A couple years ago I collaborated with our Interactive Arts & Technology Librarian on a series of posts about one of the "wicked problems" of our modern world: sustainability in the textile & fashion industries.

That series was published to support an interdisciplinary cohort of students in our Business of Design program, all of whom were working on projects to change the way fashion and its materials are designed, produced, purchased, and discarded... change of the sort that our world so desperately needs.

The word "change" is key here. The Business of Design program has changed to Make Change Studio, but the students involved are still trying to change the world, and they've returned to the topic of fixing fast fashion.

<Read on for an update and expansion of the original posts on fixing fast fashion!>

One of our marketing classes (BUS 345 E100) is going to be doing some primary research on alternative protein products & consumers again this semester.

In support of that class, I've listed some key resources, but students in other classes may also want to use this post as a case study to learn about some of the powerful market research tools available to SFU researchers.  Bon appetite!

<Read on for a menu of delicious databases! >

Just a brief post to let you know that our Vividata database has been updated with Fall 2019 data from their Survey of the Canadian Consumer.

For those who haven't used Vividata yet: it's an invaluable source of information on Canadians’ opinions, demographics, and activities, as well as their product, service, and media purchases, with brand-level data in many cases.

<Read on for details about this powerful database!>

This is just a brief post to let you all know that we now have an Advanced guide for our Vividata database, thanks to the hard work of one of my colleagues here in the library, Marianne!

Our Introduction to Vividata gui

de still covers the basics -- how to create and interpret a simple table -- but this new Advanced Vividata guide goes several steps further: deep into how to adjust the settings to create exactly the table you need, then how to read that table accurately.

<Read on for details!>

A couple of our marketing classes are going to be doing some primary research on alternative protein products & consumers this semester.

In support of those classes, I've listed some key resources, but students in other classes may also want to use this post as a case study to learn about the powerful market research tools available to SFU researchers.  Bon appetite!

<Read on for a menu of delicious databases! >

Our Vividata Target Snapshot database has new data and new functionality -- just in time for the busy fall semester!  

I'm still exploring it and discovering all the changes, but thought I'd pause to list what I've learned so far: 

Data: Data from the 2016 Q4 survey wave has been added. The data was gathered during the period of 06/30/2016 and 06/30/2017. Sadly, it appears that the older data has been supplanted. That's a pity as it is often useful to compare data across time periods.

Functionality: ... <Read on for the incredibly useful details...>

I just came across a great tip sheet from the Journalists' Resource: Free tools for visualizing economic data.

The title is pretty much self explanatory. I thought I'd mention it here because doing so gives me a chance to talk about the hot topic of data visualization and the indispensable Journalists' Resource...

Do you need to know...

• which brands of energy drinks are purchased most often by young Canadians?
• which Canadian magazines are read most by people who report having donated in the past year?
• how many Canadians take multivitamins?
• which major brands of beer Canadian women buy most often?
• how opinions about global warming vary between consumers of different products?

If so, then the new version of our Vividata database may be of interest... <more>

Our BUS 345 students are going to be doing some taste tests again this semester, and this time the focus is on cheese!