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.

Workshop 2: Recent developments in multiple correspondence analysis (Friday 2 October)

This workshop is a special opportunity to spend half a day with Michael Greenacre, arguably the father of correspondence analysis (a very widely used graphical analysis technique in the marketing and social research industry).

Michael is one of the world’s leading statisticians, and currently Professor of Statistics at the Universtat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He is widely published, including his book “Correspondence Analysis in Practice”, now in its 2nd edition.

Multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is the extension of simple correspondence analysis (CA) to questionnaire-style data, based on many variables or questions that have categorical response scales. After summarizing the basic properties of MCA and its limits of interpretation, Michael will show us some recent developments which are especially useful for:

• handling missing data without having to exclude respondents who have a mixture of substantive responses and missing ones
• investigating patterns of specific response categories, for example the 'middle' response category ('neither agree nor disagree'; 'neither important nor unimportant'; etc...)
• partialling out certain response styles such as aquiescence (ie tendency to agree with everything).

Michael's keynote address at the Conference (Wednesday morning) will look at a different topic - the exciting rise of 3D dynamic perceptual mapping in marketing and social science research.

Further general information about Michael and the workshop can be obtained from Scott MacLean, Lewers Research, tel 03 9826 4755.

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

Workshop 1: How to become a business strategist and trusted adviser to clients (Friday 2 October)

One of the greatest challenges for researchers is making the transition from being a researcher to being a business strategist and becoming a trusted adviser to clients on business strategy, not just a provider of research.

One person who has very successfully made this transition is Andy Dexter, and Andy will be able to pass on his wisdom in a half day workshop on Friday 2 October. The workshop was originally advertised as being ‘The Transition from Qual Researcher to Business Strategist’ and it will focus more on the qualitative side of the business, but it will be useful for any researcher wanting to move up the food chain.

Andy Dexter is coming over from the UK to be a Keynote Speaker at the 2009 Conference, and we have persuaded him to stay to facilitate this workshop. So it is a unique opportunity for you to pick his brain. And what a brain to pick!

Andy has walked away from several UK and European market research conferences with awards for best paper, best presentation, and best new thinking. He has some firm views about how research should be undertaken and communicated to clients, and doesn’t pull his punches.

Andy is also a highly successful businessman. He is a former CEO of one of the UK’s leading agencies, he took Incepta Marketing Intelligence (now Illuminas) to Top Ten status in the UK, and won Marketing Magazine’s Research Agency of the Year in 2004. Then Andy took up the challenge of establishing his own agency, called Truth, and it has reached the dizzy heights of 4 million pounds turnover inside two years. As we would expect from Andy, Truth is different. It has a different approach to research and a different business model, with all staff having shares in the business. Truth has just won UK Best New Agency of the Year.

Andy will provide insights into how successful business advisers evolve. He will tell us about developing the mindset that allows us to interpret any form of evidence, qualitative or quantitative, in a succinct and actionable way that can be communicated to business leaders. As Andy points out:

'Business leaders famously take their decisions as much on instinct and
a compelling argument as they do on facts and figures. To make the transition to
trusted advisers, researchers have to embrace this, and are well placed but
often lack the confidence and business tool kit to do so.

The workshop seeks to discuss these opportunities and barriers in more detail, and will draw from your experiences as well as Andy’s to develop a framework for making the transition.

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

Quality of GDP?

I've never been to France, but having watched live Tour de France TV coverage in the middle of the night in the depths of a Canberra winter, it seems there's a certain appeal to the place. Aside from le Tour, there's the food, the Alps, the wine, the culture, a language which I think sounds beautiful no matter what you're saying, and the fact that the President can marry a supermodel (and vice-versa!)...

These are probably some of the reasons that French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested yesterday at the Sorbonne that getting rid of the 'cult of figures' and the 'cult of the market' (le culte des figures et le culte du marché - told you it sounded beautiful!) by incorporating measures of people's quality of life into a GDP-type index might be a good idea. The joie de vivre index, as The Independant terms it, was proposed by Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz and seized upon by Sarkozy. In essence, it would incorporate GDP but would also include other factors such as holiday length, quality of public services and other measures around general wellbeing.

