Guest Blogger: WFU's Dr. Michelle Roehm Shares Her Experiences Using BlogNog for Student Research Projects

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As a professor of marketing research at Wake Forest University, I regularly conduct audits of cutting edge industry practices. It was in the course of one such review--during which I delved into the marriage of emergent technology and qualitative research—that I found BlogNog. The more I read, the more impressed I became, and before long, I had decided that this was a tool that simply had to be shared with my students.

In reaching out to founder Paul Rubenstein, my initial hope was that he might agree to deliver a guest lecture on the use and utilities of BlogNog. To my delight, he not only accepted my invitation (and was a huge hit!), but he was also kind enough to extend one in return: Would my students, he asked, be interested in conducting their very own live projects on BlogNog, to gain a fuller appreciation of its capabilities? To say I jumped at the chance would be an understatement.

With the help of the BlogNog staff’s expert training, all of the project teams were very quickly up and running, collecting the kind of deep-level consumer data that marketers dream of. As we progressed through the studies, student feedback ranged from enthusiastic to effusive. Several expressed amazement at how intuitive and user-friendly the interface was. Others commented on how intimate their contact was with respondents and how profound the resulting consumer insights were.

One of my students, Kaitlin Fitzgerald (WFU MA 2012), provided the following testimonial describing her experiences: "BlogNog is a wonderful research tool. It helped us uncover and analyze in-depth consumer insights in an extremely cost-effective and timely manner. This tool provided data to affirm previously held consumer insights, as well as to uncover new areas to explore. The research we gathered added a monumental amount of value to our consumer study.

Our participants had an interactive feedback experience where they uploaded pictures, ranked images, and highlighted areas of interest. We used these multimedia tools offered by BlogNog to test new marketing strategies, as well as products, and the company's website. The participants had just as much fun with the study as we did!

The staff at Accelerant Research were easy to reach and eager to help with any questions that cropped up. We deeply appreciate their help and the promptness of their responses!"

We are grateful to the entire BlogNog team for introducing this powerful tool to our curriculum!

Michelle Roehm
Board of Visitors Professor of Marketing
Schools of Business
Wake Forest University