Welcome to Novus podcast Sanity check, Michael Nietzsche. Why don't you just tell the audience a little bit about yourself to start there? Oh, I don't like to talk about myself, but very briefly. So OK, I'm president of Gallup International and owner of the Austrian Gallup Institute, which is the oldest opinion Research Institute in Austria, owner of Gallup in Switzerland as well. And yeah, multi functionaire,
multi entrepreneur. I also run an advertising agency because I come from advertising originally, and now I'm here to develop with all my colleagues and friends some new ideas for the future of Gallup International. Yeah. And Novus is through their owner Gallup Nordic, also member of Gallup International. And Gallup International can have one member per country, which is maybe not that viable anymore because we can do multi country research, but you cannot be two in one country.
That's that's the thing. That's the thing and the most, no, the the most important thing is originally when Gallup International was founded in 1947. So that's more than 7577 years ago, George Gallup and 1011 researchers, opinion researchers, the most famous at that time, gathered together in in a meeting in Loxwood in UK to set up the foundation of what is today Gallup International and also the foundation of what is international opinion polling.
Because it did not really exist before that time. The industry was quite new. So they were The Pioneers in the field. And at that time the the vision of George Gallup probably was or was to have kind of the United Nations of opinion polling being Gallup International. I mean, today we have round about 50 members across the world, Novus being our exclusive member in Sweden.
And I think it's not that important anymore to be everywhere in the world because with our fifty members, we can cover 100 more than 130 countries of the world. So that's almost everywhere with a very few exceptions. But The thing is, the idea of Gallup international laws always and still is until today, it's a club of intellectuals. It's a club of intellectual entrepreneurs. It's a lot about personal relationships between people, about personal trust between people.
And we're all independent entrepreneurs, which is very important and which makes us completely different from any other international group in, in, in the industry. Most of them are either listed on the Stock Exchange part of big corporations owned by investment funds with quite complex structures and a lot of reporting lines and all that. So our industry keeps talking about technology, AI, big data, whatever in the last in the last 1015 years and obviously this
has some kind of relevance. So we we cannot miss that. But I think Gallup International never was and never should be about technology, only our strength always was. We gave humans a voice. The idea of voice of the people was one of the founding ideas to kind of a mission statement of Gallup International from the very beginning.
And I think there's a lot of value focusing and following this idea because when everybody in our industry talks about digitalization, about AI, about all related stuff of data lakes and all that kind of stuff. In the end, what we're doing is we give people a voice. And that's more relevant even in today's time than it was probably in the last 20 years because the world is full of fake information, communication bubbles on social media, etcetera.
So having a solid picture of public opinion in a country, in a region, in a part of the world or of the world, having a picture of what people really think and how to build their minds, their opinions. And even if we don't like the opinions they have, yeah, the only way to understand them is to hear, to listen to these opinions and then think about what can you do with it. And it's, it's more about real people and their opinions than about whatever bots and other
things, yeah, tell you. Yeah, you're right. And I think as you said as well, it's it's too easy now to be a self-proclaimed speaker of the people or voice of the people saying everyone I know thinks like me. You can also fake or or create like I'm in 10,000 tweets. Seems like it's the entire population. Yeah. So it's so easy to to get lost now. And when the politicians constantly get fed by journalists asking what do you think about this Facebook group? Everyone hates this.
And they have to react to like this, this, this dimension that really aren't there, maybe aren't even a big thing. So this these kinds of data points that we have now, it's probably easier to to to fool both the journalists and the politicians than ever before. As I said, Gallup, internationally, we have a very good reputation and the the reputation is as solid because we always delivered reliable data over decades of decades and decades.
And we can build on that. And the more the world around us is full with any kind of fake information, alternative facts, yes, et cetera, the more relevant at one point in time will be somebody we want to know what's really going on, not, not only what's what's going on here and there in this bubble or what two people think they should think, et cetera. So I think that that's a strong point.
So if we focus on being on the human side of the business and not on the technology side, I think this makes a relevant difference for all our members, for the association. And it fits very well with the purpose and the mission from the founding fathers and founding mothers of the early days. And I think we we, we can build a lot for the future of that.
