ResearchTalk

Via Stephen Phillips, someone’s just unearthed the earliest use of a focus group – from the Stone Age

“The Wheel”

“Fire”

Oh dear, we feel a longer-than-usual post coming. Do bear with us if this is your thing

The inevitable result of over-hyping things is that most of the time you don’t quite deliver. And that was a bit of an issue with the Research ‘08 conference, run by the UK’s Market Research Society. It was advertised as ‘the great debate’ when in fact it was a goodish debate overall. Kinda makes you feel a bit deflated.

But we’re pleased we went. Although it started off a bit lacklustre, things did pick up. And there were a couple of format innovations that really seemed to excite folks (more on these later). Plus the networking opportunities were good because of the close to 1,000 attendance (usually held in Brighton, some remarked that the London venue helped to boost attendance).

Just so you know, although we didn’t record any podcasts during the event due to time constraints, we do plan to catch up with some of the interesting speakers over the next few weeks so keep a look out for these (subscribe via the links at the top right of website). Because we weren’t allowed to film due to the number of film crews already there. we were restricted to audio which we thought was better done after the event (or so we’re trying to convince ourselves!).

Some topline thoughts, then. First, things we liked…

• Something we’ve championed by strapline and example from the getgo over two years ago seems to be gaining traction, namely the need to engage and inspire clients – hooray. But while many of the speakers that referred to this seemed oblivious to the irony that their presentations were about as engaging as a bunch of grapes, a few speakers actually delivered: from the well-honed abilities of ITV’s Rupert Howell and RT friend and Publicis’s Dan O’Donoghue, to the passion and comedic charm of RI’s Tom Ewing. They all exhibited some of the qualities identified in the ‘The Big Planning Debate’ as critical to making research more potent: authority, clarity, vividness, engaging, critical thinking, analogy, simplicity, thinking about the ends and not means, building respect, inspiring.
• Keynote Allan Leighton’s no BS and highly pragmatic approach is always refreshing in a world dominated by over-hype and under-delivery, even though much of his talk was familiar to us because of the prior research we did to try and secure a chat with him
• Dan O’Donoghue’s session on Web 2.0 was electric. While some of the sessions suffered from flogging the proverbial dead horse with little to move things on, Dan’s session included a chat about in-game advertising which seems to neatly address many of the current issues around maintaining advertising’s relevance and engagement. We’ll try and bring you some of that goodness in the coming weeks
• For us the most intellectually-charged session (based on quality of ideas and debate), was ‘The Big Planning Debate’. However, as much as the pleasant Vanella Jackson (Hall & Partners) tried to convince us that they were having a conversation, they weren’t. It was still more parent-child Q&A than peer-peer chat, the latter being our definition of true, inclusive conversation. On this occasion, though, the session wasn’t the worse for being less conversational mainly because of quality of the speakers with their entertaining, useful and authoritative comments and ideas
• We intimated some format innovations that went down well. A bit of background about where we come from. Regular followers will know that we’re very keen on conversation – most bloggers, podcasters and those embedded in modern web culture think this way. We’re also uber fans of the TED conference. Among their secret sauce is that talks are strictly limited to around 15 mins. So it was refreshing to see elements of these seep into the conference. Specifically, everyone in the audience had a mobile phone type device to vote, sometimes fairly regularly depending on the session. Not all that innovative but pretty slick nonetheless (accurate results appeared magically within a millisecond of the vote closing). No. What was tres cool was the fact that you could text message stuff on a continuous basis through the session, and the moderators and panelists could see that river of questions, observations and occasional abuse in real time (think twitter stream for those into stream of consciousness). The sessions that used this well just seemed more inclusive and fluid. Not fully conversational but going in the right direction. It was funny when Rupert Howell admitted to getting confused as to what he was saying while also trying to take in the messages – the ‘older’ generation clearly have a lot to learn from gen-Y and their propensity towards continuous partial attention
• The other innovation we liked? In terms of length, many of the talks were way too long. Hence the rave reception that the Pecha Kucha session got at the end of day one (five presenters were allowed up to 20 seconds per slide and up to 20 slides to make their point, so a little over six minutes per presenter). PK is one of the innovations we’ve championed in our monthly column, and something the wonderful RLF performed at their debut event near to Research ‘07 (which may have been the inspiration for the organisers to give it a go)
• Talking of the RLF, spearheaded by Mesh’s Fiona Blades and Spring Research’s Steve Phillips, they also ran an event this year. Attendance was really good considering it was up against the official party (although a number went to both). Even better was the spirit of fun and letting your hair down – methinks they achieve far more for the industry’s profile including enticing new grads than anyone using more prim and proper methods (btw, although we’re privileged to be listed on their website as co-founders and fellow conspirators, Fiona and Steve actually do all the work)

