In the past several months I have worked with organizations who have, gasp, collected their own survey data using Survey Monkey. In one case, I was able to offer input into the design and in the other I came in after the data was already collected. Other professional market researchers may scoff at the use of survey monkey but not me (I wrote about the value of DIY once before).

Both surveys contained insight and one provided a potential tonic to internal disagreements based on assumptions and beliefs about the organization.

Neither survey neared perfection but perfection is rarely attainable and is usually divorced from the economics of business decisions anyway. The errors orĀ omissionsĀ in these DIY surveys rarely threaten the value of the data and are usually very affordable — even if you then hire someone like me to analyze the results.