Scott Taylor
Day 2
Session 1
Hmmm…Missed it again, and the bacon and egg rolls dammit! Stopped in at work instead and prepped for speaking. I like the speaker room. It’s got a really positive vibe, and everyone’s interested in talking about what they’re passionate about (ie their paper and presentation). The chair of my session, John Sergeant, introduces himself and commends my paper. I’m not ashamed to say that makes me feel rather good indeed.
Session 2 – The Future
With everyone bar me presenting under the buddy system, there’s a full house on stage. Means I get the dodgy seat at the end. I was really hoping for the couch, but at the same time was worried I’d take a little nanna nap if I did. Probably for the best really.
Ken Roberts and Darren Stein speak about their development of a Feelings Scale. I’ve got to be honest, paying attention to other speakers whilst sitting on a stage about to present to a couple of hundred people isn’t easy. I think my thoughts revolved around scoping out the stage for places where I could potentially trip, wondering if I could duck out for a toilet break without being noticed (damn you five cups of tea!), looking for the Mentos (there were none), and mentally running through what my first few sentences would be. I’m a firm believer that if you get through the first one or two minutes of your presentation smoothly, the rest will sort itself out.
Up next are Sean Dunn and Ying Xin from Vision Critical (who seem to be everywhere yet again this year). A couple of youngsters running through the pitfalls of mobile research, of which it seems there are many. I like it. Rather than saying yeah VC are all over mobile research, you should get with it, they’re practical and honest. Nice work.
And then David McCallum and Alastair Gordon give what will eventually be crowned the best presentation of the conference. All about facial imaging and its application in research. It’s a smashing concept and speaking to them later I realised just how widely used (as in beyond the research industry) it could become. Good luck to them, they seem like good guys.
And then it’s me (Scott Taylor – Soup). I forget the five cups of tea and roll through my presentation without too many gaffes. I actually quite enjoy myself. Admittedly, Net Promoter Score is a weird concept for me to present on. As much as I believe in the importance of understanding advocacy to a business, frankly I couldn’t care less how it’s measured, just so long as it is measured. So I spend half the time trying to explain my neutrality on the subject rather than examining whether it’s measuring what it purports to…
Session 3 – Engagement
The elusive notion of engagement… throw in the increasingly vague concept of community and this should be interesting.
Teri Nolan from Latitude Insights kicks it off. The key factor I get out of her talk is Wikipedia. Nobody pays Wikipedia contributors. What’s their incentive to have created one of the most comprehensive information networks in history? If we can tap into that notion, voila, we’ve got communities and engagement in a bottle.
Damon Jalili and Feyi Akindoyeni step up to the stand and give one of my favourite presentations of the conference…about pig farms. Who’d have thunk it? A victory for quality storytelling that reiterates the importance of open communication of results and processes. It emphasises the need for context in these presentations. Give people something physical to latch onto (not literally) and you’ll engage a hell of a lot more of your audience. I wonder if I did that (‘cause it’s all about me).
Becky Silverside from ruby cha cha talking about NPS and advocacy next. I’m hoping she doesn’t end up saying something completely contradictory to me. Turns out not. All good. Also throws in the term “Advocracy”. Note to self. Look that one up (I did, here it is in all its pay-walled glory: http://www.esomar.org/web/publication/paper.php?id=2134).
Howard Parry Husbands and Sebastian Watson close the session and say (imo) the most pertinent point of the whole conference in no less than their first two sentences: “Congratulations to the Market Research industry for rebranding Panels as Communities. Anyone who is buying a Community thinking that’s what they’re getting should know that they’re being sold horse shit”. Doesn’t really matter what you say after that…
Oh wait, another one from my notes, ”You can’t buy communities. You need to nurture them”. I’m stunned HPH isn’t on Twitter as his 140 character snippets are eminently quotable. Oh yeah and I like Seb, he’s a good guy (Disclosure: Pollinate & Soup are sister companies).
Session 4
Conference fatigue setting in. Matt Church sees fit to fix that. I knew nothing about Matt Church before this. Now I do, and what I know, I like. Am currently trying to slog through eight cups of water before 1pm each day in order to sleep like a baby. If anyone can convince me to do something so ridiculous for such a seemingly illogical result, they’re obviously doing something right. Unfortunately, his website isn’t doing something right with a broken link to the pdf version of his serotonin seekers book. Nobody’s perfect…
Again to completely ‘fess up, after Matt Church I was done with this big, dark and gloomy ballroom. Instead I take Matt’s advice and get some sun, or clouds and rain as the case may be (and a milkshake). Apologies to Derek Jones and Will Anderson, but I think they’ll get over my absence.
Drinks to catch up with a few more people and there ends my conference for another year. Happy trails researchers. See you next year!