At a guess, there's probably a little more to Sarkozy's proposal than just the seemingly wonderful French lifestyle. Luckily, Dr Paul Jelfs from the ABS will give us a rundown on this area of thought in his presentation 'Measuring progress: Global, national and local perspectives'.

I guess the question for me is how we incorporate those particularly Australian aspects of quality of life...

REALLY important communication

Most marketers and researchers will say that communication is important. Normally, they will say this is because it has the potential to affect the health of a brand or the awareness and behaviour around certain government initiatives, but rarely can they claim it’s a matter of life or death (unless they’re talking about a brand).

But there are some situations in which it truly is a matter of life or death. As an example, as reported here, Victorian Premier John Brumby has announced a new national fire warning system.

Now this is an area of communication where the messages must be heard and comprehended by as many people as possible, and lead to the right sorts of behaviours. Otherwise, lives could be lost. In other words, truly important communication.

So how do communicators choose their words in these situations? How do they avoid confusion? How do they avoid panic? How do they communicate with a diverse range of people?

David Bruce and Michelle Hendrie’s 2009 AMSRS Conference paper ‘Communicating during a crisis – Choosing your words’ provides an insight into the research behind the words, and methods of replicating the how people might respond to communication while a disaster is happening. And, in music to researchers’ ears, the research has contributed significantly to a guide to be distributed among emergency communicators, entitled Emergency Warnings: Choosing Your Words, which is now available here. The research report on wording in CALD and Indigenous communities is also available.

I’m really looking forward to seeing how the research contributed to this guide. The paper will be presented in the Government Communications session on Day 1.

6 minutes and 40 seconds

A few weeks ago around 100 punters crammed into the Occidental Hotel (Sydney) for the inaugural NSW AMSRS Pecha Kucha night.

This was a warm up event for the conference, as the impressive trio of Kelly Sutherland, Bill Guo and Andrew Paul prepare to represent the Blues (against stiff competition might I add) in Pecha Kucha State of Origin.

For those who missed the memo, Pecha Kucha is a rapid-fire presentation format: 20 slides, 20 seconds per slide, 6:40 total to say your piece.

Sounds easy? Try it and find out.

The topic for Pecha Kucha at 100 Stories is 'my story in research' - the teasers at the Occidental confirm that the topic and format are bringing out some fascinating stories well told.

If the night was anything to go by, we're in for a treat at the conference. And a hoot to boot.

Is the TV broken?

TV doesn't work, and Marketers aren't doing what they want to do.

That is the key finding from a Naked Communications/Booz & Co study, reported here in The Australian (including input from invited 2009 AMSRS Conference speaker Adam Ferrier). (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25871847-7582,00.html).

The study involved interviews with a selection of marketers from here and overseas. The study found that marketers believe that 'old' forms of marketing such as blingy TV campaigns, naff slogans and the use of celebrities (to all of which they feel constrained) no longer work.

However, marketers don't know which of the new marketing techniques will work. This clearly leaves them in a bit of a pickle.

So, why is there a dearth of knowledge about which new methods will work? Does what marketers want match what works in the real world? Or what consumers want?

Call me biased, but this looks like a space into which research could fit rather nicely. Could we be doing anything different in our research techniques to incorporate these new methods of marketing?

Is this why, to quote the title of Adam's presentation, 'insight is not enough'?

I can't wait to find out the answers to these questions and more at the Conference!

I am, you are, we are…

pumped beyond belief to be hosting the inaugural Asia Pacific Research Conference (APRC).

The idea for the APRC came out of the 2009 ESOMAR Conference in China, as a way for the research community across the region to build professional connections and get the chance to see each other’s best papers.

The APRC is being put on by the AMSRS as well as the equivalent market research associations in China, Japan and Korea. Members of these organisations have been invited to attend, as well as those from other related member organisations in the region including New Zealand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

We’re lucky to be hosting it this year, as it will rotate around the region (a new country each year), and it will be some time before we welcome the APRC back to Australian shores.

Everyone at the conference is welcome to join the Asia Pac parallel stream on Wednesday afternoon, which includes award-winning papers from the recent conferences in China, Japan and Korea, as well as local talent revealing some tricks of the cross-cultural research trade.

We also have an eminent panel in the closing plenary session on Thursday, bringing us up-to-date, in-depth knowledge of the Asia Pacific market.

