Scott Taylor
The AMSRS 2011 conference…It’s a Market Research conference for those of you not in the know (don’t feel bad).
As a bit of background, yes, I’m presenting on the second day. No, I can’t cover all facets of the conference. I am but one man with one pass. I might get a bit of a read on some other sessions from people I speak to, but in general, this is just me and my experience. Apologies to any speakers I missed out on.
Before I get into the minutiae of the presenters I saw, I thought I’d share a few of the big-picture ideas I took out of day one.
- Respondents have power, we research bods have been abusing it for too long. Stop it or we’re in trouble.
- Is it the rise of the respondent (conversations) or is it the death of the respondent (data mining)?
- Data mining answers what they’re doing. Research answers why and how they might change.
Day 1
Session 1
Hilton hotel. Shwank. But not quite shwank enough to get me there on time to see Steve Van Aperen speak on the secrets of lie detection (to be fair, not the Hilton’s fault, I had work to do). I did however, hear from others that it was an excellent little bit and have kicked myself several times for missing it.
Admittedly, I also missed all but the last minute of Cordelia Fine’s presentation on what neuromarketing can tell us. From that one minute I took out that neuromarketing is not the revolution people have been claiming it to be.
So technically the opening speaker for my conference was Rebecca Huntly speaking on the evolution of Australians over the past 50-60 years or so (social evolution more so than physical evolution obviously). Basically, we’re now pessimistic, paranoid and take our work far too seriously. Bit of a downer really. But on the plus side, Rebecca spoke without using powerpoint. Nice!
Session 2.
I warned my conference buddy Nick Plows (from Pollinate) that the next speaker might be a little light on light and a little heavy on heavy. Indeed Danica Allen was that. Giving us a very weighty tome of numbers to mull over. Basically saying Likert scales are rubbish, the new-fangled quadrant methodology is where it’s at. Unfortunately the one glaring omission from Danica was answering whether that atrocious Herbal Essences ad was better received than the Head & Shoulders ad. Sadly, we’ll never know.
Sheila Keegan was next up to fight the automatic clicker wars and speak about the impact of technology on the human brain. My fears that the internet and technology is eroding people’s minds weren’t alleviated, but nor were they added to. Instead, it was a balanced view on both sides of the fence.
Dr Rev Keith V Garner had not only one of my favourite names of the conference, but one of the best presentations. Clearly a man with no issues about speaking to a big room (it’s like he does it every Sunday or something). The Rev Dr told an excellent tale on how Wesley Mission has illustrated the situation of Australia’s less fortunate through effective research and gained more donors as a result.
Ultimately though, Dr Rev K was the first to emphasise what I saw as a key underlying theme for the conference. Communication. Good research is just the very first baby step. To really set a research piece apart it’s vital to communicate results and actions to all stakeholders, not just clients.
There’s a certain irony to this communication theme, and I know I take a risk in saying this as a speaker, but too many presenters this year seem to struggle with holding an audience and are content to either dictate off slides or read out a script. I can absolutely accept that off a rookie presenter – it’s a nerve racking gig, you do what you can to get through the 20 minutes in one piece. But some of those guilty of this are very senior within their respective companies. What’s going on? Surely they don’t do this with clients. So why on earth would you choose to do this at a conference?
Anyway, with that off my chest…back to the presentations.
Session 3
I poke my head into the social media session only to hear “I have 30,000 followers on Twitter” by one of the speakers (sorry I don’t know which). With respect…Pass.
With said foray into the social media session and a diversion attempting to get a few minor changes to tomorrow’s presentation uploaded (a very big shout out to the excellent AV guys at the Hilton), I get to The Future session in time to hear Paul Dixon talk about why participants take part in research. I’m not sure which is more depressing, that people are only taking part in research for financial gain, or that the industry is so willing to accept this.
Seemed to me that Jason Buchanan put himself in the unenviable position of wanting to tell his clients to lift their game – that their persistent abuse of respondents’ time and attention will eventually kill the industry – and simply keeping his clients on side. In the end I think he did both.
Ultimately this session brought a few things to my attention:
- Has anyone in the industry even done a standard survey? They’re not high art or blockbuster entertainment. They’re long, dry tomes of varying levels of disinterest. Why does it surprise us that people aren’t giving us their full attention?
- We’re still talking about how online surveys aren’t just offline surveys coded up. Online research has been around for over 10 years now. It’s a sad state of affairs that we’re not way, waaaay beyond this discussion.
- It’s a tough crowd in the ballroom. Big, dark, spacious room filled with sleepy people wacked out on mentos. Good luck speakers (oh wait, that’s me)
As an aside, I notice that someone had to stick Q&A market research services stickers on every single lanyard…commitment. I might give the guys from Q&A a call.
Session 4
Peter Harris puts a rocket up the industry and tells the AMSRS knockers to either shut up, or do something about it. I’m paraphrasing, but that’s essentially the guts of it. Fair call really.
Someone mentions “Brand communities”. I down a shot.
John Griffiths then runs through a good 5000 ideas in 30 minutes. All genuinely pretty damn good. You could take each of them and fill in the entire conference…but who has time for that?
Finally for the day, Ray Poynter completely forgets he’s the last presenter of the day and scares the masses out of their slumber with his energy. Being a futurist is a tough gig with little payoff. You get it wrong and people hang you for it. Get it right and people say “well yeah of course, I was saying that all along”. More power to Ray though, he’s smashing it out. Plus he’s also answered the question of how to pronounce MROC (“Em rock”). Load off my mind.
And it’s back to the office and off to dinner. Good first day. Second day summary is now posted here.
Sharyn Smith
