ADVANCED SPECIAL EDITION (CALL FOR DATES FIRST)

This is a four day course which has become very popular. In the past year, Advanced SE has replaced our previous Advanced Course. It covers key concerns for more experienced moderators such as dealing with difficult people, the advanced use of projective exercises to unearth consumer motivation (note: much more breadth and depth than our intro to projectives course), practice, practice, practice with real consumers, and a primer on Remote Moderating via video conferencing where everyone, including the moderator works from their home location.

Dealing with difficult people: Many Ways To 'Fit In' Or Belong To A Group. Seven, To Be More Precise. (Managing the front and back room according to observed personality types)

• Primitive group dynamics required that individual participants play particular roles. Some were leaders, others would follow in their own unique ways. Some would quietly hide in the background, others would loudly make their opinions known. Some would falsely admire the leaders for fear of being ostracized, others would function as peace makers trying to neutralize all conflicts before they brewed too much disruption.
• In every newly forming group, people revert to primitive defenses against expressing truly individual thoughts and behaviors, in favor of ‘belonging’ to the group. Dr. Sharon Livingston has astutely picked up on this, and formulated a method for quickly diagnosing the specific postures people might take in a group to protect themselves. After diagnosing these stances, you'll be able to understand the psychological motivations which motivate them, and, with this knowledge in hand, intervene in such a way as to allow the TRUE thoughts and feelings of each group member to emerge. The results is a more cooperative, more smoothly flowing group which has a MUCH higher probability of accomplishing its goals.

The use of projective techniques and other psychological exercises to unearth consumer motivation and brand imagery

• Emphasis in the advanced edition is on teaching several specific projective examples and their interpretation. Specific Techniques taught include: Collage as a pre-group homework assignment; The Looking Glass Technique(tm) of guided imagery to understand Brand Imagery, Mindwalk(tm) for advertising creative fuel; Branimation(tm) exploring the consumers relationship with products/brands; Laddering from product features and functional benefits to emotional end benefits, utilizing the Livingston Model of Self Esteem for categorizing the results of Laddering.

Practice, practice, practice!

How to run groups and indepth interviews remotely via Focus Vision remote video conferencing or Telephone.

• Through remote conferencing everyone, including the moderator works from their home location. This course teaches how to make these venues as effective as in-person qualitative interviews.

Differences between Intro and Advanced Coverage of Projective Techniques

Introduction to Projectives assumes only a basic familiarity with a focus group environment and provides a very firm theoretical background and initial practice in the use of projective techniques for moderators with little or no experience in using them. The Advanced Special Edition, in contrast, is intended to take the student with a strong background in moderating and projectives (or those having taken the Introductory workshop) and expose them to 10 very specific projective techniques, giving them the opportunity to practice each in a supervised atmosphere, and to learn to interpret their marketing implications.

Prerequisite to The Advanced Special Edition

One or both of the following is an acceptable (required) prerequisite for the Advanced Special Edition:

• 50+ hours previous moderating experience.
• Successful completion of one of our introductory or basic courses and approval of the instructor.