However, the whole conference will carry this theme. From Geraldine Doogue’s opening address (encourage us to re-consider Australia’s role in the Asia Pacific) to Anh Do’s moving story of arriving as a refugee in Australia from Vietnam on an 8m fishing boat – we’re no island, despite what the cartographers might like to tell us!

See the conference program for more details about this truly unique aspect to our conference (http://www.amsrs.com.au/files/Conference%2009/website/Conference09_Program_FINAL.pdf).

Networking (v) [nět'wûrk'ing]

Networking means different things to different people. Maybe for you it’s about how many business cards you give away, or collect. Or maybe it’s about talent scouting… or getting yourself head-hunted. Or perhaps (if you’re like me) it’s about having at least one seriously interesting conversation with someone you least expect.

Whatever your fancy, this conference is guaranteed to feather your networking tickle spot.

• strong registrations from commissioners of research (buyers/clients) as well as researchers
• a great ‘cabaret’ set up in the main room that makes it almost impossible not to meet your neighbours
• around 100 delegates from around the Asia Pacific Region (as part of the Asia Pacific Research Conference)
• a packed final session and cocktail drinks (Thursday night) with all the operations folks and young researchers
• networking games on Wednesday morning that will help break the ice for those of you who take a while to warm up
• a gala dinner on Wednesday night, complete with band, cabaret acts and casino tables (and no protracted B-lister speeches – guaranteed)
• informal social events, like the pre-conference golf on Tuesday (see earlier post).

Plus, right next door is one of Sydney’s finest pubs (the Art House), which has plenty of quiet corners for that sneaky mid-afternoon cocktail as you continue your lunchtime conversation in a more intimate setting. Call it business development – we won’t tell :)

Youth and experience

I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said

'Youth is wasted on the young'.

He was probably an old fart whose mind still wanted to party long after his body stopped turning up. A common retort is that

'wisdom is wasted on the old'

which is a variant on the theme of 'if I knew then what I know now'.

The research industry has a long tradition of mentoring and passing on our wisdom to the next generation. As well as old farts turning up to the Conference dinner and dancing like it's still 1975, they do redeem themselves with the generous sharing of knowledge whenever approached by our young talent.

In another first, the 2009 Conference has a dedicated stream for young researchers at heavily discounted prices, giving our industry's young talent access to some wise mentors such as Barbara Jones, Martin O'Shannessy, Tim Bock, Donna van Bueren and Hugh Mackay.

Hugh is of course one of Australia's best known and much respected social researchers and media commentators. Hugh continues to draw an audience for his evidence-based social commentary and his more recent work as a writer of fiction.

Young researchers are very much encouraged to attend the YRG stream to learn from the successes and mistakes of our industry's achievers.

And if you are a manager of a talented young researcher, send them along, encourage them to attend, and definitely avoid saying or even thinking "they didn't have this when I was a young researcher". No, they didn't have the internet, and mobile 'phones were the size of a briefcase, and as for acetate slides, punch cards...!

If John Winston Howard was a journalist...

As a journalist of some renown, you get the feeling that George Megalogenis (Dream Panelist in Thursday's closing session) would probably get asked a lot of questions about the journalistic profession.

As a political commentator who’s quite adept at analyzing political personalities, he probably also gets asked a lot of questions about political personalities. Given the predilection of current and former Australian prime ministers towards dabbling in journalism, it’s only natural that the two occasionally overlap.

This video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVKgeNp6qD8) is a great example of George’s thinking applied to politicians as journalists. (It's an excerpt from a longer clip from a
Centre for Advanced Journalism panel session.)

In short, he asks himself (and answers) what kind of journalists Hawke, Keating, Howard and Rudd would be. Who would get too big for the newspaper? Who would make himself available to every type of media that will take him? It’s a good example of the quality of thought we can look forward to at the 2009 AMSRS Conference (without even mentioning entertainment value).

Perhaps an interesting question to raise at the Conference could be what kind of researcher might Hawke, Keating, Howard and Rudd be?

Scotland’s best/worst export

Few things polarise the punters as much as golf. For some people it’s the ultimate combination of relaxation and challenge – for others it’s the perfect way to ruin a nice walk.

Either way, the 2009 AMSRS golf day is coming, and you’re invited!

