Over at NGMR there is an excellent discussion regarding the future of MR.

With many points of view being promoted and it’s worth a quick read.

For the record, here are my posts:

Post 1:

Today there is no one single future for market research, but alternative futures.

I’ve written quite a bit about this at the Future of Insight project and in my white paper on the topic.

The industry as currently configured has significant challenges, and there are many plausible futures.

At a macro level, I believe market research can be divided into five (5) developmental eras that can be classified into epochs:

“The Asking Epoch”:
1. Face-to-Face Era
2. Telephone Era
3. Online Era

“The Listening Epoch”
4. Observational Analytics: SM “lifestreaming”, MROCs, fMRI, eyetracking

“The Simulation Epoch”
5. Anticipatory Era: Mass simulation gaming, prediction markets, MROC Delphi panels, strategic foresight

I recently wrote about some possible futures flowing from this evolution. They are:

1. Army of Davids: The large players are overwhelmed by new entrants and technologies
2. Free Agency: MR goes “mechanical turk”.
3. Convergence: A new, much larger and more holistic, industry emerges.
4. Incredible Shrinking MR: MR fails to innovate and watches the future pass it by.
5. DIY: Google, Facebook and other future social media platforms enter the MR space and become desktop or portal based applications.

There are many more and they will be in my upcoming book, but we should begin strategizing based on these potential futures.

Post 2:

One of the things I find interesting about many of the responses here is that they assume the answer is in making the survey research process more efficient. I think it is a given that the survey research process will be optimized (in a much shorter, more mobile, format).

But, this assumes that the survey instrument will continue to be the core of what we do and that people will still want to answer our surveys.

I’m skeptical.

This is akin to listening to the canal owners of early 1800s America talk about making the canals wider and with smoother oxen trails while the railroad was in its infancy.

Almost everyone in this discussion was socialized during what I call the “Asking Epoch”, the time when the survey was the core engine of research.

But, observational research (fMRI, MROCs, social media lifestreaming) is in take-off mode, and it isn’t survey driven. Imagine today’s project directors morphing into tomorrow’s “community managers.”

Moreover, with massive multiplayer gaming and prediction markets, the era of anticipatory research may be just around the bend. Imagine the survey going away and being replaced by simulation gaming. Given the youth gaming culture that extends to GenX, this seems more natural than a survey experience.