Yes. And I also Monk, it was a guest a couple of episodes before and we talked about his research in Iraq. And one thing that was obvious there, but also obvious when I, I meet all my other Gallup members around the world is that we really can explain the cultural differences because they know the local cultural differences or the cultures. Things like in Sweden, Sweden compared to Denmark is, is the big difference. We we might think, oh, it's the same thing.
Or, or Austria. Austria, Germany, yeah. Exactly. Completely different. Yeah. So if you ask the same question in these two countries, the the answer might be different because you know how to interpret it. So even in this close neighbour situations you have a problem. Then go compare Sweden to Iraq, which we did together with Monkey's company. It's like, OK, we have to interpret this from a cultural perspective even more than the
actual answers of the questions. And you also have to ask the relevant questions, of course. Yeah. And here, here it's, it's so easy to forget about this because you think, oh, everyone speaks English, everyone's on Facebook or whatever. Yeah, the global, the global consumer. Yeah, exactly. It's unique everywhere. Yeah, I don't believe in that. We're not only talking about consumers, but no, I think the key point is, I mean, today everybody loves to talk.
All companies love to talk about diversity. Honestly, Gallup International always was a diverse organization from its origins. And this is our strength built over decades and decades. And having all these people on board who are not country managers, but local entrepreneurs, local intellectuals, who understand the culture in which they live in, etcetera. This makes us as a group so much stronger than all the other big groups in our industry. And we should play more on that.
We can can do those kind of jobs the others cannot do and we can do it very well. We're the we're the guys for the difficult jobs, for jobs where you need a lot of local and cultural knowledge to understand the data in the end, and this is the story we need to convey more in the future, it's not about being big. It's about leveraging these assets which we have in our DNA already.
Yeah. And one thing that fascinated me because we, we just had this world conference and we're not talking that much about methodology. We're talking about cultural challenges. We're talking about the the geopolitical challenges in the world, China versus Russia versus Europe versus USA.
And that is on a research conference, very unusual because we're talking about the global issues because that is every member in this world or, or citizen is what that's what they're living in. And our job is to explain this to, to the different powers because they really need to understand. And it's not like controlling people, it's understanding people. And in in a democracy, if you don't understand your voter or the people living in your country, you will lose.
Exactly. And then maybe we won't have a democracy anymore, which is a very bleak or or horrible you were looking at because number of democracy is going down. But that is because the the voice of the people has been forgotten in so many ways. I would say, I mean, first of all, I share your concerns about democracy because we, we, we're a generation. We grew up with the, with the sentiment that democracy is something which is here, it's perfect. It's, we took it for granted.
Now we see that, OK, we cannot take it for granted. We have to do something. And democracy is more than just a voting system. Yeah, where you choose between candidates and parties, etcetera. There's a there's a cultural foundation of democracy. There's a societal foundation, which means if people lose the ability to discuss topics amongst each other's, to
exchange opinions. Yeah, to listen to what is the public opinion, what is the majority, what is the minority opinion, Why is it understand that and have an exchange on that. Democracy doesn't work. Yeah. And then we then we end up there where we are almost in some countries of the world where, I mean, we have election results and then nobody respects
results. So this is and this the route towards the end of democracy and even, I mean democracy is a model which doesn't fit everywhere in the world and it doesn't exist everywhere. But one thing is important for everybody, for every kind of government, whatever, however it is structured, you need to understand people, you need to listen to the voice of the people because it's the only thing how you can manage a region, a country, a city,
etcetera. If you don't understand that, you will never get the job, right? So whether it's a democracy or not, our job is important everywhere. And I think we should start focusing on telling all those people out to there.
If the world is full of alternative facts, fake news, fake polls, fabricated data, etcetera, etcetera, and everybody has its own truth, yeah, the more important is solid public opinion polling because it's the only chance to give you correct picture, to know the loud minorities, to see the silent majorities. Yeah, and to develop some kind of strategy in such a situation. Otherwise you just hear those
who shout loudest. And now we just ended the European election, which is quite a big shift now in in several countries. And, and we see all these things happening now because the people don't think that their voices have been heard enough. They're worried, they're afraid in some sense, everyone is right to be afraid. Right now. We have a war in Ukraine.