And now a couple of low lights:

• It’s a pity but you really need to decide how much you want a conference for the quality of it’s content versus the networking opportunity. We say ‘pity’ because there shouldn’t be a need to compromise – you should be able to get both in abundance. We bumped into Inside Research’s Larry Gold who tells us that he visits at least a dozen events a year to convey the best bits to his senior executive audience. First of all, that job of curation he does so well should be done equally well by every conference organiser. But it’s not. And why? Well, when Larry produced conferences for the ARF, he worked out that the best content came from him carefully picking the speakers, and then deciding what they would talk about based on passion and authority – a level of control that mirrors TED’s approach. There was clear evidence at this conference that despite speaker rehearsals, appalling ones got through the net (the most obvious was from a consultancy that presented a completely useless and ad-filled 20min. video in place of them presenting – we’re not mentioning the name because they don’t deserve a name check). Larry also likes the notion of shorter presentations. Our view: if you can’t get it across in 15mins, you’ve failed (sic. Jeremy Bullmore’s viral piece about insights and refridgerators)
• In an age that’s increasingly embracing conversation, organic thought, it’s strange to see a few presenters tightly script their presentation and then robotically deliver that script. We won’t name names, for all we know they could have been virgin presenters and presenting isn’t at all easy, particularly when faced with up to 1,000 folks with intense stares. No, the fault’s with agency middle-management, it’s their responsibility to train to the requisite standard, they’ve failed if they’re not doing that. After all, presenting well, IOHO, is an art and science that can be perfected with practice

We may seem overly critical above. So do bear in mind that despite having been to a number of events already, this is the first that we’ve actually sat in on many of the sessions and so the first event that we’ve been able to comment on through first-hand experience. So, to get a more balanced view, do pop here, here, here, here, here or here – you should get something more articulate and richer.

Before we sign-off, among the chats we had with a variety of folks between sessions, we liked a little story from semiotician Rachel Lawes of Lawes Consulting. She mentioned that a steady trickle of people have commented positively on her podcast. She started to get a bit worried in case there was something controversial in there that was generating this feedback. So she decided to listen only to discover that it was just a good ole conversation, and people were simply relaying that. Nothing more, nothing less – it’s what we like to hear, it’s why we do this

Thanks to the MRS and Sophie Russell-Ross and Camargue’s Emily Luscombe for giving us event access. Event organisation was smooth.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve previously featured SmallBizPod, the useful podcast series for entrepreneurs here.

Well, if you want to listen to Steve Phillips from Spring Research and us offer some very basic research tips for entrepreneurs then pop over to here.

If not, and most of you probably won’t need those tips, then do try to listen to the podcast series anyway because, as you know, we’re passionate about encouraging entrepreneurism and the entrepreneurial attitude, which is what SmallBizPod is all about.

The assumption is that by-and-large, individuals make decisions on their own. My Herd point-of-view is that people influence each other, often without realising it

Mark Earls’ latest contribution to life, the universe and everything is gaining traction. His new book rethinks how people make decisions and discovers as a result that much of current research practice is fundamentally flawed in its assumptions and interpretation of consumer behaviour. Quite fitting for this self-styled ‘Contrarian’. The book provides psychology underpinning for many recent phenomena such as social networking, engagement, conversations, ethnography, blogging and predictive markets by showing how we act as groups and not individually. Part of our monthly column for ESOMAR’s Research World magazine

 STARRING 

• Mark Earls, author, Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature, Head Honcho, Herd Consulting

Read the rest of this entry »

 GUESTS  Clare Bruce, founder and CEO, and Luke Allen, MD, Knowledge Systems of fast-growing Nunwood

 TOPICS  Are entrepreneurs born or made? Is Nunwood’s ‘Fizz’ the Google for inside the organisation?

