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Article: Poll Tax.(3Com's global polling a glorified focus group)
- Article from:
- The NonProfit Times
- Article date:
- January 15, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 NPT Publishing Group, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Data may not mean anything
The headline in the local paper read 3Com Out to Poll World on Everything. The story heralded plans for a huge "survey" of people worldwide, sponsored by 3Com. The project will allow participants to "see how their answers compare with those of people around the world," according to the Associated Press.
The only problem with this study is that, as the article casually mentioned in the very last paragraph, "the poll will not be statistically valid."
What this really means is that this study is actually representative of nothing and nobody. It's a huge, glorified focus group, where we hear a lot of opinions with no way ...