I’m running off to Birmingham this morning for two days of research. One must pay the rent even while starting up the next big social media service! I wanted to post a “quickie” in response to some of the comments on my last blog about attributes of Peregrine Panelists. For those newcomers to the Peregrine concept/newco, read previous blogs here, but in a nutshell, Peregrine is an emerging social media consumer research panel. Original panelists will share ownership in the company (1000 people share 10%). Panelists will help companies research their products, act as a sounding board, and will provide ideas.

One question that’s come up is simply “what’s expected?” The honest answer is, I’m not sure entirely. I could take a top down approach and say, okay, at least an hour of work a week, 24 hour response time to a research question, etc. However, I don’t want to set those standards at least not yet. I think this will emerge and I’d like the group itself to help define this. I can tell you this, I would like to see very active participation, that’s what creates value. One of my ideas for vetting is simply if you don’t participate you can be voted “off the panel.” After all, with ownership comes responsibility. How this panel becomes valuable to researchers and product developers is we are a great value, and that value is derived from quick response, and diverse response to questions.

I’ve also “blocked” on Twitter a few folks who are clearly not at all interested in this project. I try to check in with all new followers to @greggfraley2 to make sure they have a clue about Peregrine. A few highly political posters didn’t care to respond at all, so after several attempts, I’ve given up. One expectation would be simply to communicate.

Another question has to do with “how” research will be done. The panel is communicating now on Twitter and to a lesser extent on this blog and that will continue and at high levels I suspect. However, research will, more often than not, be taken offline to email, or, other tools that are better suited for data collection. There are many tools out there and we’ll be experimenting with many of them in order to figure out what’s best for various types of projects. We’ll be looking at BrightIdea.com, a top idea management tool, WebIQ, and Yammer (if you have ideas here, let’s here them). Of course part of the reason for going to these types of tools is so client can have secure research data. We’ll be breaking conventions at Peregrine, but not this one I suspect.

A more formal website for Peregrine is in the offing, more on that challenge later. In the meantime those of you who are part of the initial tribe (nearly 100 now) point friends and other parties to this blog to learn more about Peregrine, the lightning fast market research and ideation service. I believe that we need at least 500 on the panel to begin selling more formally, so, whatever you can do to spread the word would be appreciated.

Until then, fly with no fear.