Data Gurus Podcast | Insights on Business Strategy, Mergers and Acquisitions, Market Research & Data Collection – Détails, épisodes et analyse

On this episode, host Sima Vasa leads a candid panel discussion on the state of data quality with four industry leaders: Dyna Boen, EVP/Managing Director of Escalent; Jon Kay, Principal Market Research Manager of Intuit; Bob Fawson, Co-Founder of Data Quality Co-Op; and Steven Snell, EVP, Head of Research of Rep Data. Together, they explore the growing challenges of fraud, trust and integrity in research, and the solutions needed to safeguard reliable insights.

Key Takeaways:

00:00 Introduction.
03:26 Prospect panel data quality has declined sharply.
08:30 The industry faces a coordination problem in data quality.
11:42 Good-looking fraud now impacts up to a quarter of respondents.
18:20 Vendor tools differ greatly in detecting fraud and inattention.
24:28 Respondent experience is critical to achieving trustworthy results.
26:38 Brands cannot rely on flawed data for product launches or tracking.
31:02 Industry change is accelerating, creating both risk and opportunity.
32:54 Real progress begins when clients ask vendors the tough questions.
35:06 Data quality is a game of inches, not silver bullets.

Resources Mentioned:

Escalent | Website
Intuit | Website
Data Quality Co-Op | Website
Rep Data | Website

Thanks for listening to the “Data Gurus” podcast, brought to you by Infinity Squared. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review to help get the word out about the show, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss another insightful conversation.

#Analytics #MA #Data #Strategy #Innovation #Acquisitions #MRX #Restech

On this episode, host Sima Vasa talks to David Allison, Founder of The Valuegraphics Research Company, about replacing ineffective demographic targeting with values-based segmentation. Drawing on over one million surveys across 180 countries, David explains why demographics have a 90% fail rate and how identifying what truly matters to people can increase effectiveness eightfold.

Key Takeaways:

00:00 Introduction
05:03 The human brain decides solely based on values alignment.
06:36 One million surveys reveal 56 values driving human behavior.
09:21 Values are fixed for life and guide all decisions.
13:10 Demographic targeting carries a built‑in 90% fail rate.
14:33 Generational cohorts are far from homogeneous in reality.
16:03 Psychographics describe the past but fail to predict actions.
18:39 Values segmentation identifies the real triggers for engagement.
23:00 A “pink van” story illustrates values‑based recruiting success.
29:06 Values can reveal larger audiences than demographics suggest.
35:00 Values‑based targeting is eight times more effective.

Resources Mentioned:

The Valuegraphics Research Company | Website

Thanks for listening to the “Data Gurus” podcast, brought to you by Infinity Squared. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review to help get the word out about the show, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss another insightful conversation.

#Analytics #MA #Data #Strategy #Innovation #Acquisitions #MRX #Restech

On this episode, host Sima Vasa talks to James Turner, Founder and CEO of Delineate, about redefining data collection and insight generation in today’s fast-paced market research landscape. James shares his journey from mining engineer to data mining expert and explains how Delineate bridges the gap between traditional research practices and agile, technology-driven approaches.

Key Takeaways:

(02:22) Started as a mining engineer before transitioning to data mining.

(07:47) Industry disruption in the 2010s drove significant changes.

(10:02) Speed, quality and cost efficiency reshape client research.

(12:16) Successful disruptors reshape categories with innovative, lasting ideas.

(14:31) Scaling innovation is tricky, even for large companies.

(16:57) Old survey designs create noise and reduce data quality.

(20:44) Human touch remains vital in interpreting client reporting.

(23:17) Situational research helps with product innovation and demand space.

(26:28) AI co-pilots are creating significant momentum in the research industry.

(29:56) Research now stands at the forefront of the data ecosystem.

Resources Mentioned:

Delineate Website

Thanks for listening to the Data Gurus podcast, brought to you by Infinity Squared. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a 5-star review to help get the word out about the show, and be sure to subscribe so you never miss another insightful conversation.

#Analytics #MA #Data #Strategy #Innovation #Acquisitions #MRX #Restech

Welcome to another exciting and informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast!

Today, Sima shares Part 1 of Investing in Research, a panel discussion about agencies from the recent WIRe (Women in Research) Conference.
In this discussion hosted by Nikki Lavoie, experts Sima Vasa, Sherry Fox, and Elaine Riddel talk about one of the prominent myths currently circulating in the insights industry. According to that myth, only tech and SaaS-based companies receive investment funding.
The panel of experts will explain why that myth is untrue and clarify how service-based companies can begin to access investment funding if they wish to do so.