Where? Moore Park Golf Glub.
When? Tuesday 29 September (the day before the AMSRS Conference).
No, I mean what time? Tee off from 12pm.
Free drinks? Open bar at the 19th hole from 5pm (non-players welcome).

Anyone associated with the market and social research industry is welcome to register – you don’t have to be attending the conference, and all standards of golf will be catered for.

AMSRS members will compete for the much-coveted John Cowl trophy, and suppliers will compete with research users for a separate trophy.

The event is being hosted by the good folks at Cint (http://www.thecrowd.com.au/) and Taverner Research (http://www.taverner.com.au/).

To register, go to www.taverner.com.au/AMSRSGolfDay2009.htm.

Looks like a fun day out!

Turn and face the strange

I'm not much for reading leadership and management books. I tend to eye them off in airport bookshops and then settle for the SMH crosswords instead.

However, a friend from work recently lent me Tribes - Seth Godin's 2008 offering.

Some of it I can do without, but some of it rings nice big bells:

"Change isn't made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later."

The theme of change runs strongly through the Conference this year - not just because we've changed things about the Conference, but because it's integral to many of the stories that our presenters are telling. Stories about what they've changed (and how, and why), calls to arms as global environmental and economic change bears down upon us (or lifts us up), and dreams of what the future might hold.

When we selected the papers earlier this year we were excited by the amount and nature of change in the air. Seeing the papers come in for review over the last six weeks has confirmed our suspicions - this Conference is one not to miss.

Research moves in mysterious ways

Michelle Pascoe will be speaking in the Retailing stream on Day Two, with her session: "Mystery shopping in the clubs industry: the first 11 years".

Michelle is the current President of the NSW Chapter of the National Speakers Association of Australia (NSAA). I approached her to speak at the Conference this year as she is an excellent communicator and I thought we could learn from her.

Michelle then started telling me about her research. I said 'what research?'. It turns out that Michelle has been doing research for years, focusing on the 'clubs industry' with a really interesting, integrated approach to customer perceptions research, mystery customer research, strtategy development, staff training, etc for continuous improvement and periodic transformational change.

It's always refreshing to talk to someone who is not 'mainstream'. When Michelle gave me a copy of her book - "Igniting Potential" - I thought:

This is a really interesting way of writing up research. Why don't more researchers do this?!

If you want to buy a copy of Michelle's book, go to: http://www.oops.net.au/mybook.html.

Anh Do - saving the best 'til last!

When we started planning the Conference, we all agreed that having a big finish is important, ideally someone with a message of substance who can also entertain. We considered many high profile personalities and decided to go with Anh Do.

And I'm really glad we did.

I saw his show at the Sydney Opera House this weekend, and it was the best gig I've been to since I arrived in Australia in February 2005.

Anh himself arrived in Australia as a 2-year old on a Vietnamese refugee boat.

He weaves together his fascinating life story and his very funny comedy material to create an engaging and inspirational show.

For more information about Anh Do, go to his website: http://anhdo.com.au/ .

So when you plan your timings for the Conference, make sure you see every minute of Anh Do.

At the show I went to on Saturday, Anh was making a DVD, and that should be out in time for the Conference. I would expect many of those attending the Conference to be snapping up the DVD for more laughter therapy when they get home.

Best bang for debt

Another of our conference speakers is in the press today: George Megalogenis, The Australian's self-declared 'resident nit-picker', and one of our Dream Panel members (the final session on Thursday 1 October).

George is known for his canny use of research findings and published stats to challenge the status quo.

In today's edition of his Meganomics blog, he weighs in on the federal stimulus debate - to tweak or not to tweak? A mildly academic question, perhaps, given that only $17.7bn of the $66.7bn can realistically be altered (http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/meganomics).

One of George's other claims to fame is having successfully got under PM Rudd's skin a few months ago about his much-celebrated 'bloke act'. Quoting from his June 11 post:

KEVIN, mate, hate to break this to you but this bloke bender you are on at the moment is not a good look.

The more you try to sound like a regular fella, the more you invite the punters to laugh at you.

... And while I’ve got your attention, mate, stop trying to have an opinion on everything. You can’t be a know-it-all and a bloke at the same time.

A bloke knows when to say: “Dunno; don’t care.” Equally, a man in your position should be able to say: “Sorry, I don’t have time to watch Gordon Ramsay - can’t you see I’m running the bloody country?”

