Elaine and I were eager to learn and expand our digital dexterity.

On a November Tuesday night – we attended a Visiting Speaker Series at Kelowna’s Rotary Centre for the Arts on Cawston Avenue. The Faculty of Management at the University of British Columbia Okanagan (UBCO) was the presenting sponsor. The topic du jour had a salacious bent:  “The Brand Ménage à Trois – An Intimate Engagement with the Social.”

Sounded intriguing. Would we be blushing at any point?!

All 326 seats of the Mary Irwin Theatre were filled, mostly with college students. After introductory remarks from Annamma Joy, PhD, Professor, Faculty of Management and Roger Sugden, PhD, Dean, Faculty of Management, out came featured speaker Dr. Robert V. Kozinets. Dressed in jeans, boat shoes, open-collar shirt, and a blazer, he resembled a preppy Howie Mandel. Bald dome, glib manner, and audience-savvy.

His résumé is no joking matter. Kozinets, PhD, MBA, is Professor of Marketing at York University’s Schulich School of Business (Toronto, Canada) and Chair of the Marketing department. He works as a researcher, consultant, and author (more than 100 research pieces) advancing the intersection of technology, media, brands, and consumers. www.kozinets.net.

During his 40-minute stage and PowerPoint presentation, Kozinets went into rapid-fire oration on verticals such as social branding, social brand engagement, social brand management, and the three-way relationship between Person 1, Person 2, and a brand. It was data consumption on steroids. I couldn’t take notes fast enough – yet was captivated at the depth of data mining and brand-management check-listing it takes nowadays to sell soft drinks, automobiles or salty snacks?!

I remember the days when advertising agencies created print and broadcast ads and flooded traditional, paid-media with catchy taglines and visuals. Not anymore.  Intellectuals such as Kozinets and his consorts have helped rearrange the deck chairs of influence peddling inside online communities. Who knew that customer-brand engagement dealt with an individual’s state of mind regarding their physical relationships through brands?!

Last, but not least, came Kozinets’ crown jewel – Netnography. He authored it. Others employed it.

In short, Netnography is defined as a written account resulting from fieldwork studying the cultures and communities that emerge from online, computer mediated, or Internet-based communications, where both the field work and the textual account are methodologically informed by the traditions and techniques of cultural anthropology. A qualitative research method by nature, Netnography can offer greater insight into the virtual space in relation to consumers’ needs and wants, choices, symbolic meanings, and more.

After the Q+A session ended, Elaine and I approached the stage seeking one-on-one interaction. Kozinets obliged. He posed for a photo and friendly conversation. He encouraged me to “keep blogging with trending topics in mind” and reach out to him via Twitter – #thanksdrkozinets (I made up this hashtag!).

One final takeaway – I hope the students were paying attention?! Kozinets played to his audience and stated unequivocably that “Data Analyst” is a high-demand job now and for the foreseeable future.  A steady stream of battle-ready Brainiacs needs to harvest and analyze all this raw data and make sense of it.

 

In lieu of asking Kozinets social media questions, I did a brief Lit Review of Netnography and came up with these Journal Article Abstract nuggets:

• Netnography stresses that both its field work and its textual account be methodologically informed by the traditions and techniques of cultural anthropology. Observing the general guidelines and traditions of ethnography while adapting them to the unique circumstances of cyber-culture, netnography may be empowered and legitimated through building on anthropological tradition, adapting and drawing on its consensually derived standards of evaluation where necessary.
• As a method, Netnography is faster, simpler, and less expensive than traditional ethnography and more naturalistic and unobtrusive than focus groups or interviews. It provides information on the symbolism, meanings, and consumption patterns of online consumer groups.
• Netnography encompasses the observation of peoples’ views published through online communities, on Internet forums, blogs, and social media, and analyzed through an ethnographic perspective. It can hone in, narrow, and focus on particular relationships or previously identified constructs.
• Netnography is by no means restricted to non-participant observation in studying the online phenomenon. Participant observation and email-based interviewing are also equally relevant and potentially powerful tools, particularly when used in a ‘mixed-method’ fashion to capitalize on the interactive nature of the Internet.
• Netnography has several distinctive strengths for marketers. A combination of the Internet’s substantial information-carrying capacity and the removal of individual social cuesmeans the researcher is provided with ‘an information goldmine.’ This has a number of positive consequences:

• Greater accessibility to a broader cross-section of respondents. 
  Researchers can recruit respondents quickly and extensively. The openness and anonymity of the online environment enables people who are more reserved to participate in real-life focus groups or more flexibly respond to interview requests.
• Greater capacity and flexibility for observation and analysis.
  For researchers, the availability of a digitally archived data trail greatly strengthens the possible breadth and depth of research by permanently documenting otherwise perishable information. Blogs, discussion forum threads and posts, expert review articles, or the latest online video streams are generally archived and stored. The existence of digital footprints of historical data not only streamlines the process of transcribing field data, but also permits the building-up of insights on an ongoing basis.
• The reflective quality of online discourse. 
  An often neglected aspect of Netnography has been the use of written statements. In a real face-to-face interview or focus group, there is limited chance for self-reflection before speaking. Correspondingly, there might be natural concern for the possible loss of ‘first reactions’, with respondents purposefully ‘polishing’ their written answers. However, the ability to directly quote online respondents, or make use of references to other members or to related links in their posts, for instance, could add greater explanatory power.