Author: Anna Alu

May 23, 2017

Studying at Caucasus University

This is the first blog from Nutsa Kvitashvili who is following the BA Program of Sociology at Caucasus School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Nutsa is the recipient of the ESOMAR Foundation Scholarship sponsored by Inizio.

When I became a student at Caucasus University, studying for me was difficult and challenging. But best things in life come from hard work. First year at CU was hard for me. It was hard to keep up with university’s life but hard work really pays off. Now it’s my 3^rd year at university and studying opened many doors in my life, it also expanded my views on many things. Now I can manage my time effectively. It’s a very important skill not only for university but for my future career. I’m also better in writing essays. It’s also a very important skill because essay is a student’s opportunity to show his/her knowledge on a given subject. I’m better in giving presentations and working on group projects too. University is very different from school, here you have to learn how to adapt and take responsibility for everything you do. I’ve gained many practical and valuable skills while studying. Also I’m moving forward, developing more as a person and I’m one more step closer to reaching my career goals.

Sometimes being motivated at university is hard, but the ESOMAR Foundation scholarship helped me stay enthusiastic and excited about what I’m doing. It helps me being motivated and passionate about studying. It’s an honor to be the recipient of the ESOMAR Foundation scholarship and it’s not only about receiving the money, it’s also about the potential that you saw in me. I’m going to do the best I can to make you, my family, my friends and my university proud. I want to thank ESOMAR Foundation and the sponsor INIZIO again for giving me this opportunity.

How you can support

If you are a market researcher, a national market research association, an NGO involved in research or a university interested in a scholarship in your country please contact us at info@esomarfoundation.org

Partners & Sponsors

We are always on the lookout for partners and sponsors. If you are an organisation looking to understand more on how you can support us, please find more information here or contact: info@esomarfoundation.org

May 19, 2017

Trust and believe in yourself!

This is the tenth blog-post from Nicolin Mamuya, the first ESOMAR Foundation scholarship in South Africa. Nicolin thinks back at her graduation day.

This Honours programme has officially taken over my life. However, I am not complaining because, it isn’t as though I have anything better to do. It’s like my mom always said, “When you’re busy, you don’t have time to be worrying about other peoples’ business”.

On the 4^th of April I had my graduation ceremony. It was alright. I think I celebrated enough after I received my final results last year in December. I must admit, I wish I had my family with me on the day. Maybe the pressure of getting the outfit and transport would have been less intense. Nonetheless, I appreciate my friends for being there.

If there’s one thing I have learnt in this life, it is not to expect things from people. I mean, people are human and disappointments are inevitable. Trust and believe in yourself.

The scholarship awarded to Nicolin was sponsored by SSI and in collaboration with SAMRA.

May 9, 2017

My first day as a marketing research student

This is the first blog-post from Esther Tot who received the ESOMAR Foundation Scholarship to study at the English based Bachelor Degree program in International Business at the National University of Management (NUM) in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

I was so excited when I received the news that I was awarded the ESOMAR Foundation scholarship as a Marketing Research student at National University of Management (NUM). I cried of joy for this special blessing. It means so much to me!

It was December 12^th, 2016 when I started my first class at IBBA (International Business). It was an unforgettable day! The subject of my first class was Khmer History taught by Teacher Khuon Vichheka. She taught me to know more about my country history especially about the Khmer Kingdoms Organization which was divided into 13 kingdoms such as Prehistory, Funan, Chenla, Angkor, Chatomuk, Longvek, Oudong, French Protectorate, Sangkum Reastr Niyum, The Khmer Republic, Democratic Kampuchea, People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK), and the very last one was The Kingdom of Cambodia. As a marketing researcher it’s very important to have a clear understanding about your own country and others countries’ history and economics. It helps create a business idea of people demands all around the world. This course was so beneficial because I could learn many new things happening all over the world, update my ideas and be more creative and more future oriented.

However, this course also included some hard subjects such as Mathematics, but I promise myself I won’t give up until I reach my goal and graduate with an IBBA degree and get a good job in marketing research. I am willing to take the risk in order to find my success. Nevertheless, there are others subjects which I enjoy a lot such as Economics, English for Business, and Introduction to Business. It was all fun and beneficial. I love to study in this course so much.

