we offer at Record My Research. Today, it is time to lay them all out and discuss how they all work together.

The Pieces

The hardware that we have discussed are:

There are a couple of more traditional pieces that we have not discussed, namely the 4K Sony cameras and the audio gear. These are still interesting, but a bit less unusual than the ones listed above. However, how much of this traditional equipment is being used helps us decide which of these more unconventional pieces to bring along.

How Many of What

The real issue is the number of cameras we need. If we only need one, regardless of whether it is a traditional camera or the 360 Panoramic one, it can be plugged into the LiveU Solo Streaming Encoder. That one piece will convert the audio and video feeds into a streamable feed and then feed it to either a local Internet connection or through a cellular modem, depending on which is more reliable. This is the typical single-camera focus group streaming setup.

If we need more than one camera and multiple audio feeds, each of which may need to be viewed by different people at the same time, then the LiveU no longer cuts it. That’s when we need to Mushroom Portabella 4000i and Epiphan Pearl 2.

The Pearl 2 can take up to six cameras with their associated audio feeds and encode them for streaming. If we have a reliable local Internet connection with at least 50 Mbps, then it can feed them out to whomever has the link and password.

But we never assume that the local Internet is going to be robust enough. That is why we carry along the Portabella 4000i. If our test show that the venue network is going to be problematic, then we have it as a backup.

Streaming Service

Keep in mind that all of this equipment is part of our streaming service and not part of our basic package. With all of this gear, we do need to charge a bit more to make that happen. However, remember that it can save you and your clients money and offer you greater flexibility: fewer people need to travel to the sessions, and more people can see the event first hand.

For more information on this or any of our services, please reach out to us via email (events@recordmyresearch.com) or call us at 1-800-910-9553.