Kaizen have just undertaken street focus groups in Kingston and they have been highly successful giving a great insight into local people’s priorities for transforming the housing service. These guys really know what they are doing.

These street focus groups look like a really interesting and unique technique to conduct market research. I especially see how they can be helpful by making the experience an interesting one for those getting interviewed as well those conducting it.

One thing I’d just like to add in regards to the approach is that it might be helpful for some businesses to hire an outside firm to conduct such a type of Focus Group session for them, particularly if they’re strapped for time. One company I know of that actually does provide such a service is called SQM (linked: https://goo.gl/DWbZx1). I think any business could benefit from hiring such a service and combining the techniques mentioned in the article.

In my area of specialism – drug and alcohol prevention – there’s been a decade or more of sustained good news, with the proportions of young people and young adults who say they smoke, drink or take other drugs falling quite substantially. Here’s a briefing I put together on this a couple of years ago https://bit.ly/18PQ6W0.

That story is starting to be reflected in the way that the media report the annual surveys, but there’s a real lag in that message being believed by adults and young people themselves.