Perhaps it was reading Guy Kawasaki’s inspirational Reality Check that got me started thinking. The recent Motrin fiasco added to the mix. Maybe the realization that a once adequate personal pension fund is looking a bit less than adequate now played a part.  Or, maybe I’m just in love with the idea. I’ll go with that!

In any event, I’m starting a new venture, as of Thanskgiving Day 2008, and that venture is about using social media for market research.  I’ll say it generally like that because this will be an evolving business plan.  It’s starting with something more specific, a Twitter-based consumer panel.  The panel, which I haven’t named yet (looking for my community to help) will be a way to get lighting fast feedback from consumers.  If you are interested in participating, go to: http://www.twitter.com/greggfraley2 and click the Follow button.

I intend to break with many of the standard conventions of market research. What I’m planning to do is more about The Wisdom of Crowds than it is about focus groups. Having said that I don’t reject all the old methods, in fact, my future customers will be best served by using new methods like mine and old methods in combination.  I will be offering ideation services to generate and perfect ideas, and those will be done with virtual tools as well.   

When times are tough, what the heck, start something.  I don’t even have a name for it yet, but that’s a fun problem to have!  Stay tuned!  

TweetChorus?