The experts 

Sherry Fox is a career Global Insights Strategist focused on health care. She is well-versed in strategic brand development and regulatory environments. Sherry is an industry expert and futuristic thinker who can facilitate collaborations leading to the growth and acquisition of service companies. She has also founded future health strategies to leverage the intersection of data, insights, and technology.

Sima Vasa is a multi-faceted business leader in the market research and analytics space with a broad range of expertise from P&L management, operations, business development, marketing, entrepreneurship, and investment banking. Currently, Sima focuses on advising clients on overall business strategy, valuation of strategic options, and execution of investment banking mandates through Oberon Securities, a middle-market-focused investment banking firm.

Elaine Riddel is a growth activist who believes that breakthrough potential exists in every company. She unlocks potential by anticipating market changes that will influence client priorities and then building organizational confidence to deliver new value. As A CEO, she transformed mature, stagnant, global insights firms into scalable market leaders that consistently out-performed the market over fifteen years. Her playbook is the foundation for her growth advisories, serving founders, CEOs, and PE firms. Elaine is currently an MD with Oaklins Da Silva and Phillips, a leading investment bank for marketing and media services.

Why is there the myth that service-based companies cannot get funding?

Sima believes that service-based companies can get investment capital if they want it. It is all about the valuation of a service-based company, compared with a more Saas or tech-enabled company. Investors want to invest in good, financially sound companies that provide their clients with a strong value and serve their markets well. So the question is really around the value of the company.

Elaine thinks that everything has its time. Automating much of the back office and the DIY will result in better, faster, and cheaper kinds of foundational services. We are moving into a time where more people with more advanced decision-making capabilities are needed to advise clients.

Sherry believes that even with the arrival of big data and AI being used more in the insights industry, people are still necessary to deliver the insights to the pointer lane because you cannot rely on the data to explain why something is true. That is why service-based companies are needed more than ever right now to interpret the data.

Having insights translated into action

Elaine thinks that some service-based companies will stand out in terms of their areas of expertise because clients are looking for the expertise to translate insights into action with confidence in real-time.

Opportunities

Service-based companies should look for opportunities to syndicate or create multi-client services- on a subscription basis.

Reducing investor risk

Service-based companies need to reassure their investors that enough is being done to reduce the risk.

Becoming trusted advisors

Market research agencies should position themselves as strategic partners and collaborators with their clients to become their trusted advisors.

Actionability

Actionability is the key to creating value for service-based companies.

Reputation
Having a good reputation is a vital piece for companies looking for investors.

Visibility

Getting out there, being visible, and getting known is vital for winning business and finding investors.

A plan 

Having a plan for the future demonstrates your value to potential investors.

Collaboration

Finding investors becomes easier for companies that get known for their collaborative style.

What CEOs and executives should consider before seeking investor funding

Be aligned with your current partners and know why you are seeking investors. Consider why now is a good time to do it. Also, understand that there will be a trade-off with your new investor partners. Make sure they align with your core values.

Driving growth

If you have a strong brand coupled with a great team and a vision you can use investment capital to build your business through inorganic growth.

When you are ready for investment

When you decide to look for investment, be ready to exchange business equity for capital to invest in your business. The first step is to meet with a professional advisor to help you think things through and get ready to go to market.

Take time 

It is worth taking the time to go through a proper process and prepare. That will help you gain confidence, allow you to showcase your business in the best light, and run a competitive process so that you can get the best options.

The best way to use funding capital

Use your capital on innovation solutions, marketing, and sales, to drive your business forward and grow it.

Enhancing customer experiences

Bringing data, insights, and technology together will help in creating an enhanced customer experience. That will attract investment in your company.

Think with the client in mind

Think with the client in mind. Consider the gaps you can see in the marketplace, do some research on your client base and the client community at large, and then find ways to solve their needs.

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Welcome to another exciting and informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Sima is excited to have Ted Pulsifer, the Executive Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at the Schlesinger Group, as her guest for today’s show. In this episode, Ted talks to Sima about his career, his panel discussion at SampleCon, asking the right questions, and incentivizing people to do research surveys.

