Excellence - celebrating 60 years
Training the next generation
It's market research, but not as we know it
Mike Cooke & Phyllis MacFarlane
Abstract
Developing talent is recognised as a key business challenge but how do you develop that talent in a world that is changing so rapidly? We believe that businesses that foster a learning culture will be richly rewarded. As an industry we need to demonstrate excellence in the way we develop talent if we are to meet the challenges our clients pose for us namely that we become more creative and insightful
GfK NOP has sought to develop a culture in which staff are given the opportunity to grow their skills. In this paper we will describe how we have used experiential learning techniques to develop our young researchers’ skill set and broaden their understanding and appreciation of, in David Smith’s words, “the art and science of interpreting market research evidence”.
We challenged the graduates to understand the contribution that social networking sites (e.g. Myspace, Bebo) and virtual worlds (e.g. Second Life) might make to the world of market research. In the paper we will report on the graduates’ experience and learnings from working with Bebo and in Second Life, and hypothesise on how this experience will make them better researchers in the future, the implications for future training and development programmes, and what the world of Web 2.0 might mean for us all.
Mike Cooke
GfK NOP, UK
Mike is the Global Director of GfK NOP’s Online Centre of Excellence. A Fellow of the Market Research Society Mike has been in research since 1972 and held many industry positions including Vice Chairman of the British Market Research Society. In 1996 he won the MRS Research Effectiveness award for his research on music and education.
Phyllis MacFarlane
GfK NOP, UK
Phyllis Macfarlane is Managing Director of GfK NOP, Custom Research
Phyllis has been a market researcher for over 30 years. Her principal career focus has been B2B research, specifically developing the sampling and weighting techniques required for market measurement, but also with a keen interest in B2B customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Training and people development have been a key priority throughout her time as a manager, and GfK NOP’s programme is recognised as the best in the UK.
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