The #MRXHero interviews are being published daily this week in reverse alphabetical order. To find out more about the #MRXHeroes week, and why we’ve put it together, check out our other post here.
“Please tell me Annie has been nominated. She is so badass and fun” were the words that someone was kind enough to message me the other day is regards to Annie Pettit, Vice-President of Research Now in the hope that Annie was part of the #MRXHero week this week. And she is.
And I know other people share a similar opinion of Annie Pettit. She is a researcher who is honest about her work, says the things most of us don’t say and has an element of light-hearted cheekiness and sarcasm that means it’s not all serious, and certainly not all of the time. Annie wants to see people grow and be the best they can be, and Annie has, at least to me, never passed up the opportunity to give sound advice.
Many people will know Annie from her blog and Twitter profile as @LoveStats, where her content is, to many researchers, part of their ‘5-a-day’. Like all our other #MRXHeroes, Annie Pettit has accomplished such a huge amount already, and there’s more to come. Annie is author of The Listen Lady, a ‘factional’ story (it’s fiction, but with facts) about Social Media and how using it for marketing purposes and research can really help any organization grow. Recently, with Melanie Courtright of ResearchNow, Annie had received the best methodological paper award at ESOMAR to add to her already long list of accolades.
Annie is also co-founder of Conversition, where they specialise in social media research where Annie is often called upon to speak about social media research at conferences and other events. But Annie won’t tell you that social media research will fix all your problems; no. Annie will always let you know what social media can’t do, as well as what the methodology can do really well. And this is just one of the reasons that Annie is so trusted in the research industry. She has a no-nonsense but constructive approach.
Annie is also Editor-In-Chief of the MRIA research magazine ‘Vue‘, an an advocate for ethics and privacy (in fact, one of the first talks I heard of Annie’s was concentrated on this area) and more recently, an Advisor to the Research Analyst Program at the Georgian College, Canada. Annie is a key voice in our industry, heralded as the ‘guru’ of social media research and, more important than any of this, I’m sure those who know her will agree, Annie is a thoroughly good person (who also plays the Ukelele).
So again, without further ado, here is our Friday #MRXHero interview conducted by David Wiszniowski with Annie Pettit:
– Betty
D: How did you get into the market research industry?
A: My first real job was as a psychometrist with the government, something I’d wanted to do since highschool. But once I got into that job, I realized it was very limited in the kinds of things I would get to do. Every day was build a test, validate a test, rinse and repeat. I looked around a bit and realized that market research also used psychometrics, but a whole lot of other statistical tests as well. The range of activities was much broader and I would get to do a lot of different things.
D: When did you first realize you had a passion for research?
A: Back in highschool. My sister went to university first and I used to read through her course calendar all the time. I’d already decided I wanted to do a degree in psychology and I picked out every course that had a research component to it – the psychometrics class, statistics, research methods, the learning class where you got to train a rat in a skinner box.
D: What sort of impact do you think the work you do as a research magazine editor and a social media researcher has on the industry itself?
A: I hope it has a positive impact. I think my work as a social media researcher has been further reaching. When I first started to promote this methodology, there were almost no market researchers in the field. It almost felt like it was up to me to help the industry learn the good, the bad, and the ugly about this technique. There were so many snake oil salesmen out there promising 95% accurate sentiment, geography and demographics for every social media user, and no ethical guidance whatsoever. Now, there are a quite a few people in our industry who have also become experts and together we are helping researchers learn how to broaden their toolbox.
As for being an editor, I like that I get share smart voices more widely. There are lots of people out there saying smart things but they don’t always have a large audience. Vue magazine lets me help them get their opinions out to every researcher in Canada.
D: Do you think the market research industry is changing? Evolving/devolving?
A: I’ll take a logical stance on this one. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Market research is about one thing – figuring out how to make people spend money on your product. The methods may evolve, the data sources may evolve, the methods of analyzing, presenting, and sharing may evolve, but at the end of the day, we’re all trying to predict what consumers will buy.
D: Can you describe Research Now in three words?
A: Quality,Data,Collection
D: On your LinkedIn page, it says that you are the Chief Research Officer at Conversition. Could you provide some more detail as to what Conversition is?
A: Conversition is a market research company founded by market researchers for market researchers that specializes in social media listening research. Market research. Not social media measurement or monitoring. Research.
D: Working at Research Through Gaming, I know there are many challenges/opportunities with smaller research companies. Are there any differences you have noticed between working for an encompassing research company, and now a smaller yet still globally recognized company? (not clichés) What are the top three differences between larger firms and smaller companies?
A: The obvious one is the speed of business. In a small company, when one person makes a decision, it gets put into place in about 3.8 minutes. In a larger company, there are approvals to be had, legal decisions to be made, and more. Small companies can often be more controversial and in your face. But then, large companies have the resources to make anything happen, even if it’s expensive or requires a lot of people power. There is good and bad in both.
D: How were you able to attract clients in what can be seen as a somewhat skeptical industry with a slow rate of change?
A: I think some of it is the fact that we present our methodology with a lot of truthfulness and transparency. We don’t inflate the validity and accuracy. We don’t promise more than can be delivered. We advise people not to move forward with projects when we know they’re not a good fit. A little honesty is a good. We prefer a lot of honesty.
D: Do you think the industry has a slow rate of change?
A:Well, some researchers are still parallel testing online surveys and phone/paper surveys. Given that online surveys have been around for 15 years, yeah, I think we’re slow to change. It’s also very easy to keep doing what we’ve been doing all along. So even though we might like and want a change, the law of motion always interferes.