Partners & Sponsors

May 3, 2017

Shedding Light on the Digital Grey Areas of Teen Dating Violence: Co-Creation Research

Overview

In 2007 the Family Violence Prevention Fund partnered with the Ad Council and R/GA to create a campaign to prevent teen dating violence both now and as teens mature and enter adulthood. Our initial research found that teen dating had gone digital and teen dating abuse online had followed. This emerging area became our focus.

Research was conducted at key points of the year-long development process. Because we wanted to understand how teens interact with each other in a digital environment, we created that environment and then brought respondents in to interact with it. At every point in the research process, respondents created artifacts—words, pictures and ideas—that did not just inform the subsequent campaign, but literally became part of the campaign.

In early 2009, the ThatsNotCool.com site and multimedia campaign was launched to draw teens’ attention to the issue of digital dating violence and to help them “draw their digital line” by deciding for themselves what’s right or wrong rather than be lectured by adults.

The campaign included banners, social media, TV, print, radio, outdoors and a mobile site. At the ThatsNotCool.com website teens could view content, as well as create and share videos, call out cards and more. The campaign helped start a conversation in the media on teen dating abuse and in the first few months led to over 300,000 visitors, 200,000 video views and 28,000 call out cards sent.

Please take a look at this short video to learn more about the challenge, the research, development of the campaign and to see the creative in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eY4BhzuOeSQ

Research Phase I (2007 – 2008)

First we reviewed existing academic and secondary research. Next we needed qualitative research to get a deeper, more nuanced and current understanding of the situation – including teens’ social norms, and vernacular. And we needed nationwide input on a tight timeline.

Abby Leafe head of New Leafe Research partnered with Judith Oppenheim, research director at RGA, and the team in developing innovative research methodologies to meet budget, timing and diversity constraints; leverage new digital research opportunities; and create an environment where teens would be comfortable participating and being open. Ben Smithee head of The Smithee Group conducted the male friendship groups.

Online Immersion: This phase explored the language, attitudes and behaviors of teens regarding dating. For a week, they recorded their lives and experiences in words and photos on their own ‘blog’ created for this research. This included structured activities and open-ended forums.

Figure 1: Teen blogging interface

In-home friendship circles (14 in 3 cities): The next phase built upon these learnings using friendship circle discussions conducted in the home of a host teen who recruited same sex friends. The first step was getting the host parent’s permission. We included structured discussion and loosely directed conversation about their dating life and language.

Figure 2: Portion of Language Dictionary which emerged from early qualitative

Next we held creative development work sessions with creative teams and teens.

Creative development workshops: We had 5 same-sex friendship groups of 3-6 teens per group. It was important to ensure authenticity and excitement in the campaign experience, language, and look and feel. We had a mixture of exercises such as word sorts, word mapping, and sketching, as well as exposure to work-in-progress concept stimuli.

With the input from the creativity workshops, R/GA developed a revised set of concepts for exploration with a new set of teens.

Concept evaluation groups: Friendship circles evaluated the creative overall as well as specific components.
- Concept review: Feedback on campaign elements, including mobile, out-of-home, print, TV, radio, and web site.
- Creation stations: The concept for the campaign web site included a host of interactive tools, including a fairly robust video creation application, an interactive quiz and an ‘i-card’ creator. The room was set up as a ‘laboratory’ with two distinct “creation stations” where respondents were asked to try the tools, and specifically to create their own video in responses to the creative elements they previewed during the focus group. Respondents were provided with a host of everyday props to use to create their videos, including, dolls, toys, puppets and so on.

Figure 3: Content created by respondents with group stimuli

Phase 2 (2009)

A second phase of research was conducted to provide guidance on how to strengthen individual campaign elements or to add additional components.

The first stage used in-home friendship focus groups to explore the current campaign
- In addition to a general discussion about their lives, friendships and romantic interests more structured activities included sorting photographs of celebrity couples into the categories of ‘the good,’ ‘the bad,’ and ‘the ugly.’ Lastly, each group was given the opportunity to visit ThatsNotCool.com to give their impressions of the site in general.

Figure 4: ThatsNotCool.com

The second stage included an online video diary, a texting journal and a survey of respondents’ social networking pages.
- Daily written and video based activities covering role playing, tech usage demonstrations, problem/solution creation
- Texting the moderator each time they were engaged in a digital communication with a romantic interest
- Documenting each time they saw, read or heard something that fit the theme of “digital grey areas’
- Texting a “status update” at regular intervals (e.g.hourly) to help paint a picture of “a day in the life” of today’s teens

Figure 5: Prioritization of digital infractions

April 19, 2017

About myself and my country!

