Title: Are You Prepared for the Future of Market Research?
Presenter: Michael Mermelstein, PRC, VP of Business Development, MKTG, Inc.; Mary Ann Packo, CEO, Millward Brown North America; Doug Usher, PhD, Senior VP, Widmeyer Research & Polling
PRC: 3. 25 Contact hours in Business Operations- Strategic Thinking

Session Description: An important session combining an outstanding panel, representing clients and providers, with an interactive discussion on in-vogue methodologies, fading methodologies, and methodologies that might be replaced by newer ones. This interactive session will allow the audience to discuss observations and experiences with their colleagues and respond to statements and questions about the future of research. This session will give you insight into what your colleagues are doing and help you plan your business or business practice for the future.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Participants will be able to gauge how well positioned their business/practice is structured to compete and succeed in a fast changing world.
2. Learn which methodologies are in growing demand and which are fading: get a feel for the trends that are shaping the way we work.

Title: Finances and QuickBooks User Session
Presenter: Craig Venokur, CPA, Partner, Adelman, Katz & Mond LLP; Kim Larson, PRC, President, Information Alliance; Tasha Jackson, CFO, MRA
PRC: 3.25 Contact Hours in Business Operations-Financial/Budget/Costing

Session Description: Participants will learn the top 10 do’s and don’ts of accounting learn how to manage their business and their finances effectively and with the latest software. Participants will hear the benefits of several types of accounting management and software products.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Understand the Changing Roles of Software in Financial Management
2. Learn common mistakes made in financial accounting
3. How to manage your company through accounting packages

Title: 21st Century Tools for the 21st Century Trends
Presenter: Robin Albing, President, Albing International Marketing
PRC: 1.5 Contact Hours in Technology Trends or Data Collection Methods

Session Description: Online tools have become an exclusive method for conducting focus groups. Albing International Marketing will describe their use of virtual groups in their offshore efforts, including working together with their affiliate in Delhi to bring together consumers from all over India for discussion groups.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Learners will be able to describe how valuable online tools have become, both domestically and internationally.
2. Learners will be able to identify how online tools can be used exclusively over traditional tools.
3. Learners will be able to identify several trend studies and how they were conducted using online tools.
   

Title: Privacy in the Real World
Presenter: LaToya Lang, State Legislative Director, CMOR
PRC: 1.5 Contact Hours in Privacy

Session Description: Does your company have a privacy policy? Every single business in the survey and opinion research profession should. Privacy does not exist in a vacuum of theory; privacy thrives through application. This session will provide insight into the importance of developing a privacy policy through the application of real scenarios that CMOR has encountered from the survey and opinion research profession. If you are not sure how to draft a privacy policy, this course is for you! If you already have a privacy policy, come learn how to enhance your policy to protect your business and enhance respondent participation!

Learner Outcomes:

1. Promote or fortify a working level of knowledge of privacy issues and laws associated with survey and opinion research methodologies.
2. Cultivate a framework for drafting the basic structure of developing a privacy policy and additional topics enhancing currently drafted privacy policies.
3. Understand the importance of developing a privacy policy and the application of the privacy policy to business scenarios and encounters.

Title: Keynote: Quality -- What's Love Got To Do With It?
Presenter: Robin Pearl, VP Market Research Worldwide, The Estee Lauder Companies
PRC: 1 Contact Hours in Research Design or Problem ID/Resolution

Session Description: Research is fraught with many challenges and dangers. This presentation offers a deep dive into the most important issues which can undermine the quality of research including the sample, questionnaire, and report insights. Real life examples are shared to demonstrate how study results and ultimately decisions can be negatively impacted. A call is made to our profession overall and each of us individually – both on the client side and vendor side— to pay more attention to these traps so that we can do great research together.

Learner Outcomes:

1. To more fully appreciate that quality is critical at every stage of a research study and be more inspired to personally insure it.
2. Specific shortcuts/mistakes companies commonly make which impacts quality and how to avoid them.
3. What you need to prepare for the next 5 years.

Title: General Session: Market Research & the Presidential Election: Lessons from 2008
Presenter: Kathleen Frankovic, Director of Surveys, CBS News Election & Survey Unit
PRC: 1 Contact Hour in Analysis Skills and Techniques

Session Description: What’s happened in the presidential election campaign – so far -- and what public opinion research has taught us. Has the process raised questions about the value of public opinion polls? What have we learned about how voters answer questions in this year of unusual candidates? Has race or gender played a role in polling accuracy? Does what we have learned help us explain what is coming in November, or teach us anything about research? The presentation will include examples from both national polling and exit polls.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Understand the role of polling in this election campaign
2. See where the election may be headed
3. Learn the difficulties of measuring public opinion under pressure

Title: Offshore Telephone Data Collection: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Presenters: Jim Weber, SVP Operations and IT, Opinion Research Corp.; Larry Schneider, SVP Operations, GfK NA; Lance Hoffman, PRC, VP Business Development, Opinion Access Corp.
Moderator: Joe Rafael, PRC, Chairman, Opinion Access Corp.
PRC: 1.25 Contact hours in Data Collection Methods or Project Management

Session Description: The session will be a panel discussion about offshore telephone data collection, a topic that everyone has an opinion about.It’s no secret that many research companies, including some of the largest, outsource their telephone data collection to offshore facilities while others will only use US facilities. Why in this competitive environment doesn’t everyone use an offshore facility? The panel will include buyers who will discuss their experiences as well as companies with an offshore presence who will discuss the challengers of opening and running an offshore facility.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Understand the reasons why some research companies outsource telephone data collection to an offshore facility while others don’t.
2. Evaluate whether offshore telephone data collection is an option for their company.
3. Hear first hand the experiences, both good and bad, about offshore data collection.

