Reflections On 2018

Let’s call 2018 a year of change for EMI, and what better time than now to reflect on that.

We started early in the year with a re-organization of our sales team to better address our client needs. We had the team split into two main groups, one that focused on servicing some of our top clients, and another group focused on developing new business. While initially, I expected it would take some time for the teams to get their feet under them, both came together rather quickly and have performed beyond my expectations.

Early in the spring, we partnered with Screen Education, a local non-profit focusing on examining the impact of technology on society and culture, to field a study on teen smartphone addiction.  The results of the study were not only eye-opening but led us to co-present the findings at several conferences, as well as be involved in several high-level meetings with Congressmen and Senators involving various legislation and programs that are part of the First Lady’s anti-bullying initiative. You can get the full report here.

This summer, after months of work by Amy Carley and her development team, we launched our upgraded sample management platform, SWIFT, as well as a new quality module within SWIFT. The quality module builds on industry-standard quality features while adding advanced fraud detection, which allows us to remove more bots and detect more fraud than other sample providers out there!

In October, EMI was named WIRe’s 2018 Best Places To Work Runner-Up.  The award was announced during the ESOMAR Congress in Berlin.  I want to recognize Addie Curlis and Angie Dodge for leading our effort on this award!  You can check out the full press release here.

Adam Jolley, our EVP of Business Development, joined the SampleCon Board of Directors this fall! He will be serving a 2-year term with SampleCon as the treasurer as a part of the Executive Committee! I am excited to see what he helps bring to the table as SampleCon 2019 is quickly approaching.

In November, Kathleen Hock made the trans-Atlantic trip to visit our European team. She spent a week with the team, getting to know them more personally and having some great team bonding experiences.

We had some of EMI’s own had at several different conferences this year. Starting in February, Adam Jolley discussed B2B Sampling challenges at SampleCon in Austin. Brian Lamar presented with Screen Education about teen smartphone addiction at AMA Ignite in September. In partnership with Action Based Research, Brian Lamar presented on best practices in sampling to the Northeast Ohio AMA.

This year was also a year of trying out fun ideas for us.

In January, we launched Intellicast – our market research industry podcast hosted by Brian Lamar and Adam Jolley. The podcast has led to a lot of fun discussions surrounding the research industry from a vendor perspective, as well as current trends and happenings, upcoming events, and interviews within the industry. Most notably, we hosted two live podcasts this year: once in Cincinnati at MRMW and the other one in Atlanta at IIeX, as well as hosting an Election Night Special on Facebook Live with Special guest Adam Dietrich. We are ending this year with 40 total podcasts, all of which can be found here. This is only the beginning of our podcast fun; however, so join us in January for new episodes and guests!

2018 has been a great year, full of lots of positive changes – and I am looking forward to making 2019 even bigger and brighter!