One of the strengths of MSG’s new Advanced Cellular Frame is its ability to address inward and outward migration of cellular telephone users.  This feature allows for the employment of Disproportionate Stratified Sampling (DSS) designs – or in other vernacular – split-frame designs. We can illustrate this using a typical scenario.  

Say you are targeting a metro area like Multnomah County, OR – home to the city of Portland.  There are, in essence, three ways you can define a cellular telephone sample frame targeting Multnomah County. 

One method is using a traditional EPSEM (equal probability of selection method) RDD design.  This is the method that has been around for well over 10 years.   We first identify the rate centers that best fit Multnomah County.  Every possible telephone number in the cellular thousand blocks (first 7 digits of a telephone number) that originate from the selected rate centers make up the sample frame.  This RDD frame design contains a mixture of working and non-working/unassigned telephone numbers. 

This method, however, has some serious drawbacks, but more importantly, it does not address migration – people who have moved in and out of Multnomah County and kept their cellular telephone number.   Look at the highlighted line in the table above.  39% of the RDD EPSEM frame is known to be outside of Multnomah County.  Additionally, the RDD EPSEM frame excludes anyone who has since moved into the county from other parts of the country.  The result of this behavior is high under coverage and high out-of-area.  It’s simply an inefficient and costly design. 

The Advanced Cellular Frame dramatically improves upon the shortcomings of the traditional RDD design.  We can still employ an EPSEM design by including both known and unknown cellular telephones.  But, this design addresses the migration issue.   Look at the highlighted row in the table below.  This design now includes cellular numbers for individuals who have since moved into Multnomah County from other parts of the state or country (inward migration).  It also excludes cellular numbers known to be outside Multnomah County (outward migration).  This all but erases the inefficiencies of dialing known out of area out of area numbers while at the same time improving in-area coverage.  This design is still an EPSEM methodology because it includes the unlisted/unassigned portion in order to provide full coverage of Multnomah County.  When sampling, every telephone number has an equal probability of selection.  

Building on the improved EPSEM design noted above is the fact that we can now employ Disproportionate Stratified Sample designs (DSS) using the Advanced Cellular Frame.  We can separate the Listed and Unlisted/Unassigned components of a sample frame into individual strata.  This enables you to sample the more efficient listed stratum at a higher rate and under sample the less efficient unlisted/unassigned stratum at a lower rate.  Every number in the cellular sample frame still has a probability of selection but DSS will yield a more productive sample over a simple EPSEM design. 

Click Here to learn more about the Advanced Cellular Frame today!

Have you ever noticed how many of the best workplace conversations tend to happen around the water cooler or the coffee lounge? When coworkers converse in the midst of informal “stop and chat” spaces, they are more candid than they would be in an official meeting. Often, they tell better stories, too. You can pick up a lot of useful knowledge from experts by hanging around such spaces.  

To emulate those kinds of conversations, we would like to introduce you to Coffee Quip, a new MSG series of short video chats between a panel of product and subject matter experts. 

Click Here to Watch Now

The field of survey research is an ever more complex and dynamic one, and it can be hard to get at the inside knowledge needed to accomplish what you want to do. At MSG, we want our customers to benefit from the experience and wisdom of industry-leading Subject Matter Experts. They are the Yoda, the Obi-Wan, the architects of our products and services. They know how survey research gets done, what works and what doesn’t, and why.   

Coffee Quip: Need to Know Info That’s Easy to Watch 

Sometimes the best things come in small packages, and too much of a good thing can get to be too much. Sure, you can gain quality industry knowledge is by attending a formal webinar, but that can be time consuming. In light of this reality, we have produced each Coffee Quip episode to run a mere 8 to 12 minutes, less time than it takes to down your first cup of morning java.  

