USP Research Methodology

Following on from the last few Dummies Guide posts on Research, here are our 3 starting hypotheses:

1. There is no true social networking volunteer website in existence as yet



2. There is no online resource of information dedicated to disadvantaged urban youth in the 15 to 21 age bracket at a literacy level that can be sensibly assimilated by people without further education



3. There is no real-time interactive online resource dedicated to connecting skilled young professionals with disadvantaged young people who need knowledge

Ok there are a number of other hypotheses and variants being tested too, but in the interests of keeping it simple for you, these are the core ones.
Our research at this early stage is based on trawling the web for volunteering sites and youth services, categorising and reviewing them, talking to offline organisations that provide youth support, capturing information about the size of prospective audiences, understanding which other sites and projects are doing similar things in other industries, and generally collating reference information related to the 'market' we're entering.

Here's a snapshot view:




Volunteering and Youth Services research will help with 'Positioning', which is where the next step of 'Analysis' is leading; and Social Web 2.0 research will help us get a bead on technology, success factors and innovation in social networking online.

The time frame I'm thinking of is about 3 weeks, given that it's only me and I've got a full time day job. Hopefully by the end of January we'll we be well away! Of course it could be quicker if any of you want to help me ;)