Russia's intentions are very hard to we cannot relax basically not living in Sweden because they remind us all the time that this, that they, they verbally threaten us regularly. So, so, yeah, so that, that's something that's also why, why Sweden and, and Finland did not have this right wing movement right now because it's so close to Russia. We're not hang on. We do not want Ukraine to lose because we might be next. But in France, that's not the
issue as much. And if we look, that's actually interesting because if we look at our, our annual global research, you see indications of this in willingness to protect your country. Look at Italy, for instance, and, and I think Portugal as well. It's it's not that important and they're not that afraid of Russia. But in Sweden, Oh yes, we are in. Poland. Yeah. And in Poland, yeah, because. They have all, they have a lot of arguments from history to be
afraid of Russia, yeah. Yeah, but in Germany it wasn't that important. At the same time Germany is spending record amount on military, but what will happen when they have their next election. So there's we see things in our global data that we now see play out after the the European election that we already knew about from our research, to be honest.
So it's not a surprise. But what's needed more is explanation about this getting people to understand what I mean, the people in power to actually understand you have to listen to the folder in your country. I understand them, yeah. I. Think a very important exercise for the future will be. I mean, there's a lot of people around Europe, in many countries who kind of feel disconnected from the elites. Yeah, they have that feeling most probably because they have
the feeling they're not hurt. Yeah. So a lot of opinion polling is done everywhere. We see polls every year, every day. The problem is, I think most of the polls are not asking the right questions. They're asking the questions somebody wants to hear the answers. Yeah. And I think it would be wrong. If I take the idea of giving people a voice seriously, then I have to, I ask questions and I have to talk with those people about topics, what which are relevant for them and not for
the others give them. And in that sense, opinion polling, quality opinion polling, can probably help change a lot of the misunderstandings we see nowadays and give people a feeling that they're really
hurt. If somebody then picks up the concerns these people have because they're not stupid, they have, they have their problems, they have their concerns, they feel mistrusted, they feel left alone, etc. And then they are easily attracted by some, let's say, political magicians who try to manipulate them again, for their own purposes and not for, for that. And I think here is that's, that's a, that's a important role opinion polling can have in the future trying to change this
situation. And we have the means and we have to the, the, the methodology to do that. And we need on the other hand, but we need the media to play with us because if this doesn't go to the media, then there is no discussion. About that, yeah. And also like like we're doing in Gallup International, focus on the explanation, not just sending out the numbers for anyone to just interpret. Of course, the numbers aren't the secrets, but that that's the factual dimension.
But then you need to add the knowledge where we are also have the cultural dimension. Where is this coming from? What do this mean? We can have a number of 37.5. It's just nothing. But if you can explain this is a, this is because of this and this and this compared to other cultures or other countries, this is what's driving this. And then these are the events that happens.
And this, that's also what what reminds me, because I've been doing this for over a decade now, but but when I meet other Gallup colleagues, they're doing the same in their countries. And these stories and this knowledge that we have, it's not just about you and me as persons, It's our companies that that do this all the time. But we have lost, I mean, the industry. I'm not, I'm not talking about Gallup, but but I mean, the industry has lost our voice in
the public space. We have been numbers guys or perceived to be numbers guys because we aren't number guys. Number guys. We understand numbers, but we don't speak in numbers, we speak in words. Yeah. But that, that that's, that's, that's what I wanted to say is we, we're not Gallup International now members. We, we are not. And we should not be about methods, about data points, numbers, and all that boring stuff. We should be about human stories, telling good human
stories. This brings me to the next thought I have. I think we're in a creative industry in the broadest sense because we need more ideas. We can be about ideas, and ideas means asking the right questions, asking unusual questions, different ones from the ones everybody asks, creating interesting, compelling stories out of the answers to these questions, explaining the world and trying to help somebody change something. Yeah. Then this has a value. Yeah. Just replicating what everybody
else does is not good enough. It's even irrelevant. Yeah. There are millions of other research institutes out there who can do everything to standard job. That's, that's boring. We can do the difficult jobs because we have the people on the ground in the most important regions of the world. And we can, we, we can, we can also be and focus on telling the interesting and relevant stories.
