Hey hey, my my, surveys can never die

When the punk movement made him feel irrelevant and obsolete, Neil Young sang "it's better to burn out, than to fade away." That might be true for irrelevant rock stars, but obsolete data collection methods seem to prefer Douglas MacArthur's version.

Wish as I might, online surveys aren't likely to disappear any time soon. We all know there are many, many ... many problems with online surveys, but our dependence on them has never been greater. Even worse, our entire industry sees online as the next frontier but we don't know how we're going to replace our ailing workhorse. Even worse than that, the same people who acknowledge that

 surveys are dying don't want to invest in finding new methods; hell, most of them are openly hostile toward anything new and experimental. They want someone else to figure it out for them, put it in a box, and sell it to them ... for cheap! Until that box arrives they will continue doing what they've been doing, exactly the way they've been doing it, for as long as it takes. Oh yeah - I almost forgot - they have to ridicule the innovators to make their stale methods more palatable to clients ... but don't take it personally; they're secretly rooting for you and hoping you succeed so they can buy you.

So how do you teach an 800-pound gorilla with an attitude problem to play nice on Twitter? You don't. 

Mashable recently wrote about the decline of Internet Explorer, and projected its inevitable death around 2021. So what does that have to do with online surveys? Everything! In 2004 IE had more than 90% of the browser market. Microsoft knew their browser was slow, ugly, and riddled with security problems ... but they were so big and so far ahead of everyone else ... there was just no motivation to evolve. All the while the crackpots at Mozilla, Apple, and Google were working on browsers that were safer, sexier, and faster. No one paid much attention to them at first, but then word of mouth started to spread and slowly the tide started to turn. The Nike ads from the mid-90's were right: the revolution was - indeed - not televised. The other browsers became credible alternatives to IE slowly, relentlessly, and without much fanfare. By the time Microsoft realized their lunch was being eaten it was too late. IE is now on a slow, linear path to the grave. Currently at 66% market share, IE has become fatally uncool and unfashionable; the Members Only jacket of browsers.

I think online surveys will suffer a similar fate. The question is, are you Microsoft or one of the other players? 

There is too much revenue at stake to mess around with surveys too much or too fast. Trying to replace online surveys now would be like trying to change the engines on a jumbo-jet in mid flight. But this is - above all else - a cautionary tale. Don't let the absence of an easy or fast solution lure you into protecting the status quo. Keep doing surveys to pay the bills, but embrace the unproven technologies and methods that MR crackpots are experimenting with. Don't just accept it, join in! Evolution requires time and lots of trial & error. With your participation the solutions will be found faster; actively discrediting the innovation efforts will delay the process ... but the revolution is definitely underway and we will get there eventually. Whatever is waiting at the other end of the research rainbow probably won't come in a box. You won't be able to buy it because it will be equal parts attitude and technology.

If you hide in the shadows and criticize, then expect to buy a seat at the new MR table once it's built ... well, you may find that the seat doesn't fit your ass and while you were waiting your business went into a deadly tail-spin.

Embrace change; participate; collaborate; experiment. Doing these things will naturally evolve your tools and your people. The Net rewards enlightened self-interest. Are you in?

Hat tip to "Dr. Dre" for his contribution to this post.