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

Last night we took the idea a stage further for our inaugural RT Mixer event in London. We invited a few innovative folks who are doing some interesting things for an evening of “fun, inspiration, and idea sharing”. We were chuffed with the turnout, particularly given our sparse invite which caused a few to wonder what the evening was about. A couple of folks (Paul Marsden, Lee McEwan) couldn’t make it due to last minute plan changes – we missed you, guys.

Inspiration came courtesy of Mark Earls who argued the case, from his new book, that research as currently practiced is largely flawed (see also this month’s Research World Spotlight column), and from Iain Carruthers who gave a fascinating insight into the mind of one the world’s most admired innovators, James Dyson, based on Iain’s new biography. And we ended with a video of a talk given by the brilliant communicator Sir Ken Robinson, courtesy of TED, one of the most inspirational events in the world.

Providing the venue and keeping us suitably fed and refreshed with wine was our friend and Chief Juicer of BrainJuicer, John Kearon, thanks again John. Thanks also to Jerry at BrainJuicer for help with setting up.

So, all in all a fun evening with a diverse and passionate group. You may find more details in some of the blogs below. We plan to run more events like this so drop us an email if you’re interested in joining or sponsoring us.

Here’s a list of who was there:

Adam Goodvach, Global Reviews
Charlotte Cornish, FDS
Dan O’Donoghue, Publicis
Douglas Dunn, Tuned In
Fiona Blades, Mesh Planning
Frederic Petit, Toluna
Iain Carruthers, The Encounter Business
John Griffiths, PAAB (blog)
John Habershon, Momentum Research
John Kearon, BrainJuicer
John Scott, KSBR Brand Futures
Mario Menti, GMI (blog)
Mark Earls, Herd Consulting (blog)
Martin Hayward, dunnhumby
Nick Coates, Freshminds
Olaf Willoughby, The Willoughby Partnership
Ross Broadbent, Ciao
Steve Philips, Spring Research
Tas, PoV (blog)
Val Karruck, Toluna