I must move fast, you will not miss me
Amazed and flattered that my post about hearing younger researchers’ voices in Market Research attracted so much attention - especially as it was posted at close to pub o’clock on a Friday night! I’ve replied to all the comments on the original post - all worth reading and posing intriguing questions.
There were also a couple of blog posts related to mine - this from Kelpenhagen which was written in parallel with it, and this from a new blog, the Research Geek. Both are worth reading, both are basically making the same point but from different angles. As Kelpenhagen says, a lot of younger researchers - and a lot of older ones - aren’t especially bothered about the “future of research”. They turn up and do the work, get the paycheck and go out and enjoy themselves.
This is true for a lot of jobs, maybe even for most jobs. We hear a great deal about passion and commitment and loving what you do - witness sites like the admirable Untemplater - but for even the best of us work can also be a necessary evil. The question is - is there something specifically about market research that encourages or increases this attitude?
This is why I thought the Research Geek post in particular is well worth reading: it tells a couple of home truths. Firstly, that for a lot of people research is an “arranged marriage” - something they end up in. Secondly, that it’s at “the bottom of the media food chain”. In other words, it’s not a profession and it’s not a vocation.
I can relate to both of these ideas, obviously. I started in research because I wanted a steady job after 3 years selling second-hand books and it was the only industry prepared to extend its notion of “graduate” to such latecomers. And yes, in my early years I probably did mutter about marketing or branding rather than the r-word.
But that was the late 90s, when an “End of History” like false calm had settled over the world of marketing and when behavioural data was a bit square compared to, say, the semiotics of brand image. Now I’d say we have a different problem - data is hot; multi-source data is even hotter; and people who can analyse and understand and visualise all that sexy data and tell you what to do about it? They ought to be sizzling. Is there a way we can route such people into MR? If they came would they just get frustrated?