The informal, light, unscripted discussions are hosted by Marketing and Communications team member Greg Pizzola. You will learn about critical and timely survey research topics and products, such as Advanced Cellular Frame, Hybrid Sampling, and our ARCS platform. You also get to see members of our Sales Development and Customer Success teams, who are on the front lines working with clients every day. They pose the kinds of questions to our experts that customers are asking them.   

Coffee Quip is about your needs and interests, and we encourage you to submit topics for future discussion. Send your questions and topic ideas to SusanEmery@m-s-g.com

Make sure to subscribe to the MSG YouTube channel so you don’t miss any of the upcoming episodes.  

What a difference a year makes. In Summer 2020, many of us were in lockdown/quarantine mode, working from home, learning how to Zoom, hoarding toilet paper, trying to stay patient, hoping for vaccines to come. We dealt with the fear of getting sick, the isolation, and we grieved the loss of friends and loved ones. By any measure, it was a tough year, about as far from “normal” as you can get. 

The year 2021 feels distinctly different, doesn’t it? In the United States at the time of this writing, nearly half the population is fully vaccinated. Slowly, surely, we are beginning to feel more empowered. We can see the end of the pandemic, or at least it feels like we’ll be able to manage it. Schools and workplaces are opening up. The masks are coming off.  

It’s strange how the things we used to take for granted feel alien to us now. Things like going out to eat, visiting friends and family, entering a shopping mall, going to a house of worship, traveling. It’s like we have to relearn how to be normal. As a cartoon in the New Yorker said it so well, “I forget how to people.” It’s like we have to figure out how to start over again. How do we reboot our lives? 

We have learned a lot about ourselves in the past year, who we are, who we want to be, and what truly matters. Here’s a thought. Maybe, as we step gingerly back into the life stream, we will remember the daily practices of self-care that guided us through a very trying year. Maybe we won’t forget to appreciate the simple pleasures and the people that matter.  

As life begins to open up and we relearn how “to people,” remember to be patient with others and yourself. Here’s to a summer and a “new normal” that feels better, calmer, and more comfortable. We hope you enjoy everything the summer has to offer!  

It is fair to say that we were all happy to see the year 2020 in the rear-view mirror. The new year brings the promise of Covid19 vaccine relief, and maybe (just maybe) a return to some normalcy. In the meantime, many of us remain working from home. To be honest, it sometimes feels like living under house arrest! At MSG, we miss being physically in the presence of our colleagues. We miss the water cooler conversations and casual interactions. We stay close over Teams, but it’s just not quite the same. Such isolation can be unnerving and wearying, but in the spirit of the new year, we asked our teammates to share some silver linings they have found inside the cloud. What are some benefits about working from home?

More time to spend with kids. For those of us with children, we can spend more precious time around them. The kids aren’t going to be little ones forever. OK, OK, maybe that sentiment held for the first month or two, before everyone started climbing the walls! But you get the idea. It’s good to be reminded how much our families matter.  

Being more productive without worrying about commute. Honestly, how many of us miss the drive to work? The past year has made us more aware of the time we spend moving from home to workplace. That is time better spent catching up on email and planning our day.  And think of all the money saved in gas and wear and tear on your automobile! One thing you might miss about the commute, however, is the transition time. Commuting gives you space between home and work life. How do we cope when that buffer collapses? On to our next point….

Being more strategic about time management. One of the major challenges of working from home is finding ways to juggle all the responsibilities of homelife on top of the regular workday responsibilities. We have become better planners.  It is important to set some boundaries and rituals to give your day a semblance of structure. We have also become better multitaskers, finding ways to be more flexible, like say, doing the laundry and feeding the pets in between meetings.

Closer bonds and time with the family. The pandemic has made us appreciate the time we have together. We’ve become closer and more appreciative of our loved ones.  As one of our salespeople puts it, “if it were not for COVID we would not spend this much time together, and because of the pandemic we have all learned to be flexible and to get creative with entertaining ourselves.” Cooking, crafting, doing puzzles, and decluttering—these kinds of activities can be shared with loved ones. They are opportunities to make memories that will be cherished in years to come.

