The Future Place Blog

ESOMAR in Melbourne for APAC

Today is the first day of the two-day ESOMAR APAC Conference in Melbourne, although for me it started a day earlier with the Advanced Quant workshop that Jon Pinnell and I ran. The reception last night was a welcome mix of familiar faces and new faces.

As well as the formal sessions there are two social events that I will be involved in and if you are in Melbourne I hope to see you at one or both.

Monday 5:30pm, 'Meet the author', as part of the networking drinks ESOMAR have organised a meet the author event for people to buy copies of my book, The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research, and to have a chat with me about the book.

Tuesday 6:00pm, Colmar Brunton Trivia night, this event is a social event being hosted at the Melbourne offices, quite close to the Conference location and will provide a great chance for delegates new to Melbourne with a chance to unwind, with drinks and a light-heated trivia quiz (with the chance to win prizes). If you'd like to attend Download Trivia night for more information.

Quick declaration of interest, Colmar Brunton are a client of mine, indeed if you are still in Melbourne on Friday you see me presenting with Colmar Brunton at the AMI/AMSRS "Social Media Killed the Media Star" event.

Are you going to be in Australia in March?

I have a series of events planned for Australia in March, it would be great to see you at one of them?

Brisbane, March 4
AMI, AMSRS, and Colmar Brunton have a half-day event called Social Media Killed the Media Stars, where I will be the keynote speaker. Find out more HERE.

Sydney, March 11
AMI, AMSRS, and Colmar Brunton have a workshop called Social Media Killed the Media Stars, where I will be the keynote speaker. Find out more HERE.

Adelaide, March 15
AMI, AMSRS, and Colmar Brunton have a late afternoon event called Social Media Killed the Media Stars, where I will be the keynote speaker. Find out more HERE.

Canberra, March 18
AMI, AMSRS, and Colmar Brunton have a half-day workshop called Social Media Killed the Media Stars, where I will be the keynote speaker. Find out more HERE.

Melbourne, 20-22 March
ESOMAR’s APAC conference is being held in Melbourne and I am co-leading a workshop on the 20^th “Advanced Quantitative Techniques”, attending the main conference, and will be taking part in a meet the author event to discuss The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research.

Melbourne, March 22
Colmar Brunton are hosting an informal evening after the ESOMAR APAC Conference, the event will include a fun trivia competition and refreshments (with the option to explore Australian nightlife later). Ray will be in attendance and is responsible for some of the trivia questions.

Melbourne, 25 March
AMI, AMSRS, and Colmar Brunton have a half-day workshop called Social Media Killed the Media Stars, where I will be the keynote speaker. Find out more HERE.

 

A Dutch auction and other experiments in the funding of NewMR events

One of the things we are reviewing is how to be able to afford to be able provide NewMR events for the market research community, for example the ‘Listening is the new asking’ Text Analytics event on March 8.

For this event we are conducting a number of experiments to help fund events, for example:

a) We are offering people who plan to attend the event a chance to make a donation, i.e. to pay ‘what you think it is worth’.

b) People attend the event will be able to download the slides and view the recordings for free, but people who did not attend the event will need to pay £20 to download the slides or view the recordings.

c) We are looking for a sponsor and we have decided to use a Dutch auction approach, where the offer price of the sponsorship will be progressively reduced if the option has not already been booked (see below).

Our plan is to try to stage at least one topic specific event a month for the rest of the year, building toward the NewMR Festival which will be held 31 October to 4 November. 

Dutch auction? A Dutch auction is where the offer price starts high and is progressively reduced until somebody bids. In the context of the sponsorship of the ‘Listening is the new asking’ Text Analytics event the asking price for the sponsorship is £1000. However, if the sponsorship has not been booked by February 18 the offer price will be reduced by £100 per working day, e.g. on the 18 Feb it will reduce to £900, and on Monday 21 February (if the sponsorship pack has not been booked) it will drop to £800, and so on.

If you would like to know more about the sponsorship pack for the ‘Listening is the new asking’ Text Analytics event, please email [email protected].

If you would like to speak at the event please make sure you email your idea to [email protected] by February 15. We expect to be publicising the programme on about February 17.

 

Do you want to know more about social media and market research?

Well, if you can get to the UK, the MRS are running a all day training event on June 8th, and I have the privilege of being the course leader. You can find out more abou the course here.

What will the course cover?

• Blog and buzz monitoring and mining
• The use of online research communities (i.e. MROCs)
• The use of blogs for participative research
• Co-creation and WE-Research
• Social networks as a resource for market researchers
• The rise and future of NewMR

If you can’t make the 8th July, there are other options of course. I offer an in-house course, focusing on your specific needs.

And, of course, in August my Handbook of Online and Social Media Research will be published by Wiley, and you can pre-order it here.

Do you need a 101 on how to use social media for market research?

Conferences are great for getting a sense of what is going on, but they tend to leave you wondering about how to actually get started. If you are new to social media research where should you start, what are the top ten tips, what are the pitfalls to watch out for?

On June 8 I am running an all day workshop for the MRS on exactly this topic. I will be leading the day and I have a couple of top notch experts lined-up to join me.

Remember, places are limited, so if you want to get started on the social media path, book soon.

To find out more about the course click here (you can book online).

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I also offer in-house training on social media and market research and from September anybody booking an in-house course will get a copy of my book Handbook of Online and Social Media Research - however I am just about fully booked until late September.

BIG Conference call for Synopses

One of the nicest conferences, IMHO, is the BIG Conference in the UK.

BIG is a B2B conference which means the attendees all have a common area of interest and the agenda is focused. At BIG there tends to be a large number of repeat attendees, which has resulted in an evolving programme.

The conference is held in a remote location (near Cheptsow in Wales), and the number of people is controlled to be about 125 (I think). This combination of remote location and small number means that everybody gets a chance to meet everybody, which is really refreshing these days.

I have just received an email alerting me to the call for synopses for BIG. The conference will be held in May next year, but if you want to submit a synopsis you have until November to submit something.

Feedback from our workshop in Stockholm

Jon Pinnell and I have just received our customer feedback from the Advanced Quant Workshop we ran in Stockholm for ESOMAR on 4 May.

I am delighted to say that our scores were reassuring, although we will have to address the overall value aspect which was the lowest score.

My personal scores (out of a possible 5) were Value 4.6, Presentation 4.7, Content 4.7. I was really pleased to be described as 'Good and funny' but more concerned that at least one other person thought I was too fast.

I find the feedback from the sessions I run or speak at to be invaluable in improving my performance. But I was slightly taken aback by the very 2.0 approach of the the Danish Market Research Day who went as far as to publish the findings on the Internet. Indeed they collected information during the day to allow the organisers to tweak the afternoon. Read more about it here.