ResearchTalk

See here for the introductory article.

Here’s a couple of panel discussions from the event.

     
Paul Berney of the MMA probably said it best: giving the keynote at the Globalpark-sponsored 2010 Mobile Research Conference, he said that 2009 turned out to be the year that mobile became a serious consumer internet access device. But then he also said he wasn’t going to be held to that proclamation given how premature the prediction turned out in previous years!

Around 100 folks turned up for the two-day, well-organised event in London for what I believe was a meaty feast of the useful and practical. And there was good Wifi so lots and lots of tweeting (apparently nine tweets/min at one stage).

We took advantage of the Wifi to post these five podcast chats in almost real-time – hope the many hundreds who listened to these on the day felt the speedy upload was useful.

See here for audio from two of the panel discussions.

In the next few days we’ll add links to blogger commentaries:

My oh my, it’s been a while since we updated the blog. But we have been busy in the meantime updating the @mrnews feed with news and, more importantly, our brand of inspiration and ideas. Twitter’s become our favourite way of sharing this goodness, and the feed’s also syndicated to our Facebook group.

So, given the short break, we thought it time to re-engage those podcasting muscles. And this time with friend and inspirateur John Griffiths.

We’re calling it The John Griffiths Show because it will focus on issues and people in the brave new world of market research that are of interest to John. To say he has eclectic interests is an understatement – just look at (one of his) websites.

I’d like to think that John and I will chat with what I refer to as ‘builders’, that is those at the thick end of building the new future rather than merely talking about it. We’ll cover their struggles and find out how effective what they’ve built really is.

The last bit is an important shift from the way things were in 2006 when I first started podcasting. That’s when I noticed the swirl of a renaissance of new ideas starting to sweep the sector. But that’s all they were: ideas. Now, in 2010, alot of those ideas have been built out, tested, confirmed or ditched in the fine tradition of the scientific method.

The other aspiration for the show is to focus on things that make research much better than it is now rather than being satisfied with incremental change: e.g. searching for something that replaces questionnaires rather than something that makes them a few minutes shorter.

In this debut episode – and remember this is a work in progress – John and I talk mobile apps with a couple folks who have recently built some of their own. Ethnographer Siamack Salari talks about his iPhone app – the inspiration, development issues and reactions and future deals and developments. And Confirmit’s Pat Molloy talks about giving iPhone users the ability to build speed boats around his supertanker.

John and I have lots of ideas for some of fine folks we’d like to invite on the show over the coming months. But we’d also welcome your suggestions. Probably best to send us a tweet (@johngriffiths7 and/or @surinder).

 STARRING 

• John Griffiths, Planning Above and Beyond
• Siamack Salari, Everyday Lives / blog
• Pat Molloy, CSO, Confirmit

Sound familiar?

From TechDirt’s Mike Masnick.

NOTE: This article will only make sense if you’ve received this month’s Research World mag.

When I wrote this slightly provocative piece for Research World (link only active during Nov ‘09) based on my feeling that quallies lacked ambition, I fully expected criticism and counter arguments.

Now, I did get a few folks telling me they agreed with the central tenets of my argument, namely that quallies weren’t innovating as much as they could be, or as much as entrepreneurs from outside the market research industry or some quant. firms.

But I didn’t get any criticism. Until now. And it’s come from an unexpected quarter: Simon Chadwick, editor-in-chief of Research World itself.

Here’s what Simon wrote:

…In the qualitative arena, however, we are seeing developments that perhaps come closer: collaborative research, ethnography and co-creation all feature heavily of accounts of development in qualitative. Indeed, Lewis and van der Wal conclude that co-creation can actually lead to increased brand loyalty, so perhaps there are hidden benefits to the ‘new’ qualitative!

Despite this, Surinder argues that innovation in qualitative research appears to be rather linear, as opposed to what is going on in quant. which he characterises as exponential. It is not often that I disagree with my old friend Surinder, but this is one of those times.

Simon is indeed a friend. But, hey, friends can disagree with one another.

You see, my target was the folks in the traditional part of the qualitative industry. That’s why I referred in my title to ‘quallies’ and not the ‘qualitative industry’.

