Open Circles™ - A revolutionary approach to qualitative research

Perhaps you’ve been there. You’ve sat in the back room, behind the mirror, and had a pressing question you wanted to ask, a new idea you wanted to get reaction to, an issue you needed clarified. And you wanted to ask it, face to face. Open Circles™ allows you to do just that:

• Break down barriers between you and consumers
• Create deeper listening and insights that impact products and services
• Accelerate idea generation, concept refinement, new product/service development and product /service optimization

Open Circles™ is an ideal methodology for bringing companies closer to their consumers, clients and users. See the case study, A Story Worth Retelling, for one example of Open Circles™ in action.

How Open Circles work

Open circles is a two-phase focus group. It begins with one hour of traditional focus group discussion with recruited respondents, guided by a Sounding House moderator. In the second hour, clients join the respondents in a facilitated group discussion, seated in an outer circle. The focus group respondents seated within an inner circle with one empty chair. As clients have questions or want to engage in direct dialogue with the respondents, individuals take turns moving into the empty chair. Open Circles does what no mirror can do - it facilitates direct conversations with consumers. 

Go ahead and break through the glass!