Mike MacLeod

Harris Poll Chairman Stands Up to The Economist

// January 19th, 2009 // Comments // Journal

Cheers to Humphrey Taylor of Harris Interactive for defending online research in his letter to The Economist:

SIR – Your article about the accuracy of opinion polling in America’s election stated that “online surveys are notoriously biased” (“Poll, baby, poll!”, October 25th). Their track record says otherwise. In the almost 80 elections in the United States and Britain where we can carry out a comparison, the final forecasts of online opinion polls have on average been somewhat more accurate than telephone polls. What’s more, they include most of the “cellphone only” population.

You also wrote that “most experts” consider as “sloppy” the weighting of surveys to compensate for biases in the sample. As the raw samples in all opinion polls contain biases, whether the data are collected in person, by mail, on the phone or online, it would be very sloppy not to weight them. Who are these experts?

Humphrey Taylor
Chairman
The Harris Poll
New York

More Layoffs – How Can I Help?

// December 19th, 2008 // Comments // Journal

I was really hoping that the first post of my relaunched site would be upbeat. Unfortunately that’s not the case. I wanted to get something up about this, even though I’m still under construction.

Earlier this week, Harris Interactive announced a layoff of 51 people. I believe this is their fourth round of layoffs this year.  That really sucks given the financial situation – not to mention that it’s a week before the holidays.

In addition to my friends and colleagues at Harris, I know of other really great people that have lost their jobs over the last couple of months.

So, please contact me and tell me how I can help. If you need a connection, or a reference, or if you just need to talk give me a shout.

And keep your chin up.  Things always work out for the best.