Ted’s career journey

Ted’s started his career in the technology space, working for large companies like General Electric and AOL, and then he spent a year working in the wine business. After that, he was recruited into market research by a company called Peanut Labs that did a lot of real-time sampling through applications on Facebook. He was later part of an acquisition into the company now known as Dynata, after which he moved to Federated Sample, now known as Lucid. In 2014, he joined Market Cube as a partner. They successfully exited and sold the business to Schlesinger early in 2020.

Advantages

Ted experienced many advantages to being part of a fifty-year-old organization with clients everywhere. He enjoyed applying many of the products and the technology they built and learned from at Market Cube into the Schlesinger Group.

Time to sell

Ted and his partners decided to sell Market Cube because it was performing well, the metrics were in line, and selling the business then felt natural to all four partners. Ted also thought that it was the right time for him to broaden out and move on.

Migrating to online

There were some challenging moments in 2020 for Schlesinger’s staff, employees, and respondents. However, online work scales and tends to force change. So Schlesinger did well within the legacy Market Cube business, which is now part of Schlesinger, and Schlesinger Quantitative Solutions because they had many people who might have done in-person research before migrating to online.

Larger focus groups

In-person focus groups are an extension of the hospitality business. So, like many hotels, resorts, and airlines, Schlesinger had to close that side and make some hard decisions. Fortunately, the digital qualitative platform that Schlesinger acquired from Market Cube was strong and growing, so it boosted the business.

Leveraging technology

Although nobody knows what November 2021 or January 2022 will look like, Ted feels that leveraging technology to add scale and save money will stick with their clients.

SampleCon
Ted enjoyed the emotional side and the human aspect of being able to attend the recent SampleCon in-person. He loves that every year SampleCon takes place in a different city with different content and a different set of users. He learned a lot there and was happy to have the opportunity to narrate a panel about how traditional techniques are merging and talk about qualitative research more largely on stage.

The key themes
The key themes that came out of Ted’s panel discussion at SampleCon related to his belief that traditional quantitative and qualitative are very appropriate methodologies that will remain. He feels that research will continue getting done in the way it has.

His goal

His goal was to keep an eye on new things emerging that should not be ignored and spend time exploring those ideas.

One of Ted’s favorite things to do

One of Ted’s favorite things to do is to look at the reports from clients and brands and the people that expose him to global clients each quarter and see the changes in those buying from him. He also likes to see that new companies that did not exist two or three years ago that are purchasing his research are doing interesting things.

Ted’s article

Ted has recently posted an article called Selecting a Sample Partner with Confidence. The idea behind it is to explain the questions people should ask that they might not know to ask.

Incentives

People want to have a choice of incentives in return for completing surveys. Ted’s company incentivizes people for updating their profiles and attempting surveys.

Links:
Email me your thoughts!
Sima@Infinity-2.com
LinkedIn
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Schlesinger Group

Ted’s Bio:
Ted Pulsifer is a senior leader of Schlesinger Groups’ client solutions team, driving the continuous evolution of our integrated services. He joined Schlesinger Group in 2020 when Market Cube, of which he was an owner-partner, was acquired by the Group.
Ted cultivates strategic partnerships for Schlesinger Group and brings over twenty years of executive and sales leadership and client engagement experience. He is an expert in our online quantitative solutions and, in particular, for new capabilities including programmatic sample, DIY purchasing tools, and custom insight tools, which empower faster and more creative data collection globally with best-in-class expertise, technology, and services
Ted began his marketing research journey at Peanut Labs/Dynata before serving as Regional Vice President for Lucid. As a Principal at Market Cube, Ted architected and managed the sales organization that helped power the company’s rapid growth and brand loyalty.
Ted holds a BA in Economics from the University of Colorado. Ted is based in Mt. Pleasant, SC. He is an ESOMAR member and served as Director at Large for the Insights Association’s Southeast Chapter from 2016-2020. When not working, Ted can be found hunting for unusual wines, traveling, or on the water with his family in Charleston, SC.

Schlesinger Group: Company Background
For over half a century, we’ve been continually perfecting the art and science of qualitative and quantitative data collection and our research services.
Put simply, we provide answers to your important business questions through practices of partnership, quality and service excellence, powered by an expert team with a genuine passion for research.
And as the world transforms, we reach for new heights, redefining our services beyond our clients’ expectations.
You Need Insights. We Have Solutions.
In a world of markets experiencing massive disruption and evolution, gathering reliable and compelling data for deeper insights is paramount for brand success. Working in partnership with you, Schlesinger Group goes further than high-precision data collection to enable better insights.

