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The Differences Between Data, Information, and Insight

February 4, 2013 J. Nolfo Business, Market Research, Small Business

Data-Information-Insight Tweet

January 23, 2013 started like every other ordinary Wednesday.  I was doing a quick scan of my Twitter feed and I saw this gem.  You can get the full article here.

Then the skies opened up and a choir of angels began to sing.  OK, not really.  But you get the idea.

The comment was so insightful that I ended up sharing it during a lunch-and-learn I had last week  The event was talking about market research basics with a group of entrepreneurs and people who worked with or for start-ups.  One of the comments I had in the presentation is “what is NOT market research”.  My comment was just doing a survey or have millions of lines of data is not market research in of itself.  However, it is a means of getting market research completed.

So what is the difference between data, information, and insights.  Well, here is my perspective:

Continue reading “The Differences Between Data, Information, and Insight” »

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One Man’s Perspective on Why Innovate Raleigh Is Important

January 31, 2013 J. Nolfo Business, Raleigh, Restaurant, Retail, Small Business, Social Media, Startups, Triangle

Innovate RaleighLast Thursday afternoon was the latest installment of Innovate Raleigh, Innovate Raleigh 2013: Building on the Past, Creating the Future.  If you are a newer reader to my blog, or just not sure what Innovate Raleigh is, you can get an understanding of it from previous post here and here.  Although I have been to several of the meetups over the past year or so, this event was, in my opinion, something special.  Most of the previous meetups were evening affairs that informed the community about some industry or something specific that is going on in Raleigh that is innovative in some way.  Typically before and after the main event, there was open networking and some good food and drinks as well.

Well, this one still had a great session of open networking and some great food and drinks from Bolt Bistro & Bar.  But that was the only thing that was the same.

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How To Segment A Target Market

January 28, 2013 J. Nolfo Business, Customer, Market Research, Small Business

PeopleOne of the things a new business needs to focus on is determining who their target market is.  Although when most people think about a target market, most think of a consumer target market, like 25-35 year-old women.  A target market can be segmented in multiple different ways, not just demographically.  There are both consumer based segmentation as well as business based segmentation.

Lets take a look at a few ways to break out both B2C and B2B target markets.

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Your Mission, If You Choose To Accept It: Never Stop Learning

January 24, 2013 J. Nolfo Business

Adult StudentsAlbert Einstein once said, “Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.”  I could not agree more.

Over the past three weeks, I have been taking an online class associated with Coursera.  If you are not familiar with Coursera, it is a social entrepreneurship company that has partnered with the top universities in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free.  They envision a future where the top universities are educating not only thousands of students, but millions.  Their technology enables the best professors to teach tens or hundreds of thousands of students.

The class I am taking is Computing for Data Analysis, taught by a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.  The class focuses on the “R” statistical language.  Now I will have to admit I am not a programmer.  Nor have I really had any class in programming in any language (well a BASIC class in high school does not really count).  But, I will have to admit the class is kicking my butt.

So who would I intentionally put myself through this torture?

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The Value Of Market Research In Business, Part 1

January 21, 2013 J. Nolfo Business, Market Research
This entry is part 1 of 2 in the series The Value Of Market Research In Business

Quirks Marketing Research Review, January 2013

One of the great things about the advent of the internet, and specifically social media, when it comes to market research is the ability to follow and “virtually” meet just about anyone.  This is true for being able to connect up with customers, do market research on perspective buyer groups, or socially listen to current customers.  For me, one of the things I have found to be most beneficial is to follow and read from thought leaders within the market research industry.

One of these though leaders, and someone I have mentioned before, is Kathryn Korostoff, president of Research Rockstar LLC, a Marlborough, Mass., provider of market research training.  Whenever  I see her name on something, I always make sure that I take the time to read it.  This came true again in this months Quirk’s Marketing Research Review with the article Research as a profit center? It’s closer than you think.  In the article, she discusses four ways how market research can be a value add and profitable, just not a cost, and the implications of these on the industry as a whole. Continue reading “The Value Of Market Research In Business, Part 1” »

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Understanding Accrual Accounting

January 17, 2013 J. Nolfo Business, Small Business
cash accrual accounting

Credit: Dreamstime

You all get a treat today, a guest blog by financial executive, Charles Seeman.  He wrote a great case study previously on this blog that get a lot of attention.  So, without further ado…

When I was a young junior staff accountant for a large regional CPA firm I, like all other junior staff people, were assigned to do “write up” work for some of our clients. Some of the older business people would play a game with junior staff accountants like me where they would tell us that they can guess the final net income number and be within a couple of thousand dollars of what is calculated by accrual accounting. At their skill at this amazed me, but after a while, I understood completely how this was done.

The purpose of this blog entry is to help young entrepreneurs understand and thus be able to predict how their business is doing. I want to help young entrepreneurs avoid the trials and tribulations that those older business owners endured to learn the skills necessary to be able to truly understand their business and how revenues and costs work. Continue reading “Understanding Accrual Accounting” »

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Have You Laid Out Your Market Research Plans For The Year?

January 14, 2013 J. Nolfo Business, Market Research

Market ResearchThe first month of the year is almost half over.  Have you laid out your market research plans for the year yet?

In a blog post I wrote about a month ago, I stated that then was the best time to plan for the research projects for the new year.  Now should be the time to implement these.

 

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What Will The 2013 Economy Be?

January 7, 2013 J. Nolfo Business, Economic Market, Homebuilding & Residential Development, Retail, Small Business

Note: This is part 2 of a 2 part series looking back at the economics of 2012 and projecting the economics of 2013. Part 1 can be found here.  Also, look forward to the Triangle predictions coming up on Thursday.

With the year ending and all the talk about the “fiscal cliff”, there has been a lot of talk of what will happen during the next 12 months.  I feel like everyone can agree that the economy has seen better days and there seems to be indications that things are getting better.  Here is what I think the economy will be doing over the next 12 months.  Now as I stated last year, I am not by any mean the Oracle at Delphi, but this is my opinion based on a lot of reading and research by experts in their areas of expertise. Here are some areas of interest, including some not specifically discussed in Part 1 of this blog.

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What Was The 2012 Economy?

January 3, 2013 J. Nolfo Business, Economic Market, Homebuilding & Residential Development, Retail, Small Business

Happy New Year 2012

Note: This is part 1 of a 2 part series looking back at the economics of 2012 and looking projecting the economics of 2013. Part 2 will be released on Monday.

Last year I wrote two blogs about what happened in 2011 and provided some projections for 2012.  I got a fair amount of feedback from those post so I figured I do it again this year.  I started last year’s blog with Sir Winston Churchill’s quoted of  ”Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  I continue to believe that this is true in every facet of life, including business.  This information is based on factual information.  There are no politics, no opinions.  It is what it is.  The purpose is to understand what happen in 2012 to set the stage for 2013. Continue reading “What Was The 2012 Economy?” »

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A New Year and A New Blog Title

December 31, 2012 J. Nolfo Uncategorized

blogYep…believe it or not.

This blog did have a title “Pensare…Understanding Market Research in Business”.  Thought the name was a good idea.  But the word “pensare”, which is Italian for “think”, has nothing to do with anything else on this site or what I do.

So as we anticipate new and big things for 2013 we needed a new big name.  And the new name is…. Continue reading “A New Year and A New Blog Title” »

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