Qualitative vs. Quantitative

So back in the day I used to be a Wal-Mart loving, Malt-O-Meal cereal eating individual. I hate to let those words even leave my mouth but I was who I was and I can't change that. I'm not saying those things are bad, but I personally hate to associate with either.

The change started my freshman year of college. I realized I was free to do whatever and become whoever I wanted. I shifted my likings to a lifestyle in line with quality instead of quantity. I quit going to Wal-Mart and made sure only to buy name brand, box cereals. To this day if I need something, there is always a better store to get it from than Wal-Mart. As for cereal, if you click the Cereal Challenge tab on this blog, you'll see I know my cereal pretty well. I've never gone back to the bag crap and don't plan on ever doing so.

Although I've never had much of a chance to do real research during my college career (Long story short I've had quite a few lame excuses for classes in the Huntsman Business school and I don't want to talk about it because I could write a novel about it.) So with my minor experience I believe I feel the same way about research as I do about my every day life: Qualitative is better than Quantitative. I don't care what a million people say...  a million people could be wrong. I trust quality interactions over quantity any day. Which is why with social media I've always believed one on one communication between customer and business is better than throwing a survey out to all of your followers. Just how I do things. I believe that people are people and should be treated as such. Not as a number in a survey of millions.

Like it says here quantitative data is to generalize results. I don't like that. I like my results like I like my suits, custom tailored for me. None of this one size fits all stuff. As it states here there is a legitimate use for each kind of research. However, if I ever had to do research, I would prefer to do only the qualitative side of it. I'll let other people do the rest. I have my doubts about research anyways. I don't believe it works. Why? Because of this Ted talk by Malcolm Gladwell.