"We desperately need a more comprehensive way of understanding our industry," says Keny Whitright, founder and president of Wybron. "Technology is impacting our business in ways that were almost unthinkable a decade ago. To some, technology provides for easier ways of doing what we could only accomplish with long, costly hours in the past. But today's and tomorrow's technologies are also providing opportunities to further enhance audience involvement, to absolutely ensure repeatable effects, and to provide new mechanisms for creative interplay. This research program is already providing Wybron with a focus on product development accomplishable in the short term as well as with an integrated vision of the longer-term industry requirements."
Wybron's Keny Whitright developed the research programme with the help of Dr. Stuart Agres, a recently retired marketing executive and market research guru. Agres advised Whitright that the reason he couldn't get accurate feedback was that people don't know the answers: they simply don't know the weight that they give to elements of a complex decision. He explained how sophisticated research methods in the consumer products world had approached the same problem by asking people to do comfortable tasks, and then use high-order mathematics to get at the underlying issues that are always present. "Years ago," said Agres, "when we first began contemplating and then doing this type of research it would take mainframe computers seemingly endless hours to calculate a simulation. Today, on a laptop, we can run almost endless simulations in an hour. The key is in getting the questions right, and asking those questions to people who really know, even if they don't know that they know."
In conducting the research, Whitright wanted to speak with the most knowledgeable and influential people in the lighting industry, so it was decided that it would best be conducted at trade shows with the highest concentration of these people, identified as PLASA and LDI.
In order to delve beyond what people say and uncover the hidden basis for decision-making in the lighting industry, numerous sophisticated statistical and analytic techniques were required, say Wybron: premier lighting designers were asked for points of view, helping to frame the discussion points that would later prove critical. The surveys consisted of one-on-one interviews, followed by an online survey taken on a computer.
While findings from the USA study just conducted will not be available for a while, some insights from the research conducted in Europe are available. Unexpectedly, says Whitright, tenure in our business is not a driving variable of how people come to appreciate and value our "tools of the trade." There are two equally important sides to this finding. First, the result suggests that younger individuals pretty quickly come to understand the creative value of the tools available. Second, the finding suggests "old dogs can learn new tricks." Neither the benefits nor the concerns of new lighting are dependent on something as simplistic as age alone.
On another front, say Wybron, the European research reveals that lighting professionals have only partial understanding of their decision making when it comes to working with vendors and manufacturers. What people claim to value and what is actually driving choice are not necessarily the same. This shows that there are unarticulated and hidden dimensions that lead to customer satisfaction and vendor selection.
