Prize winners

Tony Wheeler Award for Best Paper - Winner

• Brian Fine, Con Menictas, Damien Bray and Paul Wang: When the real world problem is extremely complex, how do we overcome excessive cognitive load when mirroring intensive and intricate information conditions in research

George Camakaris Award for Best Paper by a Young Researcher – Winner

• Huw Hepworth: Darwin’s feelings – A framework of evolution and emotion (and how to use it)

Best Presentation – Winner

• Erica van Lieven: Web 3.0 – the daily insight diet and the irrelevance of professional weightwatchers

People's Choice – Winner

• Ainslie Williams and Grant Malpas: Between a rock and a hard place

--- and here's the commendations ---

Tony Wheeler Award for Best Paper – Commended

• David Bruce and Michele Hendrie: Communicating in a Crisis – Choosing your words
• Daniel-Alexander Head, Steven Cierpicki and Ray Poynter: Research 2.0. It’s all the buzz but what drives member engagement? How to ensure online research communities succeed
• Huw Hepworth: Darwin’s feelings – A framework of evolution and emotion (and how to use it)

Tony Wheeler Award for Best Paper – Highly Commended

• Chris Thomas: Market research’s second life
• Orlando Wood: Why consumer insights are like a refrigerator: Opening up the consumer to make the light go on

Best Presentation – Commended

• Sam Everingham: Spinning yarns – Why researchers need to be great storytellers
• Christine Walker: Making a difference with research – for a company and a local community
• Joan Young and Richard Blackwell: Revolution for evolution - A new approach to road safety advertising and a more significant role for social marketing research
• Tiina Raikko: The secret diary of Riita Researcher
• Chris Thomas: Market research's second life
• Ainslie Williams and Grant Malpas: Between a rock and a hard place

That's a wrap.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed so much to this year's conference - to the committee members, the speakers, the AMSRS staff, and everyone who came.

Stay tuned for one more post with the award winners, then it's all over for the blog.

Thanks for reading,

D

It's alive!

Daniel Alexander-Head from Your Community has set up a bit of live social networking for those inside and outside of the conference.

FOLLOW THE CONFERENCE ON TWITTER - search under #AMSRS

FOLLOW AND CONTRIBUTE TO THE LIVE PHOTO BLOG - http://www.amsrs.posterous.com/

Your out-of-office assistant

One last tip for conference delegates – don’t forget to activate your out-of-office email reply.

Here’s a template for you if you’re in a hurry:

Thanks for your email. I’ll be attending the best AMSRS conference ever from Wednesday morning to Friday lunchtime this week.

You can try me on the mobile (your mobile number here), but I’ll be networking till my ears bleed in the breaks, so probably won’t remember to check my phone for messages.

And I’ll be partying till my feet ache on Wednesday and Thursday night, so please don’t expect much until I’m back in the office on (your return day here).

If your matter is urgent, please contact (name of poor sucker back in the office) on (poor sucker’s contact details).

20 20 24 hours to go

The Ramones were on to something there. (See here if you missed the late 70s.)

Today’s to do list:

• exhibitors to set up stalls and practice schpiels
• AMSRS crew to set up rego desk and showbags
• AV/tech crew to run through all slides and links
• delegates to shift work around so no distractions
• judges to meet and decide on Best Paper awards
• golfers to meet 12pm at Moore Park Golf Course
• speakers to rehearse their material one last time
• session chairs to review their papers and presenters
• chefs to start prepping ingredients for tomorrow’s dinner

It’s going to be big, folks. My oh my, yes yes it will.

Young Researchers and OPs streams go on sale

Another of the unique elements to this conference is the tailored streams for Operations folks and Young Researchers (<35yo or in the first five years of a research career).

In order to send numbers through the roof on these special streams, the price has been dropped to only $100 per person + GST.

This also gets you into the massive final session, including the dream panel, Pecha Kucha State of Origin and Anh Do (but doesn't include the end-of-conference drinks).

This will provide OPs and young researchers with

• exposure to new research methodologies
• broader understanding of the research Industry
• opportunity to see competitive products
• greater understanding of client needs
• the opportunity to discuss and challenge ideas with conference presenters

So come on tight wads, spend a little on your best and brightest - it's the best investment you can make!

(People who had already booked can bring someone for free, and both can go to the drinks too.)

Workshop 3: Evaluation for social change - traps, gaps & victory laps (Friday 2 October)

Evaluation asks questions that are fundamental to evidence-based decision making in government. How's it going? Is it working? Why (or why not)? Where to from here?

Done well, evaluation can be a very rewarding line of work that allows you, the researcher, to play a significant role in shaping and measuring social progress.

However, evaluation can also be a tricky business. Big questions, multiple research methods and complex stakeholder relationships are just the beginning, and there’s often a lot at stake.

This workshop is designed as an introductory to intermediate session for researchers who want to become evaluators and evaluators who want to refine their craft.

It will cover things like:

• designing evaluation frameworks using the ‘program logic’ approach
• different types of evaluation - process, outcome, impact etc
• planning your evaluation approach, including methods like desktop research, analysis of existing data, stakeholder consultation and expert comment
• managing evaluation projects – from the simple to the complex
• bringing it all together – analysis and generation of evidence-based recommendations
• the finished product – writing reports to a publishable standard
• engaging and collaborating with clients who are new to research and evaluation (eg policy officers, program managers)
• a brief wrap of the highlights from the September 2009 Australasian Evaluation Society Conference.

Workshop attendees can send through inquiries or specific questions in advance to drintoul@urbis.com.au.

The workshops are staying at the bargain (early bird) price of $352 for AMSRS members / $440 for non-members. Click here to register now.

About the presenters:

Alison Wallace is one of Australia’s leading evaluators and is chairing the Evaluation parallel session on Thursday morning. As the National Director of Social Planning and Social Research at Urbis, she has lead dozens of large and high profile evaluations over the last 20 years in fields such as children’s services, homelessness, mental health, family violence, aged care, Indigenous health, law reform and education.

Duncan Rintoul has worked with Alison for the last nine years and is co-Chairing the 100 Stories conference. He has run training for the UNSW School of Social Science and the Australian and New Zealand School of Government and won the 2005 George Camakaris award for his AMSRS conference paper Not for prophesy: the impact of social research and evaluation on not-for-profit organisations.