MRS UK CEO to visit Germany for Round Table Discussion
Back in February of this year the 2013 UK MRS Annual Event caught my eye. Entitled "Shock of the New" it seemed intriguingly different, bold even - keynote speakers included an artist (David Shrigley), an Olympic rower (Katherine Grainger), a physicist (Jim Al Khalili)....all sorts of people not employed within MR. The intent seemed to be to inspire, challenge, cross boundaries - pulling MR into a different space. You can see the full Agenda here - http://bit.ly/17Vr8SY
The driving force behind the Event - Jane Frost, CBE - is the relatively new CEO of the UK MRS.
I linked up with her after the Event to get a sense of how the event had gone, what reactions were - some of you may have read the interview, if not you can see it here. http://bit.ly/YigP86
The conversation with Jane prompted me to suggest a follow-up. Working as European Insights Manager for a multinational in Munich, I was curious as to how the German market research industry could profit from Jane's thinking about the UK situation. I invited her to come to a Round Table discussion with 5 very senior managers from across the German Research industry world.
To my delight, she accepted - and will be here in Munich next week!
The agenda is as simple as setting up the meeting was challenging (aligning schedules where very senior people could together in one place at the same time):
What can Europe's two largest Research markets learn from one another regarding challenges and trends?
How can successful initiatives in each market be adapted for use in other geographies?
From a German perspective: what drove the UK Shock of the New initiative, how successful was it and could it work in Germany too?
The discussion is intended to be genuinely open and frank - there will be no external moderator, no journalists, no PR agencies present, and of course no Sponsors.
We will be sharing the outcome - as a group and individually - so for those of you interested, keep an eye out for follow-up blogs and articles. It will be a co-ordinated learnings-sharing effort - with all individual interests and agendas aligned - so it may take a little longer than normal, but hopefully won't be therefore anodyne.
I normally don't like the word "excited" within a business context - I've heard it so often that it invariably fails to convince. However, in this instance, I would confess to a genuine sense of excitement about what I believe will be a truly fun and enriching evening.