In October I was elected to be a member of the ESOMAR Council for a period of two years. This week saw the first meeting of the new mandate, a meeting that was also the last meeting of the previous Council. The joint meeting allows the new Council to learn from its immediate predecessor and to facilitate a smooth transition. This Council meeting was a three-day session in Amsterdam, Netherlands. After an early morning flight from the UK, I attended an induction session at the ESOMAR offices, to brief the new members on our role, our responsibilities, and to sign things like codes of conduct (Council members have extra codes we need to follow in addition to the normal ESOMAR Codes). This was followed by an informal meeting with some ESOMAR staff, and dinner in the evening. Day 2 was a full meeting of the old and new Councils and we covered topics like reports on membership, events, publications, and the strategic plans that had been developed by the outgoing Council. The new Council is free to change any of the plans of the previous Council. But, if Councils behaved in that way, nothing would ever get finished, as most […]