Quirk’s Chicago Event Recap
by Kathryn Korostoff
A big thanks to Quirk’s for another great market research event. And for hosting this one in Chicago—a great location choice judging by the crowds. The sessions were packed, many with SRO.
Innovation: The Theme of the Event/day/year…decade?
We all know that “innovation” and “challenging the status quo” have been hot topics at market research and insights conferences for years. Based on this event, it clearly remains so. However, a newer twist was evident in Chicago: it seemed that a lot of the truly innovative products on display were from a particular methodology realm, Qualitative Research.
At Quirk’s Chicago, I saw a lot of innovation from the qual world (even more so than from the quant). Several booths were demonstrating new or increasingly innovative online qualitative products, such as those advancing video data collection, participant experience, sampling, and text/video analysis. Qual is hot!
Collaboration & Partnerships
At the event, I was struck by how many new people I was meeting (the regular crowd is great—but our profession needs new folks to help drive innovation). Upon meeting a new friend, we would have the, “How have we not met before?!” conversation or the, “We have got to find a way to work together!” one. My sense was there just seemed to be widespread interest in collaboration and partnerships. Fantastic!
Thank-you, Students
On a more personal note, some of the best moments for me were the visits from Research Rockstar students who stopped by our booth to say hi. Since myself and the other instructors teach in a virtual classroom, we rarely get to meet students in-person, so it was fantastic to have several visit.
If you missed the event, you can still see the session descriptions and exhibitor list online.
Image includes: Tim Hoskins from Quester, Colson & Jason from CFR, the Knowledgehound hound, and with Jeb Bullis, Bob Moore, Josh Logan and others at The Olinger Group booth.
