Ray Poynter's Page

Back in June-August I ran a survey amongst market researchers and what makes a great conference. The report is now ready and can be downloaded from http://thefutureplace.typepad.com/the_future_place/2009/10/what-makes-a-great-conference-the-report.html

Because the field of online research communities is developing so rapidly it is important to create a structure to help understand the options that confront researchers proposing to use online research communities to gain insight.

The key issues that determine the nature of a community are:

1. Short term versus continuous
A short term community typically from 3 days to three months, the alternative is to set the community as an ongoing project.

2. Closed versus open
Most online research commu… Continue

The timing could not be worse, at the height of a global recession, with hundreds of market researchers having been made redundant recently, ESOMAR hosts its annual Congress in the fantastically beautiful and expensive town of Montreux, on the shores of Lac Leman, an hour’s train ride from Geneva, deep in the awe inspiring Swiss Alps. Because the location was less accessible, and because rehearsals and workshops were on the Tuesday, many delegates had to commit to arriving on the Monday and leav… Continue

In July my son Will and I are riding 1000 miles (1600KM) from Land's End to John o' Groats and will be raising money for Oxfam. You can read about our plans at http://thefutureplace.typepad.com/lejog/.

If you would like to make a donation you can do it at our Oxfam justgiving page http://www.justgiving.com/poynter2009.

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I have just writte a longish post on my blog that discusses the economy and its impact on the market research industry. The short version is that I think market research is heading for a very difficult time, for the long version check out my article.