Innovating The Innovation Conference

Tom Anderson wrote a post today about the role of industry conferences in showcasing innovation, and in it he centered it around my own favorite event: MRMW. Here is an excerpt:

What is Next Gen Market Research? Depending on who you talk to it may mean different things. Some like me think of advanced analytics and big data (both structured and unstructured), others might say gamification, neuroscience, social media monitoring, MROC’s or mobile.

Clients like P&G are beginning to realize that they too need to understand these buzz words and decide which of these methodologies are ready and make sense to implement into their insights tool kit. Some of these, if implemented correctly, can offer firms an information advantage over their competition.

That’s why while marketing research trade orgs have traditionally been the main venue for sharing new ideas through our industry they’re beginning to face stiff competition from new sources which embrace change in our industry.

One such event is the MRMW (Market Research in the Mobile World) conference July 18-19. I asked event chairman Leonard Murphy what makes this event necessary and unique.

“We’re holding the event in Cincinnati Ohio, because P&G is one of many important firms in the area which realize the importance of keeping up to date and being at the forefront of research innovation.

I think this collaboration and sharing between suppliers and client side researchers is a good thing. It can happen more effectively when we leave all the politics associated with the traditional research trade orgs aside, and focus on true innovation.”

Now to be clear, I have immense respect for our trade orgs and think they do a lot of good for our industry, although I do often bemoan their slowness to act (or react), overly political processes, and territoriality. That said, all of those things are just the nature of the beast and don’t necessarily take away from the more plentiful good that they do. On the other hand, those systemic issues can be real barriers to supporting innovation, especially in a period of rapid transformation such as market research is going through now.

Innovation rarely comes from, or is even showcased from within, an inherently bureaucratic system. Since events are also one of the prime drivers of revenue for trade orgs, they tend to reflect the same tendency and in my experience are lagging significantly behind the curve on putting forward new thinking. It’s not their fault; it is the way they almost have to be engineered in order to appeal to to the largest possible audience of constituents, many of which have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

It takes an independent organization without a vested interest in business as usual to innovate in this environment. If the DNA of the organization is about doing things differently, of abandoning the norm and charging ahead with the new, different, and disruptive while working with the foundational business that support us all, true innovation can occur and actually grow.

Those realizations are drivers for why I engage in so many events (both online and offline) and also took on the role of co-producing and chairing the MRMW conferences. I believe that  our industry needs an independent, flexible, non-political and not purely financially driven channel to explore cutting edge innovation. I see these efforts as aligned with the goals and strategic objectives of other organizations and trade associations, often even collaborative with them, but we are still free to chart our own course and see what happens.

The Market Research in the Mobile World conferences were originally the brainchild of The Merlien Institute. In late 2010 they asked me to be on the Advisory Board and help them develop an event for the U.S. focused on innovation. I roped in GreenBook and together we started developing a model that would really showcase the innovators and change agents in the industry, while providing an intense collaborative learning experience for attendees. The events quickly began to take on an identity of their own that was far different than the original concept and today many folks praise these events as being the most impactful they have ever attended.

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