The other evening I attended a focus group in West Chester sponsored by a local organization looking to raise its profile in the community. If people want to pay to listen to my opinions AND feed me dinner, who am I to say no?
One of the first questions was how we would describe Chester County. What a divergence of opinion! People from the southern part of the county mentioned diversity in terms of race and income; those from the Main Line described the county as almost entirely white and affluent ("Yeah, there's a lot of diversity -- in terms of hair and eye color," one man said).
I know little about market research, but I had to wonder about the choice of focus group participants. Are folks who are already committed members of the organization in question really the right people to be interviewing? Shouldn't they be seeking the opinions of people who aren't familiar with the group?
And the physical setup of the room wasn't conducive to a comfortable, natural conversation. The leader sat at the end of a very narrow table, with us guests on either side. This would have been an OK arrangement except for the fact that the end of the table was teardrop-shaped, which meant the leader was sitting off to the side and nobody had a good direct view of her. I had to keep craning my neck to look around the other participants. If I ran into the leader today, I'm not sure I'd recognize her.
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