It Has Been a Long Time and a Lot of Papers

I first started writing papers similar to the Views in 1992.  The papers in those days were written on an HP110.  The distribution was limited to about 20 people.  In those days, the papers were not called Views from the Hills of Kentucky,  they were just titled based on the topic at hand.  Actually, the papers were responses to questions from former associates at P&G.  All those HP110 papers have been lost forever.  Only those papers written on an old 35MHz Laser computer, that I still use today, are available.  The first paper written on the Laser was titled "Packages are Sales Tools, They are Your Billboards at the Point of Purchase," written in January 1993.  It wasn't until June 11, 1994 that the first Views from the Hills of Kentucky was distributed.  The topic of that first Views was "Packaging:  the Most Neglected Feature of a Brand."  Since then, over 200 Views have been written.

Why the nostalgia?  No, I do not intend to stop writing.  It is just that I am starting to repeat myself.  Topics are getting hard to come by.  I get an idea, make a rough pencil outline and then check the search engine to find out I have written about the same topic 6 or 7 years ago.  Should I address the topic again?  After all, in those days less than 100 people were getting the Views.  Today, readers number over 500.  For the present, I will try not to repeat the topic unless there is a different slant to the topic.  Maybe when I get the urge to write about a topic that I have addressed in the past, I will just add a note referencing a Views from the past and give the date.  So if there is interest, the reader can go to www.sorensen-associates.com website and look it up.

For those readers that are not familiar with www.mrlibrary.com, I would suggest that you check it out.  It is an excellent resource for many Market Research topics.  It also contains all Views written since January 1993.  When you open the web site, just go to the section labeled "Experts/Forums" and click on the word Views.  There is a search engine to enter any words and phrases to check if there are any Views addressing a specific topic.

This particular Views started out as "Customer Satisfaction Research, Is it Really Worth the Investment?"  The topic came about when a friend was expressing a need for more customer satisfaction research.  I had the rough outline of the paper completed when I checked to see if I had previously addressed the topic.  Well I had, back on November 29, 2000.  Then I decided to write about my preferred alternative to Customer Satisfaction, that is, Negative Brand Share.  But I had first written about that technique on October 17, 1994.  Maybe the method of "Category Dissatisfaction Research" would be appropriate.  But again a check of the old Views revealed that I had covered that topic on May 7, 1998.  All this frustration led to this Views about the difficulty of identifying topics to write about after eleven years and the ease in which someone can review topics previously addressed.

If you have a topic you would like me to address, let me know.

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