Photo credit: Jack French (Flickr)

Curiosity may have killed the cat but proved to be in plentiful supply at the second ResearchTalk Mixer in London last night.

Kindly hosted by Dan O’Donoghue, the worldwide strategic planning director for Publicis, the aim, as always, was to bring together a bunch of interesting and innovative folks from diverse backgrounds in research and planning, to engage in some smart and stimulating conversation.

The conversation stimulants were William Higham, a trends consultant who expounded on this piece, allowing the group to think through the profound implications not just for brands but for society at large. And also Emily (Stokes) Hotchkiss, a creativity coach actively working to unleash creativity among creatives, business execs etc.

We’re really grateful to everyone who made it, particularly at this very busy time of year:

• Dan O’Donoghue, Worldwide strategic planning director, Publicis
• David Penn, MD and founder, Conquest Research (doing some interesting stuff on the emotional unconscious in advertising)
• Emily Hotchkiss, Creativity Coach
• Jaroslav Cir, CMI director, Rexona (Unilever)
• Neil McPhee, MD, Nuance Research Ltd (NLP, ethnography, qual)
• Olaf Willoughby, MD, The Willoughby Partnership (creativity and innovation consultant, and photographer)
• Sam Winstanley, MD, Forget Data (data mining specialist)
• Sheila Keegan, partner, Campbell Keegan (just made a fellow of the MRS)
• William Higham, trends consultant, Next Big Thing