Looking forward to see what George has to say about the future of the research industry...

State of the Union

Peter Harris (AMSRS's very own Mr President) has quite the open door policy. Today he invited members of the Conference group on Linked In to feed through 'any ideas for content, tales or trends' into his preparation for the Conference, where he's been asked to talk about the state of the profession and industry in Australia.

Come on, don't be shy! If you're not on Linked In, just leave a comment on his Blog (http://aussieresearcher.blogspot.com/) or shoot him an email - peter.harris@cbr.com.au.

Are you Linked In?

Lots of people in the research community are on Linked In (http://www.linkedin.com/). It’s kinda like Facebook but focuses on work rather than babies, holidays and inane quiz games.

My recent survey of researchers on Linked In found that some people use it for head-hunting, but most people use it for nothing at all.

So let’s give this thing some life. Join the 100 Stories group on Linked In (http://www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=2181687&trk=anet_ug_grppro) and you’ll be able to connect with other delegates or members of the research community – before, during and after the conference.

Happy social networking!

@ 10 Aug - 30+ ppl in the group already - c'mon, you know you want to

'Nasty bogans'

The suspension of The Kyle and Jackie O Show has taken up more than its fair share of the airwaves, broadsheets and bandwidth since the ‘lie detector’ segment went so horribly wrong a week ago. Egos and exploitation, mortgages and moral high ground, cops and boycotts – there’s a lot to say, and a lot being said.

Adam Ferrier, one of our keynote speakers at the Conference (Wednesday 10.30am), is well outspoken on this matter. Check out his initial post on 30 July (http://consumerpsychologist.blogspot.com/)

“Everyone has a right to freedom of speech. However, society would be nicer if those who had the loudest voices did not represent everything base, banal, pathetic and sad about humanity. Kyle and Jackie O are harmful.”

This escalated to an open letter to the Ad industry on Friday 31 July, calling for : http://mumbrella.com.au/an-open-letter-to-the-ad-industry-dont-sponsor-kyle-jackie-o-8183#more-8183.

I’m bracing myself for some challenge (and solid Q+A) at the conference, where Adam is speaking about the kind of ‘human understanding’ needed for tomorrow’s brand building landscape. The title of his paper – Sorry, insight is not enough.

Downturn? What downturn?

Funny what happens when you put clever people in a blender.

Andy Dexter (Founder of leading UK agency Truth and keynote speaker on the Wednesday morning) is all about the idea that the current recession / economic downturn can be a great time for re-thinking, re-invention and renewal – a creative stimulus to end all creative stimuli.

Meanwhile, Rigas Harblias (Bannertyne House) reckons talk of downturn (and future upturn) is a joke.

“Upturn?? Who said anything about an upturn? There is no upturn because there was no downturn. All that happened is that we all hought we had money for a few years. But, as it turned out, we didn't. We just thought we did. See what I mean by understanding the perceptual field of the consumer? Two years ago we thought we were rich. Now we think we are ‘poor'. What changed? Nothing really. Just our perception. But perception is everything.”

Fortunately for us, these two fellas are both on the Dream Panel (Thursday arvo of the Conference). Good luck chairing this one Chris!

Check out http://www.mrsa.com.au/index.cfm?a=detail&id=3392&eid=172 for the source article in Research News.

Reel to reel

Check out this great little video from the 2007 Conference held at Luna Park: http://www.vimeo.com/5871861.

The video was shot and produced on-site by the good folks at ikon film (http://www.ikonfilm.com.au/) - Dominika Ferenz and John Nikolakopoulos. Thanks guys!

PS – Can someone remind me why I have a dummy in my mouth at 4:40?

Have you heard the buzz?

No, it’s not a bee plague. It’s the Conference – only 8 weeks away (30 Sep – 2 Oct), and shaping up to be a real heart starter.

Hot venue, cheap tix, challenging papers, big names, even bigger party – it’s got the lot.

Here’s the program: http://www.amsrs.com.au/files/Conference%2009/website/Conference09_Program_FINAL.pdf.

And you can register at http://www.amsrs.com.au/index.cfm?a=detail&eid=139&id=2941.

Early bird rate cuts out 4 Sep.

See you there.