Meet Paola, who has been awarded the ESOMAR Foundation scholarship to pursue her Master’s Degree in Marketing at Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala.

Hi, my name is Paola Loy, I am 26 years old and I am from Guatemala, situated in Central America. Our main tourist attractions are the Mayan ruins, such as Tikal and the numerous colonial churches in Antigua Guatemala surrounded by beautiful volcanoes. The country traditionally produces many agricultural products for export, including coffee, sugar, cardamom, bananas, and cotton. In recent years flowers and vegetables have become important.

I live with my mom in the South Central part of the country and I have a Marketing degree. After going through a complicated health situation last year I couldn’t continue with my Master studies, but today I have a new beginning and I am so grateful to ESOMAR Foundation for this opportunity.

My family: my mom (in red), my aunt, my sister and nephews

Currently, I am receiving two preparatory courses in Math and Accounting in Rafael Landívar University, that are required before the beginning of the Master studies. The purpose is to help students to remember all the basic knowledge learned during all education. So, I have been a little busy doing a lot of homework and studying for the exams during the last weeks.

During my free time I like to spend time with my family and friends doing sports, watching movies and mostly participating in programs that help women and children with limited resources. This is because although excellent modern medical care is available in the capital city for those who can afford it, millions of people in the rural areas lack adequate health care and health education.

Supporting Avon’s career against breast cancer

And I think that as a responsible citizen I have to help others by applying my knowledge in initiatives that improve society and create new opportunities for children who can become future leaders of the country.

I think that with this new adventure in my life, I will meet people with different experiences in the field of marketing and I will be able to expand my knowledge about other industries.

The Marketing research field will help me understand the needs of consumers in this country, and who knows maybe someday I will be able to create my own company.

How you can support Paola

If you wish to support Paola and be the donor of this scholarship, we would be happy to connect and provide you more information. Please contact: info@esomarfoundation.org

How you can support in your country

Partners & Sponsors

April 7, 2017

ESOMAR Foundation scholarship sponsored by Inizio awarded in Georgia!

The ESOMAR Foundation is pleased to announce the awarding of a scholarship to Nutsa Kvitashvili, a 3^rd year student at Caucasus University – Caucasus School of Humanities and Social Sciences following the BA Program of Sociology. This scholarship has been made possible through the generous sponsorship by Inizio.

This initiative falls within the scope of the ESOMAR Foundation’s education program whose purpose is to give financial support to individual students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds with an interest in pursuing a career in market research. The scholarship has been awarded after a careful evaluation of the motivational and socio-economic background of the applicants from an independent jury composed of experts from the market research industry.

The sponsor – Inizio

Inizio is a research company with digital focus, with its headquarter in Sweden. Inizio is a company that believes in the importance of education and have decided that this scholarship is a great way for them to support young talents like Nutsa in pursuing their career. The company has lots of industry experience and people who are eager to share their knowledge.

Johanna Olsson:

“Inizio are very happy for the newly started cooperation with ESOMAR Foundation and the opportunity to support Nutsa in her education and way towards her degree. It was important for us in our CSR engagement to support something close to both our business and our hearts. We feel that this cooperation truly satisfies both our wishes. This is going to be an interesting and inspiring journey for us as company and for us working at Inizio. “

The ESOMAR Foundation – Gunilla Broadbent, President:

“The ESOMAR Foundation is happy to support Nutsa in her studies and hopes that this scholarship will make a difference to her life and to her career efforts. We are grateful to Inizio for sponsoring this scholarship. It is an important contribution that stimulates the Foundation to continue in its endeavour to sustain young talents who need sustenance.”

The beneficiary – Nutsa Kvitashvili

“I’m so grateful to the ESOMAR Foundation and Inizio for your generous support. Thank you very much for awarding me with your scholarship and thank you again for giving me this opportunity. This scholarship was a motivation for me, to keep myself pushing forward and you helped me to believe in myself and be more confident.”

Nutsa is 3^rd year student at Caucasus School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Georgia following the BA Program of Sociology.

Nutsa’s aspirations are to keep pushing herself into changes, new environments, new techniques. It’s important to keep moving forward. It’s also very important to never stop learning. There are always new skills to learn and new techniques for us to adopt. Learning helps us continually look for ways to improve. It is important to set new goals in life to motivate ourselves.

