Rock n' Roll Research Podcast

Today’s episode is self-referential in the best of ways. We talk to Erik Peterson from Spotify who is currently the Director of Podcast Insights. An insights podcast with a podcast insights pro. Ha!  Erik is really into his work and even once took a gig economy job to get a better first-hand understanding of consumer supply/demand dynamics.  Erik shares his professional journey through insights, a...

Tara Bosenick is a pioneer in user experience testing and measurement within human-centered design. She is the Managing Director (MD) of a holding company, ReSight Global, and also the MD of UIntent, which she first founded as SirValUse in 2000 and was later purchased by GfK.   We discuss Tara’s journey through UX including her take on what the future of the space looks like. We also discuss her p...

Scott Tilford built an excellent career within Procter & Gamble. Over 17 years, he had worked on several categories culminating in his role as Sr. Director Analytics and Insights for North America Grooming.   But after so many years in a corporate setting, Scott found another calling. The town of Morrow, Ohio and the city of Cincinnati are anxiously awaiting his launch of The Depot Brewing Com...

Michael Nevski has a really cool job. He is the Director of Global Insights at Visa working with the company’s Chief Economist to add a consumer research and strategy lens to the economic insights and forecasts they provide to their clients. He is also on the TMRE Advisory Board which has long been the biggest annual conference event in the Insights industry. What you may not know is that Michael...

How does one go from art museum management to market research to DEI and storytelling consulting? Just ask Mary Hunter from Data Larks. Mary has always been one to question the status quo, and one of her core strengths is understanding context – history, society, culture, economy and more. It has helped her at every stage of her career which includes working for the Museum of Contemporary San Dieg...

After considering careers in medicine and law, Suann Griffin took a statistics class and decided upon a career in market research. She has built a great career with roles on the client- and supplier-side, most recently as Sr. Director of Insights at Serta Simmons. She is a frequent and highly engaging speaker at industry conferences and is a University of Georgia MMR alum. Outside of work, Suann h...

Experienced human researchers vs. AI. How does AI stand up right now, today? The results may surprise you like they did for me. In this special “Open Mic” episode of the Rock n’ Roll Research Podcast, our guests share the results research-on-research that address that very question. Julie Leonard and Brennan Held (colleagues of mine at MarketVision Research) conducted a live, robust study to deter...

Once fairly traditional, the market research industry is now teeming with fresh thinking and ways to discover insight. Someone needs to help make sense of it all. Graeme Ford is leading the charge by bringing a punk rock ethos to the game with his new consultancy, PunkMRX.  Prior to PunkMRX, Graeme had a ‘boomerang’ career at YouGov, returning as Global Head of Innovation after leaving to co-found...

Step aside Adam Levine, Joseph Wylie will take the mic now. Joseph is a goal setter and a planner. He knew in undergrad that market research was his ticket, so he got his MSMRA from Michigan State, took a position at Precision Sample and got involved in the Insights Association (smart moves!). Today, he is Precision’s Global Director of Supply and President of the Insights Association South Centra...

Jim Lake is President of Michael Walters Advertising where he has been for over 30 years. MWA boasts an impressive client list including Hunter Douglas, Paul Mitchell and the Chicago Cubs. But Jim is also a fellow drummer who discovered his penchant for songwriting in his 50s and in 2023 was named a Songwriter to Watch by the Nashville Songwriters Association. We discuss his career, the heartwarmi...

Second time’s a charm.  After starting out in banking, Dr. Rachel Baghelai pivoted and has thrived in her career as Industrial/Organizational psychologist and business consultant focused on employee research. She is currently VP of Assessment and Analytics and The Kaleidoscope Group, a leading DEI consultancy based in Chicago. We discuss Rachel’s career journey and her perspective on research, her...

Rob and his business partner / wife, Toni, are giving new meaning to the term ‘house band.’ After starting his insights career with classic firms like Market Strategies Int’l and Elrick & Lavidge, Rob has been running his own firm, Klein & Partners, for over 20 years focused exclusively on supporting healthcare clients. Rob and Toni are partners in the business and may soon become bandmate...