There's a lot of there's a lot of problems in the world, whether it's migration, whether it's economic problems, whether it's democracy under threat, etcetera. The solution is not about numbers. The solution is about telling stories which show a way out of this situation. That's I think this is our strength. We have the capabilities. We just need to build that more and and promote that more in the future. Yeah, that fits perfect with our
history and our heritage. Yeah, and I thought about that because you, you know much more about George Gallop than I do. But I seem to remember they told me once that the George Gallop idea was also if. If you listen to the people, there won't be any worse. Something like that. He he was, he was passionate about two things. First of all, he believed in democracy and he wanted to promote democracy. That's the one thing. The second thing is he believed in this can kind of help prevent
wars in the future. Yeah. And I think the, the, the key point with what Gallup International has in his DNA is still the, the strength of George Gallup as a person, because he originally he came from advertising industry. He was, I would, I would say he was a creative guy. And OK, he invented the methodology which everybody uses today, etcetera. But his strength was asking interesting questions and writing short stories about one question he asked.
They were running polls everyday in the United States at that time. And he would sell the data to the big newspapers in the United States, but he would sell his story with the data. And so it was not just a number. It was the story, whatever it was. What do Americans think about weapons? What do they think about the role of women, about whatever he asked about the role of America and the world? He always wrote an interesting story around the data, and that
was published then. So people like to read that. And he was a communication genius, in fact. And I think we have enough communication geniuses in our group and we should leverage that more in the future. Yeah, and I really, because look at the soon we have the US election and soon we will be reminded again how important the US news agencies think the data is from our our research society. But you never see a researcher.
You only see the anchors being very wizardy with their TV and look and, and interactive maps and stuff. And they do their own polls of polls. And, and what one thing that that bothers me after that it's we as an industry always get blamed for the analysis being wrong when we're never, we're never asked for the analysis. And from a Swedish perspective, I think it's the same in in Austria as well, is that I do not allow my media partners to
just take my numbers. I give them my explanation or if you want to call it my story, because they need to understand this is not just numbers for them to run with. They can have their own theories, but I am responsible for my analysis because that is part of the research. You're absolutely right. But this comes exactly from what I said before. This is because the whole industry is selling number crunching of data points or whatever you call it or or. So.
I mean, they then say, OK, we're selling some insights. Yeah, but in fact, they're selling numbers. Yeah. So numbers are nothing. Yeah, I mean, you can die by numbers if you want. Yeah, but The thing is if we start or force enforce the idea of selling ideas. Yeah. Visions. Evidence. Based evidence? Based on numbers, yeah. On relevant, reliable numbers, Yeah. And then this is a different offering. And then they might start listening to us.
But that need it needs the right people, and it needs a good story coming back again. I think opium polling is a creative industry job. Yeah. And not number crunching. Yeah, and I think you have the experience and I have the same People think they can ask their own questions and that's about OK, we'll just do it ourselves. Then they realize how hard it is to even ask the right question because then they get the results of I don't understand anything. Yeah, but did you ask the right
question? What? Yeah. Did you because you have No. Yeah. So even if you do the the other things correct, it's it's about asking the relevant question. It's it's, I would say in that case, it's like you instead of going to a doctor and asking him for it whilst you try to heal yourself, probably you're competent doing it, but probably you don't see what somebody from the outside perspective can see.
Which brings me back to the idea a third party, like a good opinion poster can see things from a different angle, different view, because he or she has a lot of experience from other projects, from other service knows. OK, these people, they think like that. You should focus on that problem and not here. Yeah, that's that's, that's the value of all that. If somebody wants to his own service, OK, you can. You can also build your own car. Yeah, if you have the time.
Free to You're free to do it if you want to drive it. I'm not sure. Think about it. Yeah, and that's the thing. You have to see this as a profession. And also I tried to talk about facts and knowledge. Our data points, that's our facts. It's not just numbers, it's facts. But facts alone might not be relevant. It's the fact that the sun will go up even tomorrow. But does it have anything to do with my business? Who knows?
Probably not, yeah. There's a famous saying, I don't know, I can't remember who said it, but it's facts are like cows. If you look deep in their eyes, they tend to run away. I don't know what to do with that, but it's fun, yeah. Now it means I know what I wanted to say with that. It means that facts alone, you can look at them in very details, but they don't tell you a lot unless build the story out of them. That's what I mean, yeah. Yeah, just the dissolve fact alone is. Yeah.
