DIY - at your peril

DIY – at your peril

‘A fine example of 21^st Century Windbaggery’ ‘Merely a stable which will accept any hobbyhorse’ Very well known for not knowing what it does’

These are just some examples from a squabble this week in a Royal Society and Charity about direction, a breakdown between members and staff and oh yes, the value of Research.

This Society protested it had consulted members through an annual survey, but they committed the venal sin of doing it themselves – the Research was not conducted independently and thereby raised as many problems as it had planned to settle. There have been allegations of suppressed data, poor expression and particular analysis aimed to give prominence to convenient viewpoints.

I know, I know, that Research tools available on the internet can give the illusion of power and impartiality and appear to ‘magic up’ sound quantitative methods.

But don’t do it yourself – if it were a house you might trust yourself with shelves but you’d be a fool to go down the DIY route with complex electrics or  an extension – and even then, your work would be independently assessed to ensure compliance.

So whatever Research you are contemplating, outsource to a Research Agency you can trust - don’t do it yourself.

Jonathan Brill

The Localism and Centralism Bill

There are 2 elements of the Localism and Centralism Bill that will require INDEPENDENT agencies are engaged to provide evidence to ensure that the views of local residents are presented in a legal, honest and truthful way.

• Return decision-making powers on housing and planning to local councils.

• Give residents the power to instigate local referendums on any local issue and the power to veto excessive council tax increases.

Recently, Adroit-e has had experience of having to intervene when highly skewed results were presented as ‘the views of residents’ – they were in fact wholly unreliable.

Our approaches are digitally based, but involve a human interface. Normally we do not encourage online polling as the results are based on self selection which does not always produce robust data – some approaches too allow respondents the opportunity to fill in the questionnaire many times thus producing gross inaccuracies.

Attention to detail is crucial and we can cope with the most complex of briefs.

‘At last someone who understands what I’m on about’ (Chair local residents association 050710).

BRILLiant 101

Jonathan Brill MA LLB FRSA
Throughout his career, Jonathan has operated extensively at the interface between organisations and developmental metrics with Sheridan Associates, and later as CEO of Westlake Publishing.

Jonathan devised original businesses projects including, University Navigator, The Graduate Employability Test and HE Brand Health-Check.

In the arts Jonathan developed evaluation systems for grant awards.

Jonathan held teaching and management positions within the University sector including Director of Teaching and Learning at Brunel University, Director of Development at West London Institute and Quality Auditor with HEQC.

Jonathan has worked in Market Research for 8 years, previously as a director of CRT, latterly as CEO of Adroit-e Research, founded 6 years ago.

Adroit-e has pioneered and developed research design and data collection processes particularly in intercept research and data driven forums.