More “outside time”. Because we’re not stuck in the car each morning and afternoon running to and from work, it’s a lot easier to step out for some fresh air, walk the dog, recommit to that morning exercise routine. Attendance at local parks and open space preserves is up. You’ll find plenty of people enjoying quality “back to nature” moments. All of this is good for the spirit.  

More time with our animals. Let’s talk pets. Better yet, let’s revel in the cameo appearances they make during virtual meetings. Who doesn’t love seeing this?! Pets make us smile. They reveal our better nature. They have been faithful companions through a very difficult time. Where would we be without them? They make the workday much more bearable.

As the months wear on with no clear end to the pandemic in sight, working from home is going to remain challenging. Hang in there and take time for self-care. Recognize how the slower pace allows us to appreciate the simple things in life.

In the past year, we have all been struggling to maintain some measure of work/life balance. Blame it on Covid19, if you like, but even in the good old so-called “normal times,” workers have had to juggle competing demands from work, family, friends, service, and that all too rare commodity known as “me time.”  

It being Black History Month, we would like to share some wisdom from one of our greatest African-American writers, the novelist and Nobel prize winner, Toni Morrison. Toni published a brief essay in The New Yorker magazine back in 2017 called “The Work You Do, The Person You Are.” The essay recalls an early job she had as a child in the 1940’s, cleaning the house of a presumably white, wealthier lady, for two dollars a day. Toni would give half her wages to her parents. “The pleasure of being necessary to my parents was profound,” she writes. Morrison took pride in the job, but also became frustrated as more duties were asked of her. When she complained about it to her family, Toni’s father gave her some sage advice: “Listen. You don’t live there. You live here. With your people. Go to work. Get your money. And come on home.” 

Toni derived four lessons from that quote, which for those of us trying to navigate the turbulent waters of work pressures and responsibilities and home, serve as helpful reminders of what really matters.  

 
1. Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself. 
 
2. You make the job; it doesn’t make you. 
 
3. Your real life is with us, your family. 
 
4. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are. 

Morrison concludes, “…I have never considered the level of labor to be the measure of myself, and I have never placed the security of a job above the value of home.”  

To read the full essay, check out https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/05/the-work-you-do-the-person-you-are 

To commemorate Black History Month, let’s do a retro music rewind to the year 1976 and the classic album by musical genius Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life. This Grammy award winner for album of the year is famous for the hits “Sir Duke” (a tribute to Duke Ellington), “Isn’t She Lovely,” and “I Wish.” When digging into the album’s deep cuts, you’ll find a song called “Black Man,” an 8-and-a-half-minute history lesson about the contributions made by black and brown people to American history. The timing seemed fitting, seeing as the album was released in the USA bicentennial year. 

In this funky exercise in consciousness raising, we learn about African-American figures, many of whom never got the attention they deserved in history class. People like the first man to die for the American flag (Crispus Attucks), the first heart surgeon (Dr. Daniel Hale Williams), the first clock maker in America and surveyor of the District of Columbia(Benjamin Banneker), the first man to set foot on the north pole (Matthew Henson), the founder of blood plasma and director of the Red Cross blood bank (Dr Charles Drew), the inventor of the first stop light and gas mask (Garrett Morgan), the founder of the city of Chicago (Jean Baptiste), and the woman who led slaves to freedom on the Underground Railroad (Harriet Tubman).  

Essentially, “Black Man” presents Stevie’s vision of a multiracial democracy, as expressed in the chorus:  

We pledge allegiance 
All our lives 
To the magic colors 
Red, blue and white 
But we all must be given 
The liberty that we defend 
For with justice not for all men 
History will repeat again 
Its time we learned 
This world was made for all men 
 

Words to live and learn by!  

For a full listing of the celebrated historical figures mentioned in the song, check out this Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Man_(song) 

Youtube version of the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEoE2UQXduA