At the core of what Research Voice is all about is the idea of "Reconnecting People and Research". This implies that the previous connection that existed between the research community and its primary resource was broken or, at the very least, highly strained.

I believe that the fault is primarily ours. The fact that people are willing to talk to and about brands in blogs, communities, social media and other fora suggests that it is not the desire to communicate that is missing, it is the format through which we have for decades insisted that consumers indulge in that communication. Ours is a very interrogatory industry - and not in a pleasant way. We ask the questions and we expect "respondents" to answer them in a highly structured and often tortured manner. Worse, we are not always very good at our own craft and the questionnaires we expect people to respond to often bear no resemblance to the messages, feelings and thoughts that people want to communicate to our clients.

Even our vocabulary is interrogatory. Think about the phrase  "respondent cooperation". There is only one other industry that has "respondents" - the legal profession. If you are a "respondent" in a law suit, I can guarantee you that it's not pleasant! And "cooperation"? Sounds like the old police saying that "so-and-so is cooperating with our inquiries", meaning that they beating a confession out of him.

Let's reformulate the way in which we think about people who help us in our research. First, let's start right there with the word "people". Not "consumers" or "respondents" or "buyers", but people. Let's also think about what it is that we want them to do - we want them to "participate" in our research, not "respond" to our questions.

If we can start with those two small things, everything else will flow and our connection will be reestablished.