ESOMAR CONGRESS ‘07  In the final of three preCasts ahead of this year’s Berlin-based Congress, conference chair John Kearon creates a stirring debate with three of the keynotes (an Oscar-winning film director with two best-selling authors and philosopher) on creating and delivering excellence.

If you haven’t already, do listen to the earlier podcast with Florian, James and Lou in which they briefly introduce themselves

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 STARRING 

• Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Film Director, The Lives of Others
• James Surowiecki, Author, The Wisdom of Crowds
• Professor Lou Marinoff, Author, The Middle Way: Finding Happiness in a World of Extremes, Philosopher
• John Kearon, Chief Juicer, BrainJuicer (Host)

This is an ESOMAR sponsored podcast and is published according to our yumminess policy

Listen to the podcast here

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In the short (c. 3-4mins) clips below, three of the ESOMAR keynote speakers for the upcoming Congress event in Berlin explain what makes them tick and what they’re going to be wowing the audience with. From left to right…

• Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Film Director, The Lives of Others
• James Surowiecki, Author, The Wisdom of Crowds
• Professor Lou Marinoff, Author, The Middle Way: Finding Happiness in a World of Extremes, Philosopher

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Given the inevitable fragmentation of MR-related groups on FB, Ray’s created a group of groups for researchers (i.e a meta group). He is listing all research-related groups and sees it primarily as a place for…

All market, social, and opinion researchers on FaceBook. One list for all of us to be able to post, query, and communicate. Let’s democratize the industry

Now, not everyone has found the Facebook experience useful. Virtual Surveys staffer Karen Scholfield (who happens to be a colleague of Ray), opines here about how the whole thing has frankly been overblown.

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 My senior management team, I made sure that they could do stages 1 (turnaround) and 2 (growth), with a real emphasis on delivering 2.

Sponsored by 
Meet Kimberly Till, head honcho at TNS North America. And by “meet” we mean this is the first chance to really get to know her and her passion.

Anyway, back in May 2006, Kimberly accepted the challenge of turning around the troubled North American operations of TNS, the world’s #2 MR firm. She took on this challenge despite lucrative offers from internet startups after a career at Microsoft and in media and entertainment. Listen on to find out how the turnaround is going, how she approaches leadership, and how she intends to inject a much-needed spirit of entrepreneurism into TNS NA

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 STARRING 

• Kimberly Till, CEO, TNS North America
• Simon Chadwick, partner, Cambiar and gravitas (Host, in spirit)

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Our headline was “borrowed” from this recent Economist article which discusses the latest revelation that PepsiCo’s Aquafina brand of bottled water is actually purified tap water from public sources (but was not clearly described as such). And it goes on to analyse why consumers seem willing to believe that bottled water is better despite compelling doubts (e.g here, here and here).

Below is Penn and Teller’s characteristically witty but poignant take on this, which just goes to show how lucrative FUD marketing can be - last year the US bottled water industry raked in $11bn.

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 Probably the single most important [leadership] quality at the moment
is clarity.(Lorna Walters)

Sponsored by 
 THE LEADERSHIP SHOW  In the previous edition of The Leadership Show, host Simon Chadwick chatted with some of industry’s foremost entrepreneurs. Now it’s the turn of three corporate leaders in mega agencies to define their leadership style and imperatives. And while you’d expect a contrast, it’s not always where you’d expect

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 STARRING 

• Bob Skolnick, CEO, Synovate North America
• Lorna Walters, CEO, Research International USA
• Phyllis Macfarlane, Head, GfK NOP Custom
• Simon Chadwick, partner, Cambiar and gravitas (Host)

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The bird is the word, and everyone gets heard, as Rives recaps the most memorable moments of TED 2006 in a fantastical mockingbird lullaby

 ESOMAR CONGRESS ‘07  In the second of three preCasts ahead of this year’s Berlin-based Congress event, well known industry figure David (DVL) Smith chats with Orange’s Nick Bonney and CRAM International’s Peter Cooper about the fuss around new research techniques and the skills needed to move the sector forward. All three gents will be speaking at Congress

CAUTION: We apologise for the below par audio quality

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 STARRING 

• DVL Smith, Director, DVL Smith Group (Host)
• Nick Bonney, Head of Market Insight, Orange
• Peter Cooper, Chairman and CEO, CRAM International

This is an ESOMAR sponsored podcast and is published according to our yumminess policy

Listen to the podcast here

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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.