When Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern University asked MindSwarms to collaborate with them on a crowd-source innovation study 18 months ago, little did MindSwarms know that they secretly planned on comparing the effectiveness of the consumer research platform to some of the tech industry’s titans including Facebook, Twitter, Mechanical Turk, Kickstarter and IndieGoGo.

The result, presented this week in Paris at CHI2013, the world’s leading conference on Computing Human Interaction, confirmed what founder Tom Bassett has believed since starting the platform in 2011; MindSwarms is a powerful tool for gathering feedback during the concepting phase. The classroom research reflected what is true in R&D centres around the world – that engaging online crowds is an increasingly important tool for innovation. MindSwarms goes one step further by using video to provide authentic insights from consumers. The feedback is given from the comfort of one’s personal space without the influence of group think which can develop in public forums like focus groups.

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Via Carnegie Mellon News:

PITTSBURGH – Online crowds can be an important tool for teaching the ins and outs of innovation, educators at Carnegie Mellon University and Northwestern University say, even when the quality of the feedback provided by online sources doesn’t always match the quantity.

In a pilot study that invited the crowd into their classrooms, Carnegie Mellon and Northwestern instructors found that input from social media and other crowdsourcing sites helped the students identify human needs for products or services, generate large quantities of ideas, and ease some aspects of testing those ideas.

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There is a lot of tension between brick-and-mortar versus digital retail. Car dealerships – the original showroom – are potentially under-leveraging some unique digitally-enhanced shopping opportunities, according to one of our MindSwarms respondents chronicling her journey to buy a new car. After looking at the the Toyota Highlander, Kia Sorento and Jeep Cherokee, she chose the Ford Explorer in large part because of the digital in-dash system. However, she felt frustrated because the sales staff was less knowledgeable than she was. Read the rest of this entry »

With the new MindSwarms mobile app, you can reach consumers outside and inside the store, before and after their purchases. Follow Melissa from store entrance to check-out lane as she goes holiday shopping for an e-reader, and see what delights — and frustrates — her during the shopping experience.
Play the video above for the full story, and click here to see the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

We’re very excited to announce that researchers can now have consumers shoot and upload video from any location using the MindSwarms app on their smartphone. Available free for download, consumers are using the MindSwarms app to respond to studies in any location you can dream up.
 
Play the video above for the full story, and click here to see the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

Khari Gates of Skullcandy needed to test new packaging for their famous line of headphones. What was most important to Khari Gates was to understand 1-on-1 how his target audience felt about prototype packaging, because headphones are not a group buying decision or an occasion where consumers seek sales assistance on the retail floor. So focus groups were ruled out. Read the rest of this entry »