 THE GREAT JOB CHALLENGE #4  Spring Research is looking for you. If you’re creative, perhaps unappreciated where you are, and want to work in a small but fast-growing, award-winning agency that is getting a reputation for doing some really fun and cool stuff, pop over to their website or drop managing partner Stephen Phillips an email. Please mention ‘ResearchTalk’ and good luck!

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  ASC, Bill Gates, Fizz, Google, Mrs Pritchard (BBC), National Business Awards, Price Waterhouse, Stephen Phillips, Tom Peters

Thanks to Corrine Green, Nokia, for the independent insight into Fizz

Music Brother Love and Michael Gomez from the PMN

Series:Weekly

 GUEST  Poet, mountain climber and entrepreneur Derek Leddie, Founder and Director of innovative research consultancy The Leading Edge

 TOPICS  Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro; Will the industry really grow at 11-12%? Bridging the chasm between client needs and research delivery; Skills gap; Genesis of TLE and rationale for selling to Photon Group; EXCLUSIVE: UK office coming soon; Turning insights into assets; Managing talent with some cool benefits

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  Carlton Draught, ESOMAR, Fosters, Frank Small & Associates, Kristin Hickey, Mark Sundquist, Outsell, Photon Group, Stephen Phillips, Toby Hill

Music Brother Love from the PMN

Series:MarketingTalk
Series:Weekly

 GUEST  Online research pioneer Pete Comley, Chairman of Virtual Surveys

 TOPICS  YouGov quadruples profits; BrandIndex tracker & word of mouth; Web 2.0. VS: Staying independent; Accidental genesis of VS and early challenges; Research 2.0; Blogging; Future challenges

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  Al Gore, BSkyB, Current TV, Ed Keller, Eric Berne, ESOMAR, The Future Place, Google, Greenfield Online, Harris Interactive, Henley Centre, Keller Fay, MySpace, Quentin Ashby, Ray Poynter, RI, Stephen Phillips, Trish Comley, YouGov, YouTube

Music Brother Love and Matthew Ebel from the PMN

Series:Weekly

 GUEST  Semiotician Dr. Rachel Lawes, founder of Lawes Consulting

 TOPICS  Launch of branded communities within MySpace; Researching social communities; Internet key to promoting movies; Advertising blending into content; Semiotics explained; Lawes Consulting breaking into new sectors

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  Halifax Bank, HBOS, Lynx, MTV, MySpace, Snakes on a Plane, Spring Research, Stephen Phillips

Music Brother Love and Slackstring from the PMN

Series:Weekly

 GUEST  Stephen Phillips, founder and Managing Partner, Spring Research

 TOPICS  Research via mobiles; the social media/networking revolution; audio comments from Ruth McNeil (Response Consulting) and Darren Noyce (SKOPOS); making multimedia presentations the norm; effective business development; overcoming recruitment challenges

 NOTABLE MENTIONS  AMI Group, Amnesty International, Bebo, Buzzmetrics, ESOMAR Congress, Jeremy Bullmore, Moët Hennessy, MRS Conference, MySpace, Paris Hilton, Synovate, ToLuna, Tuned In, Unilever, WOMMA, Xbox, YouTube

Music 2006 Pl@stic Soul and The Clintons from the PMN

Series:Weekly

 EXCLUSIVE  As official podcaster to the upcoming ESOMAR conference, we’ve secured some exclusive and meaty previews. In this, the second of four preview podcasts, we focus on trends and improving foresight accuracy

 STARRING 

• Stephen Phillips, Spring Research
  The ‘Snakes and Ladders’ Approach to Brand Choice
• Roger Smith, Gfk NOP
  Trends: Food, Diets and Wellbeing
• Nadine Critchley, NESTEC (Nestlé)
  Trends: Using Global Consumer Trends to Boost Business
• Mark Whiting, Moët Hennessy (Host)

Learn more about ESOMAR CONGRESS ‘06

Read the rest of this entry »