UK MRS 2014 Conference: Impact 2014 - what’s it all About?
The UK MRS Society's Annual Conference (http://bit.ly/IvWLMf) is a couple of weeks away. Entitled "Impact 2014"*, it continues in the mould-breaking approach adopted by the 2013 event - featuring speakers from areas well outside of Research, rather than focussing narrowly on methodological innovations.
Author Will Self is talking on story-telling; criminal psychologist Professor David Canter will be sharing his approach on "offender profiling"; medal-winning paralympic athlete Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson talking about motivation, achievement, the rules of winning.
All inspirational stuff, no doubt - but it begs the question: why? What's this all got to do with the daily business of Market Research?
I caught up with MRS CEO Jane Frost to learn more about her thinking behind the Event, and to get an update on her strategy and vision for the MR industry in the UK.
Edward: Is "Impact 2014"different in any way from the previous year's Congress?
Jane: Impact 2014 takes us further in the direction that we started with Shock of the New. The ambition is essentially the same: allow participants to listen to people who are the best in their field, such as Sir Martin Sorrell, and learn outside the straight lines of their day-to-day jobs. We also have an increased focus on the outcomes of research in all its forms and the innovation that the market is deploying
Edward: How is the MR industry gaining perceptual traction in the wider world of media, science, politics?
Jane: I think we're making progress. Initiatives such as Fair Data are gaining broader attention, reports on the financial success of the industry also help raise interest amongst mainstream media. What's critical, I think, is a sense of self-confidence - perhaps drawing constant attention to the benefits Research bring is a way of helping boost our self-belief. Blowing our own trumpet is something we need to feel less abashed about.
Edward: What can MR possibly learn from someone like Will Self? What is the thinking behind inviting people far away from MR?
Jane: The ability to tell a great story can add massive value, something I can personally testify to, having been a judge for one of last year's awards, the Prosper Riley Smith Award sponsored by the AQR, where compelling presentations made a huge difference. Will Self is a great protagonist of the art of story-telling. Just as importantly Will is a provocative thinker, who will kickstart, I hope, our brains. At the very least stimulate some serendipitous ideas.
Part of making the research industry attractive is to associate it with people who are well-known, masters in their field, and compelling. It's part of the confidence and status "thing". I left the session by the artist Shrigley last year feeling enlivened, amused, and with the resolution to abandon PowerPoint as a communications tool!
Edward: What do you see as the key challenges in 2014 that researchers should look to address, and how?
Jane: I'd like to see 2014 bring us further on the road to establishing our credentials - as a Body of professionals key to the creation of a Customer Knowledge Economy. Selling the benefits of customer understanding as a source of commercial advantage is something I feel we haven't exploited sufficiently. In fact, we have an ongoing challenge to sell the benefit of what we do - without getting caught up in inwardly focussed debates, splitting hairs over semantics. Which brings me, hopefully rant-free, to my final point: we absolutely need to innovate in the way we communicate with and handle clients (and I include internal clients within organisations that are users of research as well as external clients of suppliers) in ways that reflect their language and needs and less the processes and habits that define us. Is that too outspoken? I hope not.
So there we have it. Fascinating stuff.
Three concepts repeatedly strike me when talking to Jane that seem to underpin her approach to Research as a profession:
i) Embracing the Tangential.
We need to look to the left and to the right of us, to learn laterally from those not immediately in our field but engaging in similar pursuits, spotting the usefulness in the not immediately obvious.
ii) Seeking Inspiration
By listening to people achieving remarkable things in different walks of life, we become - hopefully - inspired to do better ourselves. Maybe even feel better about ourselves in the process, enjoy more what we do.
iii) Having Fun
How often do we simply let our hair down and enjoy who we are and what we do, collectively or otherwise? Jane comes from the world of Marketing and Advertising, industries notably more brash than ours - but ones that perhaps celebrate more uninhibitedly, communicate more emotionally and effectively, with little or no sense of self-doubt.
One final thought I was left with: Impact 2014 is perhaps challenging us to make sense of things that are disparate but aspirational. Improve our synthesis skills perhahps. How we mash impressions up and make sense of them for ourselves is a challenge, but a pertinent one. We have no rights of ownership on the word "insights"; the world around us is moving on fast.
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.
*Impact 2014 is from 18 - 19 March in London, UK