Today, Sima is excited to bring you an encore episode in which she has a conversation with Mario Carrasco. Enjoy the show!

Multi-cultural research, strategy, and understanding is what Sima and Mario Carrasco, Co-Founder and Principal of ThinkNow Research, chat about on today’s podcast.

Mario worked in the early days of digital marketing, building online communities for MSN Latino, and didn’t know what a research panel was until researching it for a job interview for a closer-to-home job. He got his start in market research building what became the first national representative panels at Garcia Research.

As research numbers started pointing to the US becoming a minority-majority country in the near future, Mario realized there was a need for a market research company to be focused on multi-cultural consumers, and this is how his ThinkNow Research came about.

Mario is also the newest Board Member to join the SampleCon team!

HISPANIC MARKET RESEARCH, THEN AND NOW
In the early days of market research, particularly Hispanic research, companies were hesitant to use emerging technologies. Back then it was online, and now it’s mobile.

Mario has since learned that multi-cultural consumers, especially Hispanic consumers, are super tech savvy, and applying all these innovative technologies to multi-cultural consumers has been his company’s ethos.

DEFINING MULTI-CULTURE
At the basic level of a potentially contentious conversation, it is consumers who are not non-Hispanic white, and traditionally that segmented into Hispanic, African American, and Asian, which are the largest cohorts of multi-cultural consumers in the US. These 3 groups comprise 40% of the US population, and is expected to grow.

As a nation, non-Hispanic white birth numbers are down, and what drives the increase in multi-cultural population growth is US Hispanic births and Asian immigration.

As the country is changing demographically, ThinkNow Research is dedicated to helping other companies interpret these fundamental changes from a marketing and purchasing standpoint.

MISCONCEPTION OF ACCULTURATION
It’s interesting to see which cultural values that 1st and 2nd gen Latinos and Asians pick and choose.

There’s a misconception in acculturation in the marketing industry that the longer you’re in the US, the more “American” you become, as if it’s a linear model.

Yes, you are integrating some aspects of the culture, but there are some things about your home culture (or your parents or grandparents culture) that is retained over time. It’s more like a bidimensionality that is happening.

BIDIMENSIONALITY IDENTITY MEASURE
Mario’s company has done some work for The Journal for Cultural Marketing, where they developed a Bidimensional Identity Measure.

It essentially combines two scales, the American Identity Measure and the Ethnic Identity Measure. There are 15 total questions, and what they have discovered is that depending on your ethnicity, you’re going to be scoring differently across these different measures, as opposed to acculturation which assumes a linear progression the longer you’re in the US.

We should really be looking at what aspects of culture we’re retaining, in terms of home culture and what aspects we’re integrating from American culture.

THE DO’S AND DON’TS OF MULTI-CULTURAL MARKETING
Don’t generalize.
Do your research beforehand, figure out who your consumer is and delve even deeper by defining that consumer within a subset.

Sima loves to hear from her listeners with input, questions, suggestions and just to connect! You can find her at the links below!

LinkedIn

Twitter

Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don’t forget to leave a rating and review!

Sima is excited to share an encore episode she did with Menaka Gopinath, Lead of Social Intelligence and Communities at Ipsos, in which they sit down to discuss the use of social media in social intelligence to help answer business questions.

OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM
As the market has matured with social intelligence, there’s a lot of amazing things happening in the social intelligence realm for insights, but it’s not being leveraged as broadly it could be.

On the flip side, the people who are using social listening tools across the board in marketing and digital functions probably could be getting a lot more insight out of it.

The data is already available, but there’s so many ways to use it more strategically.

DEFINING SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE
This can be many things to many people, but from the perspective of Ipsos, it’s about leveraging the datasets for insights.

From a classic research sense, most clients are using a social listening tool and at the baseline they are listening to what people are saying about their brand, and may be listening to their core competitive set. From the purposes of Ipsos, this is not necessarily social intelligence, as much as it is social listening, which is still an important aspect of marketing.
How one uses the dataset to address a core set of business objectives from an insights perspective is at the heart of social intelligence.

SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE AND USE CASES
Some of the core areas where a lot of Ipsos’ work is done is in market understanding and category landscape.