Victoria Sakal is currently the Head of Growth for the on-demand research platform company called Wonder (askwonder.com), who is applying AI and a whole lot of innovation to secondary research. Really cool stuff! But, if you would have told a young Victoria she would make a career in research, she most certainly would not have believed you. Much of her spare time as a kid was spent helping out in...

“Let’s not burn through technology again. Let’s not just rip a path through AI.”  Eddie Accomando is one of my favorite researchers to talk shop with. With his academic background in anthropology, moderator certification from RIVA and deep knowledge of quantitative methodologies, Eddie can cover it all from theory to practice to the political dynamics of making insights land.  His career spans rol...

Fail we may, sail we must. Ian Pierpoint is Founder and CEO of the intrepid human insights agency, Further&Further Strategies.  Ian’s unique perspective on understanding people and culture is an outgrowth of his journey, from the UK acid house scene, to corporate youth researcher, to documentary filmmaking, to CMO. We discuss Ian’s improbable route to research, the lessons he’s learned along t...

Jeff Reesing, is SVP of Corporate Sales and Customer Experience at Dynata, the world’s largest first party data platform and a company that powers so much of what we do in research and insights. He has built himself an impressive professional career, but music was his first love and it is easy to understand why. Back in high school, Jeff found himself in marching band, hanging out and playing in b...

Do surveys make good bedtime stories for kids? It worked for Kai Fuentes! Kai is a second-generation market researcher. While many of us were running around causing trouble as kids, Kai was helping her mom’s family business by stapling surveys and even intercepting respondents at the mall. Kai followed in her mother’s footsteps by founding Ebony Marketing Systems over 20 years ago, and today she i...

Recorded live on the Purple Stage at the IIEX conference in Austin, TX on April 18! Nicholas Jayanty, Principal User Experience Researcher at IBM’s Red Hat, traces his path from making sketch comedy pilots on MTV to producing award-winning films to researching and designing digital user experiences. Nicholas contrasts the supply chains of the independent film industry and software design, discusse...

London Brinkman is one year out of school as a Qualitative Market Research Analyst and my colleague at MarketVision Research. While working a project together, I learned she is also the lead singer for a notable cover band in Cincinnati. But not only that, she is an award-winning body builder! London discusses her decision to shift her career focus from musical theater to market research during th...

Wes Michael is the founder and CEO of Rare Patient Voice, a 10-year old firm who empowers patients and caregivers to share their voices with the companies working to better their lives with new products, devices, and treatments. [To date, RPV has paid out over $13M in incentives to patients and caregivers – wow!!] Wes started RPV after a successful research and brand management career at General M...

Sue Collin is one of those rare people who has spent her entire career with one organization. Her first job was with a research company called Directions for Decisions which was later acquired by RTi Research where she has been ever since.  But while the company has remained the same, Sue’s career has done anything but. After years of applying her quantitative expertise, she expanded disciplines a...

On Episode #34, Priscilla McKinney from Little Bird Marketing shared her story of growing up in a family singing troupe. In this episode, we invite her back to the Rock n’ Roll Research Podcast to discuss her book, “Collaboration is the New Competition: Why the Future of Work Rewards a Cross-Pollinating Hive Mind & How Not to Get Left Behind.”   Priscilla and I dig deep into this highly useful...

Mark Earls, The HERDmeister, shares his story of how he went from European tour guide to being labeled the market research industry’s “public enemy #1.” We have a wide-ranging conversation on how people really make decisions, the freedom to experiment in the insights world, predicting multiple futures, how brands grow, being clear in your terminology, making presentations into performances, how to...

Jeffrey Porter will graduate from the UT Arlington MSMR program in December of this year. In addition to his studies, he is keeping extremely busy with an internship in financial data analysis with Lockheed Martin. But there’s more to Jeffrey than insights. He has maintained a nice side hustle of buying and selling vintage video games, timing the market perfectly by selling high during the pandemi...

Kevin Lang is a recently minted Senior Sales Representative at the mighty research media company Greenbook, home of the GRIT Report, the IIEX conference series and “The Exchange” podcast with Lenny Murphy and Karen Lynch. While he got his start in the insights industry with Civicom, many people know Kevin from his involvement in the “MR Jam,” providing the backbeat for a who’s who of research indu...