D: Do you do any client facing in your current role? What advice would you give to building client relationships?
A: Some, but it’s more of an advisory role. My advice is to always be honest. If a client doesn’t like what you have to offer, or they want to believe the snake oil, don’t spend your time trying to convince them otherwise. There are lots of other people to talk to who are already on your page.
D: Do you consider yourself a ‘hero of market research’? Why?
A: Not really. But for one reason, I’ll consider it. There are people participating in the research industry whose point of view is that if it’s not illegal, then it’s fair game. It means that people who need to share intimate details in private spaces in the online world are always at risk of losing their privacy. Think of someone who has no friends and has found a mental health support group online. When pseudo-researchers take the stance of “it’s not illegal,” they can easily cyberstalk this person to either 1) research how to sell drugs to people like this or 2) market drugs to this person. Yes, it’s an extreme case but the slippery slope is there and not everyone sees it. I try to keep bringing up these annoying examples.
D: Why do you think we have chosen you to be a hero of market research?
A: Because you’ve seen my name a lot in social media.
D: I know you are very busy and have a variety of blogs, consultation services, board seats etc. I was wondering how your interests in non-research related fields can be seen as influences throughout your work?
A: My non-work rarely impacts my work, except that I occasionally blog about q-sorts with chocolate bars and there will be no global webex meetings on Wednesday ukulele nights.
D: You have written countless industry publications, but are most well-known for the insights you present in your book ‘The Listen Lady’, what was your purpose for writing this book?
A: The main reason was that I’ve always wanted to write a book. I never knew what to write about and this presented the perfect opportunity. I actually started writing the book as a text book and bored myself to tears. I switched it around to a novel and it became a lot easier – though still surprisingly difficult.
D: You have recently joined the Georgian College Research Analyst Program as an advisor. What are you hoping to bring to the program in doing so? In terms of the program, are you more interested in reinforcing research basics, or instilling creative approaches to traditional problems? Or both?
A: My main reason is simply to help, to mentor, to contribute to an industry that has been kind to me. Beyond that, I learned certain things in school and other things on the job. I’d like to make sure that some of the things I had never heard of till I entered the workplace are taught in school. For instance, SQL, R, and box scores! Don’t be afraid of numbers, they are your friends!
D: You’ve also just recently won an ESOMAR award for the Best Methodological Paper. Could you explain your paper and why you were chosen as the winner this year?
A: It was a joint effort with 3 of my colleagues, Melanie Courtright, Kartik Pashupati, and Roddy Knowles. We examined how people use scales in different countries and with different types of Likert scales. For my part, I showed that the way different genders, and different countries use different words in the online space [end up] creating different sentiment distributions – for example, women use more positive words, so when your results show that women are more positive about a brand, you need to check whether women do indeed like it more or if they simply use more positive words.
D: Seeing as you have so much on your plate, what advice would you give readers as to how to juggle their time?
A: Do the laundry, the dishes, parent your kids, and other than that, only do things that make you happy. Then there’s no juggling.
D: You’ve attended many a conference, what are some of the things that put you to sleep during these talks, if anything? Alternatively, can you provide any examples of what excites you at these conferences?
A: I don’t fall asleep at conferences, I tweet about food. The second I start to hear a sales pitch, you’ll notice my tweets become very focused on brownies, ice cream, cookies, chocolate… What I really like in a presentation is hard core data, give me charts, give me numbers, don’t give me fluff and I’m happy. And dessert.
D: Being that I am a student, and also an intern, are there any words of wisdom that you would give to those just starting out in MR?
A: Most people starting out in market research have no market research training. As such, you are already ahead of the crowd. Given that, be wary of “We’ve always done it this way.” From day 1, keep a list of the things that make no sense to you and need to be changed/fixed. Then, when you have more experience, go through that list and pick out the things that really can or should be changed. Bring those suggestions to the right person and make it happen. It’s always interesting to see the difference between suggestions on Day 1 and suggestions on Day 300. At Day 300, you know what can and can’t be done, or why things are the way they are. Day 1 is full of eagerness, Day 300 is full of understanding.
D: Personally, even though I’ve taken a program specifically geared towards market research, I still don’t know all of the main players in the industry. With conferences, linked in profiles, more conferences, papers, webinars, talks, presentations, blogs, green books, vines and hashtags I find that there is a lot to take in. In fact, I still feel as if I’m playing catch-up. What sort of advice can you offer as to how to make sense of it all for someone who is new to the industry? Being that I’m still a novice, how important is it for me to keep tabs on the innovations being made in MR?
A: You are not alone. It is impossible to stay on top of everything so don’t even try. Find a few things that you like, and only pay attention to those. Don’t feel that you must read/see/contribute to everything. If something from somewhere else is really that amazing, it will eventually make its way to where you are. And make sure that you leave in some “spare” time to just lay on the grass and gaze at the clouds.
D: As a final question, I wanted to know how you feel the work you have done for MR has made the industry a better place for research, respondents and clients. How is our industry better now, with you in it, than it was before?
A: Yuck. That’s a very egotistical question. I’ll just stick with hopefully people are hearing the social listening ethics opinion. If nothing else, I hope some people reconsider “if it’s not illegal, it’s fair game.”
Thank you so much Annie Pettit for giving us your time to interview you!
We hope all readers have enjoyed #MRXHero week this week, and we encourage all of you to nominate someone who is a role-model to you or mentor and even if they aren’t but you want to admire from afar, that’s ok to. Please comment below for your nomination, tweet us, email us, whatever, we don’t mind. Just make sure you do!