Oh yeah, yeah, that's true. And you have to have the right relevant of facts and you have the knowledge to actually make sense of the facts. And I think that is actually our global challenge. I think we already have it in Gallup International, which is the only network that I've been part of ever that focus on these things that I think is the most
relevant thing for the industry. Then we have scientific networks and then we have industrial networks, but they are focusing on ethics, which is really important, of course, professional. Standards. Yeah, scientific methods also very important, but the same time, these combines, that's where you get the operational value for, for governments, for commercial clients, NGOs, everyone, because they don't have this, because it takes time. It takes a decade to be a good
researcher. At least at. Least, yeah. Or a decent one. Yeah, time alone is not the answer, but it's a it also takes time. It's not just a bunch of theories. And also one thing. You, you, you. When we talked earlier today also that the curiosity part about this, because you have to be really curious to be a good researcher.
Exactly that. And again, this brings me to the point it is for me, it's a creative business of our creative industry because curiosity is a foundation and this brings you to asking new questions, different ones, seeing problems from a different angle, etcetera. If you don't have that, you will never be a good opinion
pollster. And The thing is, we have to make clear to our clients, to the media, to everybody who uses our opinion polls that there is a difference in Gallup International opinion polls from all the others because we celebrate this curiosity, we celebrate this creativity, we tell the relevant stories, and that makes a huge difference to all the rest. And that's our strength, that's our heritage, and that's in our DNA. And I think this is a very relevant story for our future.
It is and doing this right, it's probably the most fun industry you can be in. Exactly. It's easy to forget because you get stuck in all these tenders and the price per hour or or frustrating things when you realize, OK, they got this all wrong. But the same time, all these knowledge that we actually accumulate about human behavior and also the understanding, as as you said, and that's George Gallup probably also said people are rational, sane people that actually do that.
You can't, you can't basically trust the human behavior and you can't understand it. And the biggest mistake you probably can do is underestimate the intelligence of the population. Never do that. Never do. That, but they're doing it all the time. Suddenly everything goes backwards because what happened? Oh yeah, you forgot about Little Beetle. That you have to trust the human
being. I think looking at, because I'm also part of the political consulting square and most of political strategies are based on trying to fool the voter to actually not vote wrong. And you're not trying to build trust, you're not trying to say trust me, I will help you. He said don't vote for that guy because he's the devil.
So, so they're actually, they're tweaking this and you can do this for some time, but you will also lose power as soon as you got it. And that's the basic general trend we have in the Western world right now. That's what I meant before. There is there, there exists things like how they call it strategically useful nonsense. Yeah. Yeah, Things like that. So it means like if you have a problem, just tell some kind of irrelevant story just to push people's attention to some other
story. Yeah. So, I mean, this is, this is not only useless, but this is destroying the foundations of our democracy because people need to have the feeling that they are hurt, that they're real issues, are hurt that somebody, they have the expectation that somebody, a candidate, a politician, a party, whoever a government takes care of these issues and doesn't. We tend to turn the whole thing around.
Yeah, there's a lot of, we see in a lot of polls, if you ask people what is relevant for their life at the moment, what is the problems they have now, it's completely different from what the political discourse is about. So this means this is completely disconnected. Not always, but quite often this is not how democracy can work.
And then you get a lot of frustrated people who are upset, angry, frustrated and either walk away, don't don't care anymore about going to elections etcetera, or find other ways to to protest against something which they think doesn't
understand their life. Or as you often do right now, as long as you believe in democracy, you vote for the opposition because you know the guys, not you're being told all the time or see that the guys sitting there are not doing their job because they're not addressing your issue. So OK, as long as I vote, I have to vote for the other guy. That's even if it's a several parties. Somebody, somebody keeps telling people this is the this is the issue which is important for you.
Take whatever migration, I don't know, other problems. Yeah. And politicians tend to educate people what their problem should be instead of listening, what the problem actually is. Again, here we are. Give people a voice and listen to them, then many things could be much easier. It's not the easy way always, but it could be easier. Yeah, but it's a sustainable way. I think now.