Just as Simon does, I talk up the range of wonderful developments in areas such as neuroscience, biometrics and mass ethnography. But I then make this point:

You’ve [quallies] made a good start with those hybrid techniques. But some of the most interesting and potentially successful developments are arguably coming from ‘outsiders’ – entrepreneurs in quantitative and from outside the industry.

By which I was referring to developments in neuroscience which is being popularised by marketing ‘guru’ Martin Lindstrom. And the fact that quant. behemoth Nielsen has recently invested in Neurofocus (interestingly, Nielsen CEO David Calhoun sits on their board so this investment is clearly not casual). And the fact that online quant. agency BrainJuicer is experimenting with mass ethnography to scale its analogue cousin.

Simon’s core point is that quallies have been instrumental in these new developments. That may be the case but why aren’t they more prominent? Why aren’t they gunning to be the next Nielsen? That’s right, I absolutely think they should be building the next $1bn research company. If that sounds ridiculous for a qual. company then that’s not what I’m talking about; I’m talking, as Simon does in his piece, about a company that infuses deep and rich qualitative understanding into a scale business. It would be the ultimate research company. And it’s the ambition of a number of companies I know of. None of which do any significant level of traditional qual.

The difference of opinion may be one of vantage point. In any case, I still believe, in a positive way, that quallies aren’t ambitious enough. As I conclude in the piece…

Radical change is happening whether we like it or not. You have the talent, resources and nurturing environment to take advantage of that. Use that power wisely.

In the final part of our series on talent and development Danny talks about some trends he’s seeing in HR.

Trends such as employer branding, social networking, technology as both liberator and jailer, and the rise of blended learning.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the series and found it useful, inspiring or both. If you’ve missed any parts or simply want to revisit them then pop here for the archive.

We’d like to thank Danny for doing this series. Find out more about the wonderful training and development work he does by popping over here.

This podcast accompanies our article in the Oct ‘09 edition of ESOMAR’s Research World. Grab your copy here.

I had the privilege of chatting with inventor, entrepreneur and futurologist Ray Kurzweil recently. Here’s the full conversation in podcast form. (The full writeup will appear in October’s issue of Research World.)

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Watch this episode of web video show Scam School, which focuses on the tricks memory can play. Afterwards, think again about whether you should always believe what consumers say.

If you want to see another example of this in practice, in a case that had very sad consequences, check out this 60 minutes story and accompanying video.

TechCrunch50 in San Francisco is fast becoming one of the premier places to launch a technology startup if you’re looking for exposure, customers or funding.

In fact, one of the companies that presented at the inaugural event a couple years ago just announced that they had been bought for a considerable sum.

So we were watching the live stream of this year’s event when the startup Affective Interfaces started to pique our interest.

Based on the work of facial coding expert Paul Ekman (recently popularised in the hit TV series Lie to Me), AI has built a system that monitors facial expressions in real time and on a mass scale (via webcams). They claim the system provides a much more accurate and sensitive indication of, among other things, an ads. likelihood of success.

The presentation didn’t go as well as it could have done – the presenter spent too much time talking and not enough time showing ‘compelling’ videos. But then, in a scene reminiscent of Dragon’s Den, a couple of judges on the expert panel started to recognise the potential. Those enlightened judges were publishing entrepreneur Tim O’Reilly and senior Google exec Bradley Horowitz.

But while these judges know tech, they’re not experts in human behaviour. So we decided to get Jai Haissman, AI’s founder and CEO, to chat with Conquest Research’s David Penn, someone who knows a thing or two about the reliability of interpreting emotions and non-verbal cues. This is a pretty geeky podcast, but we hope you find it stimulating nonetheless.

Affective Interfaces is keen to reach out to potential partners, customers and funders (they’re self-funded). We regard them as an exciting addition to the world of new research and so encourage you to engage with them (as you’ll hear in the podcast they’ve already had a good amount of interest from the event).

VCs and corporate M&A folk: this could become a very special company.

 STARRING 

• Jai Haissman, founder and CEO, Affective Interfaces
• David Penn, MD, Conquest Research

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