Nine Hopefully Awesome Things At The Research 2012 Conference
The tagline for Research 2012 is “The festival of ideas”. Can it live up to that billing? I’m hopeful: the MRS conference has carved out a place in the industry calendar as a place where new thinking, practical demonstrations and an unexpected playfulness can thrive - of all the research conferences it’s the one I’d most recommend a non-researcher goes to.
Of course I’m hardly disinterested here. This will be the fifth year running I’ve done something at the MRS conference (I’m presenting the Research Outlaws session, a heady mix of Pecha Kucha, the Great Egg Race and Judge Dredd). The MRS has, consciously or not, forged this identity by giving a coterie of regulars plenty of opportunity to do interesting things under a wider banner. If there’s anything problematic about the conference’s evolution, it’s that these regulars have become a bit too regular - a difficult thing to say since a) I’m one and b) all of them do terrific work and are guaranteed good chairs and speakers.
We could do, maybe, with being disrupted, whether from newcomers or people outside the industry - for all that this is the best MRX conference there’s a sad lack of crossover with even our close neighbours in planning, academia or digital strategy.
Enough navel gazing! I’ve lured you in with a list-y title and it’s time to deliver. Here are the conference highlights from my perspective (leaving out stuff I’ve already seen in one form or another, and my own sesh!):
Con/Dem-med Youth: A “bit of politics” from Dipsticks at Andy Dexter’s session on consumer culture - I’m intrigued by this look at youth and austerity because I think current perceptions/presentations of “millennials”/”Gen Y” are often subtly (or blatantly) politicised - largely abstract notions like ‘authenticity’ and ‘cool’ papering over real economic and social cracks. So I’m hoping for research that takes a more nuanced angle.
Engine For Change: A piece from River Research and Google’s Senior User Experience Researcher - what goes on under the hood at Google is always interesting, so this gets the nod from me.
Friends, Hawkers Or Stalkers?: Peter Dann from The Nursery talking about public perception of brands and social media. The amount of barely-sourced studies and folklore about this area is staggering - it’s overdiscussed and I dare say under-researched and is screaming for a really good piece of work. Could this be the one?
Futurecraft: My partner in last year’s beardo supergroup Nick Gadsby returns to his solo career for this “heroic brand based adventure” which is one of a few ‘research games’ being run at conference but stands apart from the rest thanks to its mighty-thewed barbarian physique. The Slaine to Research Outlaws’ Dredd.
Imagine: Martyn Richard on drama workshops as a qualitative tool. If like me yr reaction to “drama workshops” is to imagine yourself as an orange peeling then you probably need to hear this presentation on using theatre as a way of changing the qualitative research context.
Office Politics: This is pop psychologist Oliver James’ new book which he’s doing a turn from as a keynote speaker. It will be looking at the psychology of work. You can’t move for keynotes this year - this is the best I think, I’ve always been interested in the subculture of business and its refusal to see itself as such - on the other hand it might be the David Brent equivalent of a Science Of Star Trek book, who knows.
Research Tricksters: Workshop from Spring demonstrating human fallibility, trickability and irrationality. Since everyone in the room will be trying very stoutly NOT to be tricked this could be even more interesting than it looks.
What Can Research Learn From The Creatives?: A panel of creatives explain how they work their magic and where they buy their spectacle frames. Will any make it out alive? Nick Southgate provides covering fire. This will be great but you shouldn’t go to it as it clashes with Research Outlaws.
What Happens To Brands When Events Take Over? Phil Rance of YouGov with a somewhat cryptically titled paper but it’s in the reputation management section so I guess it’s looking at brands being overtaken by events (dear boy) not necessarily brands and the Olympics. Though that would be interesting too!
There’s lots of other stuff - Alex from BrainJuicer is presenting our binge drinking project, a binge drinking project of a different sort will take place at the party and there’s more good things I’m already familiar with from Mark Earls, Jon Puleston, Annie Pettit and many more. So hopefully I’ll see you there - give me a shout if you’re going.