Now we have an unsustainable way of running a democracy in the most of the Western world right now, you only make sure that you win the parliament. You don't have to win the majority of the people. It may sound like the same thing, but it actually isn't. In the US, it's only 1/4 of the voters who actually support the sitting president. I. Mean we have, we have in Austria we have a right wing populist party who just got 25 point something percent in the European elections.
Yeah, they were number one. Yeah. The others had 23 and 20 or something like that. So they claim they're number one in the country. Yeah, nobody turns that around. Says OK, 70, almost 75% of the population don't want you. Yeah, yeah. And what was the voter turn out in Austria? Was it 50%? It was. It was more. It was OK. Yeah, I don't I. Don't. Yeah, but but for instance in Sweden was 53.
Percent, yeah, even that, but. Yeah, but which means that it's only if, if it's 25%, it's only 12 1/2 percent of the of the population. Yeah. So so it falls apart. And they claim all these parties claim to talk for the people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We are the people and I say OK, a well done probability based opinion poll. You may claim that this is the opinion of the people or what people want, think, want to say, whatever the outcome is, but not like this.
But so again, so opinion polling is more important today, yes, than it was probably 20 years ago. We just have the little challenge to get everyone to understand that. We will. How hard can it be we. Will continue. Yeah, preaching our message, Yeah, No, I mean, look, we're, we're we're not selling sugared water. We're selling something which is relevant for everybody. I mean, the good thing about our business is we really can claim we. Yes, we do have a purpose.
Yeah. And we do have a mission. This is helpful for society, for a lot of different areas in society, whether it's healthcare or or old people's care or economic decisions, etcetera. So there's not a lot of businesses or industries which could claim that. So by the way, it gives us the chance to be involved to learn a lot from very different topics. Yeah. I mean, I'm dealing with healthcare issues, with political issues, with tax issues, with trust in science
and a lot of other topics. So, I mean, you have to be flexible in your mind, but you learn a lot, yeah. Yeah, you do. And sometimes I think how would the world look if we did not have any Gallup based research? What is left? I would say, I mean, it's easier than you have. You have just what what you can, what you can see in social media in many cases. Yeah. So people just believe what they want to believe. They listen only to what they
want to listen. You will have a lot of opinion polls being completely contradictory, which we already see because some of them are either not properly set up or, or methodologically doubtful. Others are completely fabricated. So people are confronted with different versions of something which claims to be a reality but which is not. And then, well, OK, so then you lose the way to find a compromise out of that. That's the compromise is, is one of the other foundations of, of
democracy. So if everybody is in his own bubble, thinking and believing only what he or she thinks, it will not work. And I, I also realized that even the, the official statistics of a country will break apart because it's also based to a large extent on Gallup based research. The employment rate, for instance, the inflation, there's everything that is based on this statistical research that is based on the Gallup model as well, although it's not Gallup International.
And in some sense, actually the, the, the Internet penetration in Sweden, we are doing that research Novus. So we, we do for, for, for the foundation who runs the official numbers for the Internet usage. Usage is we and that's based on our research. Without that, you wouldn't know how many people were actually on Facebook, how active they were. It's it's easy to just say, Oh no, it's just political polling
or the horse race. This is the from my point of view, that's the most boring part of it. This is just as you say, it's a horse race. Yeah, it's a media event, unless you have situations in some countries, it's very important because then you have with a good exit poll, you have a proof whether the elections were manipulated or not. Yeah, So this is in, in some
countries a relevant factor. But in, in, in most of our developed countries in Europe and in the Western world, I would say it's it's just a media event and and important for some political candidates and for their PR campaigns. I I agree with. You there? There are more interesting parts and topics for opinion polling.
Yeah, I agree with you and and I'm the one presenting the political polling in Sweden. But I I agree with you, although I'm the one telling why the Swedish Democrat is going down on social network. But but but that's not the most, it's just like a receipt of so many different other issues that we do research on all the time. Just one, one dimension showing, yeah, but it's not the most fun part. It's not the really interesting thing for us as a researcher.
I think it's just, yeah, you have to do this and it's an important number in this horse race game. But, and I don't think we should remove it, but it's just there. It's often maybe without all the other knowledge, it's just a number. It's kind of a proof from time to time that the methodology works because you can see the actual results, yeah. Maybe that's enough for now. Thank you so much for coming. You're welcome. Thank you.