How you can support

Partners & Sponsors

April 5, 2017

A Less Charitable Cashless Society? – Tapping Into New ‘Tap To Give’ Technology

The shift from a cash-carrying to cash-less society in the UK has been incredibly rapid, with the effects of the shift to contactless increasing in the past year – there are now over 100 million contactless cards in issue in the UK and over 350 million contactless transactions were made in December 2016 alone. Although this shift to using digital transactions has been lauded by many as proof of new technological advances making our lives easier, it has also created challenges and barriers to charitable giving that charities and brands must tackle together to overcome.

For many of us who don’t carry cash – or at least not in the same way we did 10 years ago – we are unable to donate our spare change to those in need as we used to do. In the Netherlands an ad agency recently released a new solution to this growing tension; a jacket, to be worn by homeless people that not only keeps them warm but also allows passers-by to donate €1 by tapping the contactless payment area. The money that is donated can then be redeemed in shelters for food, a bed and a bath, and those who donate can be sure that their donations are being used as they would wish.

This isn’t the first foray by charities to try and encourage us to donate using our contactless cards – Cancer Research UK have trialled contactless donation terminals in central locations, and the Blue Cross attached contactless donation points to dogs to create the world’s first canine fundraisers – ‘Tap Dogs’. The move to cash-free is forcing charities to rapidly innovate, but this can be incredibly beneficial to their fundraising. The children’s charity NSPCC said that their recent trial using contactless donations set at a fixed amount of £2 actually increased their average donations, because people are less likely to donate small coin denominations.

Part of the reason why contactless donations have captured people’s imaginations is due to the new kinds of interaction that they provide. Contactless technology is often criticised for diminishing human social interaction, but some charities have creatively flipped this expectation on its head. The Blue Cross have used dogs to create a human-canine interaction, but Cancer Research UK have also used contactless technology to trial new interactive window displays. When a contactless donation was given, the shop windows displayed a video showing the difference that can be made by the money given. Not only does this innovation close the gap between giving to charitable causes and seeing the effects of that donation, it is also available 24/7, and utilises the physical space on the high street that the charity already has at their disposal.

Contactless donations have also taken off because they tap into our need for everything to be on demand and instantaneous. Talking to someone in the street, filling out endless clipboard forms and having to stay involved and engaged through endless emails and letters doesn’t fit with our new, fast-paced, more demanding mode of living. By using contactless donations, charities can combat this problem of a more time-poor, less patient society, by giving supporters more autonomy over their donation.

At Kantar Added Value we believe that brands should play a vital role in shifting and shaping changes in culture. We’d love to see charities partnering with other brands in this area to fully explore all innovation opportunities; people want to donate money to worthy causes, but they now expect this to fit in around their lives with as little effort and fuss as possible. Mastercard have already voiced their concerns about the growing gap between those who have access to bank accounts, and those who are cut off from the rest of society and denied opportunities because of their dependence on cash. Mastercard and other financial services brands could work to resolve this issue by backing a charity contactless campaign, such as the jacket for homeless people, to provide more credibility and confidence for those who decide to donate on the street. Alternatively supermarkets could encourage in-store charity donations by offering to round up transaction amounts, from say £6.59 to £7.00, with the extra money going straight to the customer’s charity of choice, to provide a seamless donation experience.

Although the evolving digital economy offers solutions and possibilities for many, we must be careful as a society to ensure that those without access to it are not excluded entirely – and brands should play a vital part in helping to bridge this gap. Charities also need to ensure that they are not left behind by changing societal behaviours, and that they continue to innovate and explore new modes of charitable giving.

In Brief…

We wanted to examine how technology is changing and how people use it to interact with culture. We worked with the Cultural Strategy team at Kantar Added Value and utilized cultural scoping and trends research to explore how things manifest and change in culture.

For this work we used qualitative trends research, and looked at the actions of brands in the charity and financial sector to draw strong conclusions about the changing nature of charitable giving. For this piece of work we looked specifically at technology and how the most emergent and switched on charities were using this to their advantage.

We now have a greater understanding of how new digital technology is shifting cultural and societal behaviors, and have developed a strong call to arms for brands to become involved in the charity sector. This research has shown how the third sector can stay abreast of but also drive cultural change, and how they can work collaboratively with brands. The research encourages charities not to see these cultural shifts as problems but opportunities to stay relevant and a part of peoples lives.

