Getting Lost in Cultural Context - Notes from the QRCA 2016 Conference in Vienna
I've recently returned from the 2 - 3 day 2016 QRCA conference in Vienna (http://bit.ly/1QFOHqz) - my first time to this event, so I was curious if the positives I had heard beforehand would be borne out by reality.
The event was markedly different from other Conferences I have attended recently - Qual360 in Berlin, the IIEX in Amsterdam - in a number of ways (excuse the emphasis on "absence", nothing intellectual or negative intended):
no clients
no "parallel tracks" (with all the pressure of missing something that brings)
no sales pitches
Sounds quaint in today's commercially insistent world? Well, maybe we're lacking a bit of that - a context where the sales pitch isn't constantly nudging itself forward for a peep around the "content", and where clients are mobbed during networking breaks.
Yes, it was about networking - in the sense of meeting other qualitative practitioners across the globe (the event was both truly global and well attended, about 120 people there), seeing if there was exciting stuff being showcased, getting a sense if one's methodoligical toolkit could do with a refresh.
So what did I come away with? Here's what stayed with me.
1. Bringing Results to Life Differently: Photojournalism and Ambient Music
Jim Mott and Tom Law of BAMM fame talked about ethnographic work they'd done in Malaysia in some grim-looking industrial areas. They'd captured their impressions in a photojournalist style, very gritty, with lots of haunting pictures, including one of a seriously sad-looking dog staring glumly into the camera.
They accompanied it with very light musical sounds, less than ambient - and talked over it. No Powerpoint at all. It caught my attention, stayed with me, appealed to the senses.... - I was wondering if they were going to introduce the smells of the Malaysian foundries they had been researching, but no ;)
The message was all about getting lost, "straying off topic" as they put it, how just spending a few more hours gathering images, documenting impressions outside of the narrow research framework could be massively enriching to help clients a thousand miles away sense the usage reality. An inspiring delivery.
2. Semiotics is - probably - arriving Mainstream.
Charlotte Hager of Comrecon Brand Navigation/ Austria presented a short case on how a print ad. for an Austrian insurance company was improved by semiotic analysis.
It was less the content of the presentation per se that wowed me, more the fact that Semiotics made the cut in a global Programme agenda - and that the presentation was done by an Austrian, as opposed to what one might have expected - a French person.
I'm sure semiotics has still way to go to become truly mainstream in MR - demystifying it, sharing some commonly recognised tools that clients can buy into safely, and establishing it as a tool that is the friend, not the enemy, of sensitive creative development.
Still, it was there - on the map.
3. Qualitative Research is Growing, Expanding, Changing....
I've long been a believer in the broader opportunities for Qualitative Research - leading innovation processes at the front-end, for example, or helping guide brand owners globally understand cultural contexts and advising them on how, where to tweak their communication approaches.
This conference demonstrated how "qual" is growing into new spaces:
Adopting Consultancy roles (as witnessed by the talk I gave, for example, with my colleague Claudia Antoni) in facilitating speed-ideations
Using Insight communities for NPD (Oana Papa Rengle/ MAPPERS, Rumania)
Tapping into Social Media analysis as part of a hybrid qual. design (Ilka Kuhagen/ IKM, Germany)
Applying semiotics for advertising development for example.
If this is what "market research" is about, then Qual. is on the pace - certainly an attractive option for graduates casting around for "career" opportunites.
Overall, I was impressed by the quality of thinking, the willingness to share, no dominance of sponsorship-financed messaging, equal rights being accorded to the independent, smaller operators alongside larger organisations.
If you have the opportunity to attend, and are in the business of qualititative research, then I would definitely recommend it.
Curious, as ever, as to others' thoughts.