I am a passionate seeker of insight and information. I love the online environment, I also love looking people in the eye. I enjoy the distance that technology can put between us and the people we seek information from, and I enjoy the opportunity to understand another person’s world by sitting and talking face to face.
These days I describe myself as an ‘omni-researcher’, which means that I cover qualitative and quantitative methodologies both online and face-to-face. In the online world I conduct major tracking studies, real time reporting, online research communities and ad hoc quantitative studies. I manage several long term online research communities, working closely with brands to get a unique insight into the minds of their customers.
I work with High Tech Development as consultant and developer, most recently working to help create a new secure online streaming tool for focus groups and IDIs called HT FACE.
I also study the in-store shopping experience – a fascinating area where emotion and habit overrule logic when it comes to making purchasing choices! I work as a consultant to Field Agent in the UK helping to design and deliver in-store research projects mapping the customer journey.
My face-to-face work includes focus groups and individual interviews – I also end up doing a lot of telephone/web interviews (must be the ‘voice made for radio’ that helps!). With my colleague ‘The Data’, I am ‘The Pogo’ in Datapogo – a micro business focussing on data visualisation and automatic reporting.
I share my knowledge of the market research industry by delivering bespoke training courses and offering consultancy services for market research agencies wanting to develop and grow.
I’ve been a member of the MRS for 30 years and was made a Fellow in 2014, I spent 10 years as a Council member for the UK’s MR trade association, BMRA. I recently finished a 3 year spell as Chairman of the ICG (a 400 strong group of independent expert researchers) and now work on the ICG’s awards programme.