Hannah Robbins – The Cultural Practice at Kantar Added Value

April 4, 2017

Third scholarship awarded in Guatemala

The ESOMAR Foundation is pleased to announce the awarding of a scholarship to Maria Paola Loy Villagran, a young student at the Master’s Degree in Marketing at Universidad Rafael Landívar, Guatemala.

The ESOMAR Foundation is happy to support Maria Paola in her studies and hopes that this scholarship will make a difference her life and her career efforts.

The beneficiary – Maria Paola Loy Villagran

“I am very grateful and blessed for having this new opportunity to continue with my Master studies. I will do my best to become a better professional. Thank you ESOMAR Foundation, for making my dreams come true”

Maria Paola is a student at the Master’s Degree in Marketing at Universidad Rafael Landívar in Guatemala.

Maria Paola has several aspirations . The first one is, never stop growing in the professional field of marketing, keep learning, searching for new trends to stay up dated, in order to understand her customers, learn about their needs and help to implement either at work or in her own company the best strategy to increase sales.

In financial terms, she would like to earn enough to reach a stage where she can start her own business without feeling any financial pressures so that she can simply concentrate on her work, do what she loves and give a comfortable life to her mom in the future.

In personal terms, being flexible and adaptable to changing conditions in her life. By just getting through each day, one day at a time and fighting for her dreams. Living each experience of her life like it is the last one. And hopefully help others in her country to succeed and grow.

How you can support Maria Paola

If you wish to support Maria Paola and be the donor of this scholarship, we would be happy to connect and provide you more information. Please contact: info@esomarfoundation.org

How you can support in your country

Partners & Sponsors

March 15, 2017

“Success is many things in life…”

This is the ninth blog-post from Nicolin Mamuya, the first ESOMAR Foundation scholarship in South Africa. Nicolin tells us about her experience at the Africa Forum.

I was invited to the first ever African Market Research Association (AMRA) conference held in Johannesburg, South Africa. The conference, like the SAMRA conference I attended last year, proved once again that market research pretty much has a life of its own. Someone may decide to open up a business and decide not to engage in any marketing efforts however, some form of market research is needed whether it is as basic as finding out if there is a need for your product. In other words, Market Research is the foundation of ANY business (I would like to assume). The AMRA conference was filled with incredibly modest people who appreciated our efforts as student guides. I had the opportunity to meet with two of ESOMAR’s members, Finn Raben and Phyllis Macfarlane, who were an absolute delight to meet. We took great pictures!

I also had the chance to meet with one of my previous lecturers Nontutuzelo Mashaba. She had always been my favourite lecturer and I am not just saying this because she nominated me as one of the students to attend 2016’s SAMRA conference. This woman oozes confidence and is strong in her stance yet she still remains humble with so many achievements under her belt. She really inspires me and is unquestionably my definition of a strong woman.

Attending the conference with a great number of established people impelled me to delve deeper into what exactly success is to me. Success is many things in life. People tend to equate success with financial worth. However, I will introduce my own theory. I say success is however you choose to define it. In my definition, success is achieving your goals, building and maintaining good relationships with great people and spreading happiness with your blessings. Success is having great strength to carry you through difficult times and lastly, living in peace and happiness.

The scholarship awarded to Nicolin was sponsored by SSI and in collaboration with SAMRA.

February 24, 2017

ESOMAR Foundation attended the UN Word Data Forum (WDF) held in Cape Town, January 15-18, 2017

A review by Phyllis Macfarlane

“The Missing Millions” and “Using Data to Understand People’s Values Priorities and Desires” were the two sessions were the ESOMAR Foundation took stage!

I was very fortunate recently to represent ESOMAR Foundation and Paragon at the United Nations’ very first UN Word Data Forum (WDF) which was held in Cape Town in January.

So what is the WDF? Here’s the official version: Following one of the main recommendations contained in the report entitled “A World That Counts” , presented in November 2014 by the United Nations Secretary-General’s Independent Expert and Advisory Group on Data Revolution for Sustainable Development, the Statistical Commission agreed that a United Nations World Data Forum on Sustainable Development Data (UN World Data Forum) would be the suitable platform for intensifying cooperation with various professional groups, such as information technology, geospatial information managers, data scientists, and users, as well as civil society stakeholders.

So, basically it was a very big (enormous, in fact!) conference, attended by practically all the world’s National Statistical Offices, plus everyone else who is interested in the world achieving the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, with the objective of getting everyone to collaborate and cooperate better, in order to achieve the goals.

