It’s been an interesting day-and-a-half here in sunny San Diego (is San Diego ever not sunny?) at the annual QRCA conference. The hunt for themes has been an easy one: The three sessions I’ve attended so far have all touched on big data/social media and their impact on marketing research in general and, of course, qualitative research in specific.
In their three respective talks, presenters Jim Chastain, Jane Mount and the trio of Kris Hodges, Dorrie Paynter and Jennifer Dale all convincingly painted the advent of big data as an opportunity for qualitative researchers, one that, if played correctly, could pave the way for the researcher to carve out a niche as someone who can help their clients make sense of – and better use of – all the new forms of data.
Some of that will be accomplished by qualitative researchers boldly reaching out to their clients to offer their services as a guide through the process of assembling and exploring the data and some will entail extracting the meaning from it.
Chastain raised the idea of using the term “thinking partner” – rather than simply “moderator” – to better describe the role that he tries to fill for clients and while he wasn’t limiting the use of that term to the analysis of big data, to me it’s an apt label for researchers of any stripe who want to position themselves as beacons of light in the murk of big data.
Indeed, as Hodges, Paynter and Dale reported in their fun- and fact-filled presentation on “qualitative opportunities in a sea of big data,” client-side researchers (and just about everyone else) feel overwhelmed by the new forms of information and would likely embrace the person who could step in and help them feel less lost.
That sense of being on a mission was an idea playfully used by Jane Mount in her Star Trek-themed look at some of the forces that are shaking the MR world. She too invoked the word “opportunity” many times, convincingly arguing that researchers should seize their chance to blaze new trails by learning about and embracing the many insight-gathering tools that new technologies have bestowed upon us.
The enthusiastic audience responses during all three presentations and the Q&As following them seemed to show that the speakers weren’t the only ones convinced that new opportunities are truly out there for the taking.