Understanding what your category looks like can be a difficult question to answer these days, so what social data can provide from a very consumer-centric perspective is how people are talking about the “need” or the “occasion”. You don’t have to start from the perspective of brands. This is a different way of approaching market landscape work.

Cultural trends and forecasting and foresight against what is bubbling up and what is worth focusing on versus what might just be a flash in the pan is another area where Ipsos is using social intelligence a lot.

APPROACH IN MARKET ENGAGEMENT
In the context of market landscape there are different ways of approach, as Menaka explains in a high-level overview.

This is ultimately driven by what consumers are organically saying about these brands in the social conversation.

Imagery is a critical part of the analysis, and video is an emerging area in terms of the technology capabilities for analyzing, but in terms of what is done with it is gaining in importance.

Contextual research is always presented along with custom research to help provide clients with a bigger picture of what the data represents.

Email me your thoughts!
Sima@Infinity-2.com
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Today, we’re excited to be airing an encore episode of an interview with Vivek Bhaskaran, who is the founder and CEO of QuestionPro. He’s here today to share his experience bootstrapping QuestionPro.

Vivek grew up in India. After completing his primary education there, he left the country and moved to Russia, where he lived from 1995 to 1997. When he left Russia, he moved to the United States, and there, he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Brigham Young University in Utah.

After obtaining his Bachelor’s Degree, Vivek moved to Seattle, and he started QuestionPro in 2005.

He has never raised any capital for the business from outside investors, and he has managed to build his company up by himself, slowly, over time.

QuestionPro started as a survey platform, and currently, it serves as both a survey platform and as an experience management platform.

Over the last couple of years, the company has turned upmarket, and Vivek has identified three different areas that have added confidence to the business:

1. Consumer insights and market research
2. Customer experience
3. Surveys targeted towards employees

QuestionPro started initially as a survey platform. It then expanded into offering a survey toolset, and they have now also identified three buyer patterns within their ecosystem.

Vivek feels that he has been lucky in business. When he built QuestionPro, back in 2005, the term SEO had not yet been coined. So, as a software geek/hacker, Vivek created the QuestionPro platform, and he then started looking for ways to market it. He thought that the marketing of his platform would be easy. All he would have to do would be to become “number one” on Google.

Vivek points out that SEO is not a creative exercise, and that most people don’t seem to understand that it is analytical.

Vivek does not think that SEO is the right thing for marketing purposes. He believes that SEO should fall under the category of engineering, and it should work as an analytical exercise.

Vivek thought that getting to number one on Google would not be too complicated if he were to adopt a trial-and-error mindset as a scientist would. That is what he did, and it worked!

So they got traffic inbound, they started selling, and they started making money. And Vivek came to realize that his business is intrinsically extremely viral.

Vivek realized that his company is one of the few B2B platforms with a viral index. He understood that if he could get a customer who would send out a survey to a million people, it would be a good thing for his business.

Vivek saw that for anyone to get value from his product, they would have to send it out, either to their employees or to their customers. And that would be a benefit to his business.

The reason that Vivek was able to bootstrap QuestionPro, in the beginning, was because he did not need a lot of money to market it. And once he got started, he was able to keep the business operation going.

Vivek explains that right now, he’s living the COVID life because he is waking up each day and doing whatever he feels like doing.

He is currently launching a podcast, and he is also coming up with new ideas for products.

For Vivek, having the flexibility of coming up with new ideas is vital. However, it is the actual execution of the new ideas that counts for him. So much so, that he finds the final execution of an idea to be even more important than the idea itself.

Vivek started his business in Seattle, and he lived there for about ten years. He then moved the company to the San Francisco Bay Area in California. And at the beginning of 2020, he moved the company once again, this time, to Austin, Texas.

Vivek feels super blessed because he has a fantastic team, and many people will be surprised to discover that a large part of his remote sales team is based in India.

Links:

Vivek on LinkedIn

QuestionPro

———————————–

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Sima@infinity-2.com

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Sima is passionate about data and loves to share, learn, and help others that share that passion. If you love data as much as her, subscribe on iTunes and don’t forget to leave a rating and review!

Welcome to another informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast!

Today, Sima shares the second part of the two-part series related to her recent opening session at SampleCon. The session was titled Future-Proofing Our Industry and covered a range of different topics.

