Re: The quality of online research

From: Tim Lee <TLee_at_webcmo.com>
Date: Sat, 26 Jun 1999 21:01:36 -0500 (CDT)

RICK CRANDALL, PH.D. WROTE:
>Tim Lee talks about research a lot and seems to sell it as
>well... But other than selling his services, what are his
>qualifications as an expert?... If Tim is right that most
>people don't understand research, and I'm right that Tim
>doesn't know as much as he thinks he does, then we need more
>zine editors who understand marketing better so that they
>can make better judgments about whether or not to give Tim's
>posts credibility by publishing them.

I was honored when Dr. Rick Crandall tried to investigate my
background and to prove my status as an expert. I never
pretended to be an expert and never wanted to be an expert.
I simply like marketing and marketing research and treat
them as a hobby. So when you guys were playing golf, I was
writing posts. That's why you often saw my posts somewhere.
Nothing special. I am just one of many common subscribers
and contributors on this great list. If you don't like my
posts, simply skip them. If you find something interesting
and useful, then take it but don't need to remember who wrote
it.

If you like the taste of an egg, simply eat it. Why do you
want to check the credibility of the chicken that lays the
egg?

Dr. Rick Crandall mentioned I told him what marketing
research journals I regularly read when he asked me about my
research background. He could not understand why. The first
reason is that in the marketing research community, if you
tell what journals you regularly read (especially the top
marketing research journals, such as Marketing Science), one
can pretty much tell how good you are in marketing research
and your marketing research background. The second reason is
to subtly tell him his statistic knowledge is quite limited.
He told me that he knows about half a dozen statistic models.
But he doesn't know that we never use the number of statistic
models to measure a person's statistic knowledge. If I have to
answer his question in his way, it would take me several weeks
to list all the statistic models I know -- several hundreds.
Every paper in these journals is a new model and every model
is much more complicated than any model Dr. Crandall have
claimed he knows.

Had Dr Crandall had read any paper on Marketing Science, he
would have not come out and declared only he was qualified
to discuss marketing issues and to judge who the expert is.
I don't know what research he is doing and teaching. But I
know it is not marketing research. If one does not read
marketing research papers and doesn't know much about
marketing research methodologies, how could he/she be
qualified as a marketing research expert?

Such background checking is nonsense. It happened simply
because he holds a Ph.D. degree. Therefore he suggested that
one without a Ph.D. degree not qualified to discuss marketing
issues or to moderate a discussion list.

Let's forget this noisy qualification story but discuss
something relevant to us -- quality of online research. I
welcome Dr. Crandall to comment on my web marketing research
and posts if he thinks anything wrong. Thanks!

Regards,

Tim Lee
Editor -- Journal of Web Marketing Research
http://www.WebCMO.com
Innovations in web marketing research & strategies

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Received on Sun Jun 27 1999 - 05:25:05 CDT