By Lucy Davison (originally posted on the GreenBook Blog and the Business Intelligence Group Blog). I recently attended one of the more commercial insights industry events. A lot of the content at these events is ‘pay to play’ – when suppliers and agencies pay a fee to get a slot on the platform. In essence, I do not think this is a bad idea. It funds events and conferences, so getting more knowledge out into the industry, and it gives
Read MoreThanks to e-Tabs, our partners in crime at Keen as Mustard for the Viz-Fest event each year, I was given a ticket to the Quirk’s event in Orange County last week. Given it felt like we had suffered weeks of particularly cold, grey and wet weather here in Northern Europe, needless to say I was overjoyed to take this opportunity to reacquaint myself with the sun. But that was not my only reason for attending. I was interested to experience
Read MoreBy Lucy Davison, Managing Director of Keen as Mustard Marketing (originally posted in GreenBook) Late last year, we at Keen as Mustard Marketing joined forces with FocusVision to find out more about what was going on within MRX marketing. We really wanted to find out what issues agencies and suppliers in market research were facing, what they thought the solutions were, and how much they spent on it. The idea was to turn the mirror to face us in MRX
Read MoreLucy Davison recaps her experience at NEXT 2017, the Insights Association’s inaugural event (originally posted in Quirk's). The Insights Association’s inaugural conference was a full-on content fest with back-to-back sessions from 7:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 9 to 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 10. I’ve learned that New Yorkers – and maybe all Americans? – certainly like to conference! I hardly had time to catch my breath let alone gather thoughts. Plus, I’ve still not made it to Katz’s. The main
Read MoreBy Lucy Davison Full article published in Research World In a Research World article titled ‘Where storytelling ends and communication begins,’ we outlined four essential skills for the researcher of the future. We’ve been struggling with the ability to communicate clearly, powerfully and with impact as an industry for much more than a decade. In my view it’s high time to take a different approach. What if we thought of ourselves as being in the communications business rather than in
Read MoreFor those of you who could not join the 75 insights marketing professionals who were at Insights Marketing Day in London, here’s the low-down: Insights marketing day is a unique event in the MRX calendar as it is entirely focused on helping data, research and insight professionals improve their marketing. Something we at Mustard are rather motivated about. Run by GreenBook (the people who brought you IIeX), IMD has so far taken place in New York three times, London twice
Read MoreBy Lucy Davison, published in Quirk's The research industry needs to learn to improve its consultancy skills. While doing a Webinar for ESOMAR, one of my co-participants, Simon Chadwick from Cambiar Consulting, revealed an interesting slide (Figure 1). It showed the skills for client researchers that are currently in demand and the skills for researchers that will be in demand in the future. The skills that were growing in demand were storytelling, consulting and intellectual curiosity. The skills that were
Read MoreNow that the dust has settled after my return from New Orleans I thought to give a short summary of what I learnt, felt and found from the proceedings. There are four words that sum up my experience, so I’ve tried to group my thoughts under these. 1. Noisy My first word is noisy, or even loud. Of course there were tons of bands, music (such as the inspirational clarinettist Michael White) and dancing, which was all very New Orleans
Read MoreOn 19 May we gathered at the office of Research Now to pick over the entrails of the 2015 UK polling debacle. With Kerian Pedley (pollster, writer, Research Director GfK) and Dr Nick Baker (Partner & Group CEO Quadrangle, PhD Birmingham, BPC/MRS Inquiry into 2015 Election) on a panel ably chaired by Dave Skelsey of Strictly Financial, we wondered what did the oracles have in store for us? And what is MRX actually doing about the highest profile event to
Read MoreI don’t know what’s been going on over at the MRS but they have certainly upped the ante regarding their Annual Conference. Over the last few years I felt it was less inspiring and more of the same old folks spouting on to the same old folks about the same old stuff. I got to the point where I did not even attend last year – finding it impossible to justify the cost when we are a small business and
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