What to expect.
Over the years, we have built upon a body of work begun in the UK by Liz Nelson, the founder of Taylor Nelson Ltd (now Taylor Nelson Sofres, one of the largest market research companies in the world).
Her work combined a range of methodologies that were cutting edge in the 1970s and 80s and we have attempted to keep the research methodologies at the forefront, or ahead, of the market and use the whole range of research tools and analytics available to us.
We are constantly conducting values-based research in the UK and now across the world.
We have extended our methodology to other cultures and have combined other research methodologies and bases into our own databases.
Chris Rose has written the book, "What Makes People Tick", based on our work up to 2008 - and specifically the segmentation system known as Maslow GroupsTM. In the book he presents many of the ways we have used this segmentation to measure specific values, beliefs, motivations, attitudes and behaviours and the way they all interconnect in the presentation of self and management of perception within groups.
If you haven’t done so already, get the book.
Our intention is to build on the book and drill down into the bedrock of our values systems by giving you an overview of our Values Alphabet – the 100+ Attributes which, in multidimensional space, populate our maps.
At the Attribute level, we can illuminate the dark corners and highlands of happiness in our psyches; find out why something can make one person happy and another sad; why an event can lead to elation one time and despair the next.
To do this, we will present and discuss original research from our British Values Survey(s). We will also comment on research done by others along with News, from all forms of media, in relation to the Attributes.
We will use a standard set of maps and charts in all articles, and occasionally maps and charts sourced outside the CDSM database (with appropriate acknowledgement to the source(s)).
A final word about expectations.
A working knowledge of the alphabet does not enable you to write "War and Peace". Beyond the alphabet is a grammar. The alphabet will provide you with better perception of ‘Why?’ If you have (say) a critical organisational problem, for which it seems that understanding people might be the key, please don’t try this at home! - come and talk to us instead.
We constantly develop new ‘Whys?’ and new research tools to discover and measure results – often in conjunction with real world issues arising from our many clients and networks of people interested in our work.
As new tools and insights emerge we are likely to expand the number of standard maps and charts and possibly discard some that have been ‘improved’. Discarding will never be taken lightly and additions will always be developed with passion, intellectual rigour and integrity.