Category: The New Market Research
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The death of MR postponed
Twice in the same week I have seen a version of this quote about Big Data: "Data is about 'how many' and 'how much', whereas research is about 'why' – you have to join it all up." First from this very thoughtful ESOMAR paper by Pieter-Paul Verheggen and Wim von Slooten and now from Clive…
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Repealing Reg’s law
While I recognize that it’s not very fashionable to complain about being quoted out of context in this era of “You didn’t build that” I’m going to take a run at it nonetheless. Back on July 12 in a post about the MRMW Conference I noted that we are moving into an era when data…
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Does evidence still matter?
Laast week there was an interview of sorts with Gayle Fuguitt on Research-Live. At one point she says: "We did some work asking our management what they were looking for from us and one of the points they raised was the issue of speed versus precision. The point wasn’t that they didn’t want precision; the…
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Why does it work?
Now there is a question that we ought to ask more often. At last week's MRMW Conference we heard about a whole lot of different methods—some mobile and some online—for which their evangelists made great claims. And those claims generally focused on the great insights they can deliver about some generic ill-defined group, typically "people"…
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ISO 20252 – Market, opinion and social research
In December we were audited for ISO compliance. After a week of staff interviews, project reviews and records inspections we were certified to the 20252 standard. Good for us! Now I recognize that there are more than few people in the industry who think ISO certification is some kind of retro thing that does not…
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A butterfly flaps its wings . . .
My head is still spinning from having just read Lenny Murphy's quick analysis of the SurveyMonkey acquisition of some of the assets for MarketTools. In his piece he describes MR as an industry under siege, in a state of chaos that ultimately may dump the industry into the "dustbin of history." Three things about this…
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Eric Salama on Radio NewMR
This morning I listened to an interview of Eric Salama, CEO of Kantar (and now TNS as well), on Radio NewMR. I know Eric Salama by name only and was interested to hear his take on the future of the industry. Overall his message seemed to be that our industry should focus on its strengths…
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Plus ça change – Part 1
Sometimes it feels like if you are around this industry long enough you begin to see things recycled, old ideas dressed up in new clothes and paraded out as the next big thing. That’s how I’m beginning to feel about big data. I find myself increasingly reminded of the twin next big things of the…
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Boys and toys
The title of this post is an expression a friend uses to describe the apparent male affinity for gadgets of all kinds—computers, cars, mobile phones, power tools and consumer electronics in generl. I'm not saying that MR or even specifically the NewMR is a male dominated business, but nothing excites us more than cool new…