My Top 4 Highlights from the Future of Insights Summit

This past week, I had the opportunity to head back to my old stomping grounds and not only attend, but to speak at the Future of Insights Summit at the University of Georgia. This amazing conference was organized by the University of Georgia’s MMR Program. Being presented by a university rather than a large marketing research organization, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the conference—but the content was as good, if not better than, these more traditional conferences. It was a breath of fresh air to attend a conference that moved away from the “salesy” feel and more towards a focus on learning. The university, MMR program, volunteers, sponsors, and hundreds of alumni involved made the conference the great success that it was and did an incredible job with the content.

Here are my highlights from the Future of Insights Summit: As the name suggests, there was a strong focus on the future with discussions around futuristic thinking, privacy, artificial intelligence, 3rd party data, Blockchain, and agile consumer insights. Some of the specifics included:

1. Artificial Intelligence in the Future

Speakers from IBM, Burke, and SKIM all lead sessions on artificial intelligence. These sessions took the time to delve into the current impact of AI on market research and more specifically, where AI can take market research in the future.

2. Integration of Modernization

Hilary Camp of LRW spoke about the modernization of segmentation. I loved her thoughts on how researchers should (and should not) integrate 3^rd party or passive data into segments.

3. Bias in Data Analysis

While many of the presentations spoke about 3^rd party data and the overwhelming amount of data that we have access to, one that stuck out to me in particular was given by Dr. Ari Zelmanow from Twitter. He spoke about the importance of not relying on data too heavily without focusing on the problem. His presentation was thoroughly entertaining and full of the mistakes and biases that can exist when analyzing data.

4. Thinking about the Future in a new way

The conference also had numerous eye-opening sessions and discussions around foresight and the future—concepts that I hadn’t really thought of previously! I always enjoy tackling a brand new topic. This futuristic workshop was enlightening.

While the content of this conference was amazing, perhaps the best part of the Summit was the networking and camaraderie among the attendees. I am fortunate to be among the 700 graduates of the University of Georgia’s MMR Program and can testify that it is more than a network of people with similar backgrounds—it’s more like a family. Seeing so many old friends and watching others reunite with former classmates and colleagues was different from most conferences. Learning about how your former classmates have grown both professionally and personally is incredibly rewarding. I take great pride in being an MMR grad and having the opportunity to speak about the current sample landscape and the future of sampling. The Future of Insights Summit was awesome, and I am already looking forward to next year’s conference!