AMSRS National Conference - A Summary from Day One

Thursday 8th August 2019

Morning Sessions

After a wonderful Welcome to Country by Ann Weldon, we were serenaded by Yirrmal Marika with his performance of “For Everyone” and “Treaty”. Professor Mick Dodson talked about the limited changes for Indigenous and Torres Strait Island people following the Mabo Case and then spoke of unresolved issues. Rebecca Huntley acknowledged everyone needs to work hard to get justice for the first people of Australia.

In contrast with this, Australians often identify as optimistic, laid-back and easy going. Professor Mark Wooden of Uni of Melbourne and HILDA suggested that we have few direct measures of objective well-being in Australia to validate this sunny outlook. Since 2001, each year HILDA have asked more than 17,000 Australians about life satisfaction and emotional well-being. These markers are fairly steady, although there is some indication that anxiety is rising. Results indicate that after 70 years of age, feelings of well-being drop (likely due to declining health). Whilst people with household incomes of less than $60,000 are significantly less satisfied with life, more money does not seem to have a considerable impact beyond this amount. Wooden speculates that well-being is subjective. 

Implementing policies around well-being may be more impactful if directed toward health, as health is more tangible.

Caz Tebbutt spoke next. Tebbutt has specialised in Pacific Islands research for 22 years. The Pacific Islands are very important to Australia not only because of proximity but because of rising migration (due to limited opportunity and the impact of climate change). Australia is also connected to the Pacific Islands because of its natural disaster relief efforts in the region. Despite negative climatic shifts and lower standards of living, Pacific Nationals consider themselves happy. Tebbutt speculates that this is due to 'connectedness' (multi-generational living), smiling and open communication styles.

Respondents in Fiji and Papua New Guinea suggest that Australians might benefit if we open our eyes and recognise how lucky we are!

After a delicious morning tea, APRC President, Andy Zhao from Neilsen spoke. Despite a lot of talk around Asia about AI and automation in the market and social research industry, he said:

“Qualitative research is becoming trendy again”!

Catherine Ball followed. Ball spoke of the 5th industrial revolution and predicted that in 20 years we will all have 3D printers at home and the Olympics will be invalid due to nanodoping. History indicates with each wave of industrial revolution and application of new technologies, more jobs are created than destroyed. 

Aptitude and adaptability will become more important than experience and it will be more cost effective to retrain employees than bring in new “skilled up” ones!

Barry Enderwick talked to the audience about his fascinating career at Netflix. He attributes the success of Netflix to good luck, good timing and a high achieving company culture. Most of all, the founders of Netflix were very committed to getting to know their customers and the executive team truly understood the value of customer feedback and testing.

This was followed by a panel discussion facilitated by Mike Stevens on the pros and cons of stakeholders doing their own research. Daniela Whelan from Intuit believes empowering the entire business to run their own research creates buy-in and learning opportunities. Virginia Meikle from NRMA and Chris Caley from Lend Lease agreed that giving the broader business access to conducting research is a vital function for any insights team but this must be balanced with technical rigor. The function of market research agencies is to provide in-depth expertise in particular techniques (like advanced statistics or subject matter) and objective and impartial overviews. It was suggested that relationships and understanding the implications on business are vital to successful research in insights outcomes.

Afternoon Sessions

Following lunch and break-out sessions, we congratulated 2019 AMSRS Fellows Adam Allanson, Suz Allen, Mike Beder, Rebecca Huntley, Sue York and Mark Zuker. Then Associate Professor Maria Raciti chaired a fascinating session on embedding Indigenous knowledge and perspectives in research, business and innovation. We were encouraged to think about engaging Indigenous suppliers and increase education around indigenous issues.

It is imperative to provide access back to Indigenous communities on research collected on them.

Next Nicholas Gruen of Lateral Economics suggested that polling is skimming the surface and not plumbing the depths. He argued that politics are highly optimised like a fast food culture and perhaps a jury assembly would get better results than mandatory election. Jury assemblies are akin to deliberative focus groups, encouraging debate amongst vested parties. It seems that a jury assembly could assist to resolving some of the issues surrounding our first people.

The afternoon was concluded by Dr Dangjaithawin Anantachai. She spoke of “ikigai”. To achieve fulfillment as a Market and Social Researcher and Insights Practitioner, combine what you love, do want you are good at, get paid, and do what the world needs. She believes that universities have to teach more than technical skills and focus on self-assurance/self-esteem. She also spoke of inter-generational career motivations and that we have obligations to help others to achieve self-actualisation plus avoid burn-out and brown-out.

Anantachai encouraged us to consider:

Our IQ should be an Impact Quotient rather than Intelligence Quotient.

All in all it was a fascinating day and we look forward hearing about Day Two.