For this episode, the focus is on the implications of the capital coming into the industry, user engagement, proving the process of user engagement, and some key lessons learned by the esteemed members of the panel, both personally and professionally, related to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The panel includes Patrick Comer, the CEO and Founder of Lucid, Bob Fawson, EVP of Business Strategy for Dynata, Mario Carrasco, the Co-Founder and Principal of ThinkNow, and Rebecca Brooks, the Founder, and CEO of Alter Agents.

The industry 
Over the last several years and even more over the last twenty months, the amount of capital coming into the market has increased. Mergers and acquisitions have also increased, and the ecosystem appears to have expanded. New digital players are enabling more insights, and there are new buying audiences within corporations.

The opportunities available for people today

Mario feels that we are sitting on some incredible data which has been overlooked by marketers for a long time. He does not think that the digital add-in industry has come to grips with how that will impact the world. He feels that the sample industry is poised to fill many of the data gaps that will occur in a post-cookie world.

Bob does not know how anyone in the future can be successful as a sales, brand, or operations manager without also being a bit of a data scientist. He feels that we have just seen the beginning of it because data is becoming harder to get, and more people are figuring out what data scientists do, and seeing the value of it.

Patrick feels that the industry is sitting on a gold mine because, as a collective group, we have first-party data and permission to ask questions every day. What got built over the years through data insights and surveys has suddenly become interesting to many other players.
Rebecca thinks that new money, new investors, and new ideas coming into the space is excellent for the industry. She is excited about having the opportunity to do something different, build differently, and think about things differently. Something else that came out of the pandemic for her was that many systems and traditional ways of doing things got exposed to be either flawed or broken.

Urgency 
Bob feels that we have moved into a space where there is more urgency. There is money coming into the research space. There is the opportunity, so we need to start treating the people who fuel our industry like human beings.

Staying nimble
Rebecca feels that companies holding onto the way things were or who try to put things back into the box will fail. Business leaders need to be nimble, open, and adaptive.

Machine learning
Bob thinks that we, as an industry, need to move towards machine learning. He feels that the new capital coming into the industry will facilitate that.

Res tech
Patrick feels that res tech plays beautifully into the direction in which things are moving. It all comes down to us holding our own in an environment where we are up against mar tech and ad tech. We need to attract talent and capital to the industry.

The value of res tech
The value of res tech is allowing people who do not understand our industry to feel like they do.

Supply
Supply is a hot topic right now because there appears to be a shortage of it. Investments scaled back when the pandemic started, and everyone resorted to purchasing on the various exchanges out there.

Helping
Rebecca’s approach to the supply problem is to come at it from the angle of looking for ways to help people.

Candid
At Alter Agents, they are candid with their clients when talking about the issues they are having. They look for ways to create checks and systems to help their providers and then share that information to help them clean things up.

Overcoming the supply problem
A lot more transparency is required in the industry to overcome the problem of supply. Today, it is hard to find consumers who do not mind the process as it used to be before, so we need to expand the aperture and improve the surveys.

A good product
As a research agency, you need to have a good product and a good user experience to get samples and meet your revenue targets.
What the panel members learned from Covid-19, professionally or personally, to create long-lasting change in their lives

Rebecca
Rebecca learned to question everything that she and her company are doing. She no longer assumes that the way things get done is the right way.

Mario
As a leader, Mario has changed how he interacts with his staff. He learned the importance of getting to know them and asking how they and their families are doing.

Bob
Bob feels as if he has had a year-and-a-half of forced meditation. It is a gift he feels lucky to have had. He learned a lot and enjoyed having the opportunity to live a richer life, reach out to his colleagues, and empathize with them.

Patrick
Patrick learned that as a leader, he cannot always hold everything together. He discovered how to be more human and vulnerable. He also learned to trust and rely on his colleagues more.

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Sima@Infinity-2.com
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SampleCon

Welcome to another informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast!

Today, Sima shares the first part of a two-part series she created from the session she moderated at SampleCon, which took place in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. The session was titled Future-Proofing Our Industry and covered topics that included talent topics related to how people will return to work, supply topics, and market dynamics.

The panel includes Patrick Comer, the CEO and Founder of Lucid, Bob Fawson, EVP of Business Strategy for Dynata, Mario Carrasco, the Co-Founder and Principal of ThinkNow, and Rebecca Brooks, the Founder, and CEO of Alter Agents.

