Interesting post. I came across this blog by accident, but it was a good accident. I have now bookmarked your blog for future use. Best wishes. Jillian Hall.

Of course, I’ll attend MRA, AMA, AAPOR, PAPOR, CMOR, IIR, TTRA, SIR, SWMRA, etc. Why? I have a variety of roles I fill– like all of you. I need to “fly the compnay flag” via exhibiting. I need to have sales contacts and visits via interacting with attendees. I need to generate leads via meeting folks and obtaining attendee lists. I need to contribute to my profession via volunteering or assisting in any way I can. I need to learn and grow via meeting people from different walks of life, breaking bread, enjoying a drink and just getting to know fellow beings. I need to grow via attending sessions, addresses and interacting with colleagues, strangers, prospects, friends and competitors. In the end, I attend conferences for many reasons…but agree, we need fewer opportunities in the future. But I will miss seeing you all as frequently as I do now.

How can we lobby for fewer? By not attending? I don’t think so. By unifying our industry, having one voice…oh, sorry, we tried that route. Hmm…I see no immediate solution to our shared concern. Anyone else?

I find too many conferences (ARF) that have devolved into soap boxes for tortured academics to pontificate and espouse their latest “papers”, replete with a good amount of calculus and doctoral level statistical theory. These speakers may think that they are impressing others, but instead, I think they are reinforcing a negative stereotype of our profession as being detached and siloed from its true potential.

What does everyone else think?

It’s September 28-29 at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.

It is the U.S. research industry’s first real unified attempt to take action against the continuing erosion in respondent cooperation, which has spiraled downward for 30 years.

I’ve been telling everyone that this is the one conference “you” must attend if research, intelligence, etc. will continue to be your career. If we can’t grab this tiger by the tail and start t control it, no one will be assured of a job 10 years from now.

For those who believe that we should wait until the situation is nearly out of control, But we are already at a crisis point. So many industry executives openly complain about professional respondents, the inability to reach low-incidence groups, do-not-call lists (which aren’t supposed to impact MR, but we all know they do in consumers’ minds), etc.

Why would we want to wait until the respondent cooperation problem has its foot on our collective throats?

And for the companies who believe they have proprietary respondent solutions that lessen the impact of respondent cooperation problems, I ask:

Even if you have figured things out, if everyone else out there continues to pollute the respondent pool how long will it be before even your best practices are null and void?

So join the industry in Chicago in a show of solidarity as CMOR rolls out a program and campaign that takes on myriad challenges, including reorienting respondents to the value of participating in research and elevating the best practices of suppliers who interact with respondents.

This meeting won’t be a tools and techniques forum (though it will be full of great ideas about improving respondent cooperation).

It is going to be a gathering of Presidents, CEOs and Chairmen of MR companies, the leaders of research departments at top 100 companies and respondent cooperation experts.

Find details about the conference at:

http://www.iirusa.com/respondentcooperation