How will business, marketing and market research deal with the challenge of acceleration? The rate of change appears to be accelerating.  Business is innovating new products and distributing them at a faster rate.  For example, radio was invented in 1897 and it took 31 years for this innovation to penetrate 25% of the US consumer base.  [...]

As many of you know, Research World recently ran my thoughts on Rateocracy and market research in the October edition. If you’ve read restaurant reviews on Yelp, rated a vendor on Angie’s List or rated a seller on eBay, you’re already part of the movement toward Rateocracy, a world in which everyone and everything has a [...]

I’m here in Dallas for the Corporate Researcher’s Conference 2012. My speech tomorrow morning is titled “The Once and Future Roles of Corporate Researchers”, it begins with Shakespeare (a personal weakness) and explores 5 possible future roles. As usual, my presentation borrows heavily from strategic foresight principles and future scenarios. And, as usual, the presentation is a bit [...]

I gave a preview of my presentation yesterday. Here’s a deep dive on the 3+1 scenarios I present today: Tribal Rituals:  In this MR future consumptions becomes increasingly about experience and purpose and marketers turn increasingly to the creation of community and ritual with the physical product embedded at the core.  Think scapbooking parties, motorcycle [...]

Fresh off my presentations in Montreal and Amsterdam, I’m pleased to announce four (4) upcoming speaking engagements: Market Research in the Mobile World Location: Cincinnati, Ohio Date: July 18-19, 2012 http://www.mrmw.net/MRMW-North-America-2012/speakers.html Social, Local, Mobile Market Research Innovations Congress Location: San Francisco, California Date: August 14-15, 2012 http://www.marketresearchinnovations.com/ Corporate Researchers Conference (Marketing Research Association) Location: Dallas, [...]

MR will transition from collecting to sifting data, will surge to mobile, will leverage RFID, will focus more on the BRICS and N11. You’ve heard all this before. But, one thing I don’t think we talk about enough are the aesthetics of our reports and presentations. I think this is because MR grew up in [...]

As many of the readers of FOI know, I joined 38 other authors in writing the book “Leading Edge Marketing Research; 21st Century Tools and Practices”. Writing what became titled “The Futures of Marketing Research” and designated the epilogue was a labor of love. In this epilogue I developed 22 potential futures for the research [...]

For a short distillation of my thinking about the futures facing the market research industry, take a look at my CASRO presentation: http://www.strategyone.com/documents/CASRO%20Presentation%20Futures%20of%20MR.pdf Here I outline the 5 Megatrends facing the industry and 22 plausible futures based on these trends.

As many of the readers of this site may know, Sage Publishing’s “Leading Edge Marketing Research; 21st Century Tools and Practice” is due out in November. It will be THE tour de force of nextgen market research, covering every new innovation in the field and rich with insights about the futures of the industry. To [...]

My interview with Lenny Murphy at GreenBook is now live: http://bit.ly/gFm0W8 I’m looking forward to discussing these topics, but especially privacy, at the Technology Driven Market Research Event.