What work looks like for the next six to twelve months

Rebecca:
Alter Agents had an easy transition to working full-time remotely during the pandemic. Their staff also doubled during that time. They decided to allow their lease to lapse at the end of June 2021 and keep on working remotely. It has been challenging not to have the usual opportunities to interact and chat with colleagues. So Rebecca has scheduled time to meet with everybody one-on-one, once a month, to keep connected and talk about business or personal matters.

Overall, her staff is happy and working better than ever. Working from home has released them from some of the stress they were experiencing from being at work. They now communicate with one another fluidly via Slack.

Rebecca’s primary concern is upholding the company values and maintaining its culture.

Bob:
Bob feels a little concerned about onboarding and helping new team members find mentors and learn how to work in a professional environment. They have been pursuing a hybrid model, which was a shift for their company. Bob is not sure that anyone knows what their preference will be six months from now, but he is looking forward to that evolution.

Bob has enjoyed seeing how resilient people are. He hopes to end up with a little more balance between work and non-work life.

Mario:

When ThinkNow was founded back in 2010, working from home was a core tenet. They wanted to be a cloud-first company.
Their leadership works from their headquarters in Los Angeles, and they have sales staff around the country, project management teams in India, and development teams in Latin America. The hardest part of the pandemic was finding themselves unable to see their overseas employees at their annual or bi-annual gatherings. Although technology has helped, they still miss getting together in person and interacting.

They have taken the approach of opening their office and letting people come in when they want to. So far, that has been working well. About 70% of the employees go in two to three times a week, and the rest go every day.
They are looking at people from a holistic perspective, rather than only looking at them only from a work lens, to address some of the mental wear and tear after the pandemic.

Patrick:

Lucid is a global company, so they are constantly aware that the pandemic affects different parts of the world differently, and it is not over yet.

They have done their best to live up to their core value of compassion. The team went out of its way to offer help to Indian people and their families and assist them in staying connected and doing business. Patrick remembers having to remind their team in India that they could have extra days off if they or their families were sick.
Sharing an experience, and knowing that we are all innately very human at this time, has made Patrick a more empathetic person, and hopefully a more compassionate person too.
Connecting people

Bob

It was supportive of Bob’s company culture to see the offices in Europe or the Philippines take on the work that others could not. That connected people across cultures and across the legacy companies that make up Dynata. It has been a catalyst for a lot of expression of good within the company.

Moving forward 

Moving forward needs to be an organic process.

The labor market
The labor market is more competitive than ever right now. One of Dynata’s key moves was deciding to move out of a geographic focus on labor and using a nationwide tier. In the middle of Covid, they leveled up many people’s salaries to have a competitive salary rate for the country because geography no longer matters.

Diversity and inclusion
Mario’s company does not do diversity and inclusion. ThinkNow is a mission-based company, however. Their mission is to ensure that historically overlooked voices get represented in research from either a sample or a full-service perspective. Having that clear mission has helped them attract and retain diverse talent.

A turning point
Rebecca’s company experienced an internal turning point after the murder of George Floyd. It prompted them to reconsider their role. So they gave everyone in the company $1,000 to put towards any charity. That spawned a JEDI (Justice Equality Diversity and Inclusion) Team in the company. The members decided to find the best way to ask questions about ethnicity and gender and ensure they reach diverse audiences. Beyond that, the company also took the initiative to play a more proactive role in diversifying its staff. Part of the JEDI mission is to keep on looking for things that the company can do better. As a company, they are doing their best to look inwards and fix themselves.

A catalyst
The murder of George Floyd was a catalyst for Dynata to have internal dialogues across cultures and countries, become more intentional about what they wanted to do inside the company, and have the focus and determination to execute their plans. They even brought in experts to moderate their dialogues.

Sampling
Most sampling gets done in a one-size-fits-all way. The whole industry can aim to be more of a force for good by becoming more proactive and empathetic, rethinking how to do sampling, and providing better representational data.

Several opportunities
The sample industry can change how their customers think about everything from gender to ethnicity to education by changing and reframing their profiling questions.

Defining the profiling
We have the opportunity right now to define the profiling used by this country and others to look at who all the people are and how to engage with them.

Insights In Color
Insights In Color has released standards and demographic questions for screeners to download.

Now is the time
The pandemic has changed how we live our lives and consume products. If we are to make more inclusive updates, we have to do it now. Because as we move out of the pandemic, we have the unique opportunity to be more inclusive as an industry and update how we ask questions.

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