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The brave new world of social media is a reminder that old assumptions and rules are dangerous indeed!

Take the example of a Focus Group - you could certainly rely on responses (you paid for them...!) and the skilled facilitator could always find some new angle or insight admidst the rubber chicken and carefully selected vino with carefully framed questions. And there was, and is, of course value in these very close&detailed interactions with customers or prospects. But what about the unwritten rules and quirks of human behaviour:

Some of these factors are of course still present in online environments but there are arguably some naturally occurring benefits:

• Artificial deadlines are not relevant to an ongoing online conversation
• Ideas are more likely to be judged by their merit rather than the personality or standing of the participants
• The larger numbers potentially involved make for broader based sampling

The challenge is perhaps more to do with our own assumptions and rules - try asking a focused question in a branded community - when they are not ready for it - it is truly like herding cats. In these environments, consumers talk about what they want to talk about, regardless of the question you have asked. Much like our politicians! We recently reviewed a German study on using online communities for 'co-creation' of new products (the way Dell uses IdeaStorm). Professor Doctor Manfred Krafft found that virtual co-creation works best if the community is given broad, general questions to debate rather than being prescriptive and narrow. (He also found that monetary rewards increase the volume and lower the quality of contributions - perhaps sobering for the typically paid focus group model?)