Putting Research Into Action Additional Resources

Learn more about studies available from the IABC Research Foundation. Some research is available at no cost, including the Information Overload study and the Employee Engagement Survey results: www.iabc.com/researchfoundation Youll find even more studies, books and other useful information within IABCs Knowledge Centre: www.iabc.com/publications/library Top five research tips to impact your communications: 1. Aim to see the world through the eyes of your audience 2. The research process changes those who participate 3. The research process will focus your thinking a. What are your needs? b. What are the right questions? c. Who needs to be involved? d. How do they need to be involved? 4. Use multiple sources of information to increase the strength of your evidence 5. Research involves people in your communications and predisposes them to change in attitude or behaviour Types of research to inform your decisions: Think tanks discover innovations Focus groups identify emotions and contextualize your tactics Surveys find the degree to which an opinion is held and set benchmarks Academic studies identify evidence for a specific communication strategy Observational validate the actual behaviour

Helpful Links:
This article provides insight and advice on how to conduct your own focus groups: Employee Focus Groups: A Reality Check for your Communication Strategy: http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2008/0808/McCasland.htm Marketwire is an IABC Research Foundation sponsor. The company offers a wealth of useful free information (current articles, blogs and more) that can help you produce more meaningful, actionable, measurable communication: www.marketwire.com. Mendeley is a free reference manager and academic social network that helps researchers organize their work, collaborate with others online and find new research. Although it is geared to researchers, its a great place to search for academic research that may help you with your communication strategies: http://www.mendeley.com/ The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) is the worlds largest association devoted to human resource management. Representing more than 250,000 members in over 140 countries. http://www.shrm.org/Research/ Jeremiah Owyang blog provides an aggregation of the latest web-trends and data. http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2010/01/19/a-collection-of-social-network-stats-for2010/

Note: These resources are the personal recommendations of Robin McCasland and Ryan Williams only.