Let me set the scene for you…

There were 1500 + delegates, all extremely diverse in terms of nationality and job profiles (and gender!)
It was held in the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC – sorry for the number of acronyms in this post!) – which had an ‘enormous’ auditorium for Plenary sessions
There were lots of very senior and illustrious attendees from the UN, and from every National Statistical Office (NSO) in the world.
The NSO’s were probably the most numerous amongst the delegates
The NSO’s in general are rather anxious about the measurement demands of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s): 17 goals, 169 targets, 230 indicators. ie 4x the work compared with the old Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)! – but with no sign of increased budgets. As you can imagine – this led to a lot of discussion about capacity building.
The very major theme from the UN was that the NSO’s can’t do this alone – collaboration and partnership were the key words which were repeated over and over again – the NSO’s need help from NGO’s, Civil Society and the Private sector (ie people like us!). But they are clearly rather frightened of this prospect, not having a lot of experience of collaboration with the outside world – and perhaps a little sceptical as well?
There was an awful lot of talk of the ‘Data Revolution’: Government has so much data now – it can be used for good – to serve the people.
In general there was huge optimism from the senior UN and major country Statisticians about SDG’s: getting rid of inequality, using data for the public good – that there is a way forward, but they recognise that it will mean change – for the NSO’s, for everyone.

What was the Conference all about?

It was a 3 day conference, and each day there were 2-3 Plenary sessions, plus 3-4 parallel sessions of 6 separate themes or streams (so each separate stream session was attended by 100-200 delegates!)

The six pre-defined nominated themes or workstreams were as follows:

New approaches to capacity development for better data
Innovation and synergies across different data ecosystems
Leaving no one behind
Understanding the world through data
Data principles and governance
The way forward: A Global Action Plan for Data

And of course there was lots of networking, and an extremely lively conference dinner!

What did we actually do there?

Representing ESOMAR Foundation and Paragon, I took part in 2 Panel sessions – one in the ‘Leaving no-one behind’ stream – which is a general call to action from the UN to help the poorest everywhere. We did a session on ‘The Missing Millions’, where we discussed how we could measure these difficult populations (eg Street children, the homeless, people living in institutions, people displaced by conflict etc etc – not an easy task!) and further understand how to help them through real research to fully understand their situation. Our audience here was mainly NSO’s and they were rather sceptical about: How were we actually going to do it ie quantify the populations? Was there political will to do it? And where was the funding going to come from? All excellent questions – we had a good and lively debate!

And the second panel that I participated in was in the ‘Understanding the World through Data’ workstream – we conducted a session entitled ‘Using Data to Understand People’s Values Priorities and Desires’. Basically we were arguing for attitudinal and qualitative data to understand how to guide more effective actions. Actions which take account of what the actual people think. After all we have very appropriate skills to apply! Here our audience was mostly NGO’s and Civil Society, and they were very supportive and enthusiastic about the arguments – so we had another excellent debate!

Altogether, every session I went to was interesting, informative and full of passion.

The messages I heard most consistently throughout the 3 days were:

A reluctance to move away from ‘hard’ statistics on the part of NSO’s (and the UN Statisticians – note that only a handful of the indicators are perception based)
A recognition that the NSO’s must innovate and modernise
That data quality is very important
Collaboration, collaboration, collaboration – ‘we can’t do it by ourselves’ – so collaboration is being proposed to the NSO’s as the only way that the goals will be achieved
Coordination – to share ideas and avoid proliferation of work
Open-ness: sharing of ideas and experience, partnerships, dissemination of data for SDG’s. Government data is public property.
Dis-aggregation: a new realisation that data is only really useful if it can be disaggregated eg by gender, region, income level. (Data must be accurate, timely, disaggregated)

All very realistic and thought provoking ideas.

Overall…

Every session I went to – whether it was about Data Journalism, geo-mapping, whatever – was extremely interesting. Everyone was passionate, enthusiastic and innovative.

But after all, if you are with 1500+ people who all want the world to be a better place – you are going to be inspired!

And I certainly was. The issue is to engage with this audience and get our voice, as market researchers, heard.

I came away having made contact with people that I had only spoken on the phone to before, with lots of new contacts, and many ideas for projects to start us to have a bigger impact.

Watch this space!!!

Phyllis Macfarlane is a Member of the Board and Treasurer of the ESOMAR Foundation