The population will reach 10 billion, Hans Rosling can prove it with cardboard boxes

Like many people I am a fan of Hans Rosling’s Ted talks. He seems to bring data alive in a way that very few people can. He also tackles very important topics and utilises complex data to create his engaging and easy to understand presentations. In this Ted talk (please click here and watch the video) Rosling leaves no doubt in the minds of the audience that unless there is a nuclear war or some similar catastrophe the global population will reach 10 billion. The way he illustrates it with cardboard boxes is even more powerful than his gapminder statistics, and leaves no room for the audience to wriggle round the conclusion. For market researchers there is a useful lesson in how to present complex information. For the word are some very big messages: The world needs to plan for the resources necessary to cater to the needs of 10 billion people. The industrialists and capitalists need to find ways of ensuring they don’t choke or poison the planet when 10 billion people are buying their goods and services. The greens need to work out how there is going to be enough money/resources to ensure that the 10 billion have […]

Should opinions polls be banned in the run up to elections?

For those of you who do not follow UK news, there was an election last week in the UK and the Conservative Party managed to squeak a small majority of the seats with 37% of the votes. This has caused a big fuss and makes the market research industry look very bad since the prediction (based on many, many polls) was for the votes to be split 34% to Labour and 34% to Conservatives – which would have left Labour as the largest party, and they probably would have formed a coalition or minority government. Some countries already ban polls in the run up to the election and there are broadly two arguments that people who want to ban polls put forward: Polls can encourage people to vote for a party or candidate who is not their first choice – especially in countries where the voting system is not proportional. There is also concern that polls encourage copying behaviour, as opposed to considered decision making. If the polls are wrong, people may vote for a party that is not their first choice on the basis of bad information, distorting the election result. The first argument about polls is a philosophical […]

May roundup of NewMR News

Here is our May round up of NewMR news, containing links to some great blogs and upcoming news. NewMR Survey on Global MR and NewMR: We’ve started a programme of looking into a range of issues related to the changing and evolving of market research. Please take our survey via this link. This survey looks at which countries people want to hear more about, where they want see more speakers from, and looks at some attitudes towards change and quality. So, please do take the survey, it only takes about three minutes, and we’ll be sharing the results. Indeed, you can see the results by clicking here. Blogs Worth a Read: We like to share the posts that we think are worth a read: What Star Wars can teach your company about customer engagement – Kelvin Claveria was first out of the gates to turn the recently announced trailer for a new Star Wars movie into a useful and eye-catching post – Click here Can Market Research Make Big Data More Human? – Colin Strong, one of MR’s leading voices on Big Data, gives a great update on Big Data and what MR can add –  Click here 7 More […]

What do NewMR people think about the leading MR countries?

In order to understand more about what NewMR people think about the contribution to market research of the leading MR counties (which we have defined for this project as the ten with the largest MR spend, as reported by ESOMAR) we have created a short survey. Please take the survey before reading further, by clicking here. The survey asks which countries people would like to know more about, where they would like to see more speakers from, which countries produce the best research technology innovations, research thinking innovations, and best quality research. You can see the results so far by clicking here (but it would be best to take the survey before looking at the results). The results will updated about once a day. The main invitations to the survey are being sent on Tuesday 6 May and Wednesday 7 May, so it should be more interesting to look at the results after that. NewMR will be producing a report based on the responses later in May. Remember, from a statistical point of view the results should, with any luck, be vaguely representative of the people who follow #NewMR. We do not recommend you make any mission critical decisions based […]