Title: American Idol: The Anatomy of an Opinion Research & Public Relations Media Explosion
Presenter: Julie Litzenberger, VP of Public Relations, Sage Communications; Melissa Marcello, President, Pursuant Research
PRC: PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Business Operations-Strategic Thinking

Session Description:In this interactive and entertaining presentation, a DC opinion pollster and a PR pro describe how they combined forces to generate over a billion media impressions and an American Marketing Association “M” award by piggybacking on the success of American Idol. Drawing on their decades of experience in public relations and opinion research, the presenters will showcase how the two professions can work together to position organizations as widespread expert authorities, aligned with business objectives.

By using the proven PR and opinion research strategy and tactics, participants will be able given an opportunity to showcase what they’ve learned in breakout groups designed to reinforce the principles being taught.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Determine how opinion research and top-notch PR tactics can work together to drive credibility and awareness to an organization’s larger strategic objectives.
2. Understand polling fundamentals – the necessary components of a credible, media-friendly poll.
3. Learn how to launch a successful research-based public relations campaign to trigger widespread credibility, thought leadership and sustained media exposure.

Title: Project Looking Glass: Re-discovering the 55-plus Generation
Presenter: Laurie Aulenbach, Director of Research, Leap Research
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Data Collection Methods or Sampling

Session Description: Americans 55 and older aren’t just changing the way products are marketed to older audiences, they’re demanding it. And as Baby Boomers continue to age, that demand will only grow louder. So why aren’t more marketers and companies listening, and what can they do to reach out to this audience? It’s a question Varsity hoped to answer in August 2007 in an unprecendented research effort called Varsity’s Project Looking Glass.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Participants will gain valuable insights from Aulenbach’s first-hand interactions with residents and through her own experiences, on how older adults live and what it is they expect and need from the world around them.
2. Participants will come to better understand how the changing physiology of older adults impacts their day-to-day lives as well as psychological hurdles faced by older adults, including lonliness, depression, grief over the loss of a spouse, and the impact of leaving a –pre-retirement household and lifestyle.
3. Participants will be able to take the information gained from the methodologies used by Leap researchers in approaching the older adult segment of respondents. Traditional methodologies aren’t always as effective. Portions of this demographic are more communicative and open to non-traditional data collections methods.

Title: The Value Proposition for Preferred Provider Partnerships in Qualitative Research: A Case Study -- END USERS ONLY
Presenter: Mark Wolf, PRC, Director, Market Research, The Guardian Life Insurance Company, Andrea Schrager, PRC, President/CEO, Meadowlands Consumer Center
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Client/Supplier Interaction

Session Description: You will learn from a case history based on experiences from Guardian Life and BP Lubricants that address key end-user issues including:

How do you get the maximum from your research dollar when conducting focus groups? What are the benefits of creating a ‘virtual’ market research department to your qualitative project? Why is it important to ‘moderate’ the group behind the mirror? What can go wrong if you do not? What can you do to insure that the moderator’s report accurately meets the research objectives? This will be an interactive session with audience participation required.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Excel in an environment where the client’s client changes with each project.
2. Use insight from all primary and secondary research to create a ‘virtual’ market research department, thereby extending resources beyond dedicated headcount.
3. Identify success enablers and barriers to success.

Title: What the “Catch” - Does Sample Sourcing Matter?
Presenter: Melanie Courtright, PRC, Vice President, DMS Research
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Sampling or Research Design

Session Description: Are there differences in data quality and respondent behavior based on sample sourcing, whether online River, online panel, or even CATI RDD? Looking at online panel sample, are there differences in quality and behavior based on panel cost? Understanding the similarities and differences, what are the resulting implications to survey design and sampling choices? This session will explore the results of a research project that will answer these questions.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Recognize the differences between types of respondents that participate in online and telephone research, and how those differences impact results.
2. Understand the decision criteria that should be used when choosing a panel provider based on price.
3. Make more informed decisions about the implications of using each type of sample, especially with regards to bias and data quality.

Title: Technology and Research - Will the “Old” Analog TV Spectrum Change the Way Future Research is Conducted?
Presenters: Joe Bates to Vice President, Rockbridge Associates; Daniel Slotwiner, Senior Quantitative Insights Manager at Google; Sean Wargo, President/Principal Consultant, The Market Sage; and Peter Mackey, VP of Research and Business Development, Invoke Solutions
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Research Design or Technology Trends

Session Description: The Internet transformed the way Americans communicated with one another. This, in turn, changed the way the research industry conducted surveys, and many practitioners never saw it coming. Now, we are on the verge of another massive change in communications technology. The wide swath of spectrum being vacated by broadcasters in the switch from analog to digital television will likely change the way Americans communicate once more. Wireless networks will expand not only in reach, but also in robustness. How will this transformation affect the way research is conducted in the next 15 years?

Learner Outcomes:

1. Understand what will happen to the analog television spectrum once it is returned to the government after the digital television transition is completed in Feb. 2009.
2. Understand what new products and services may become available in the next 15 years as a result of the repurposing of the “old” analog spectrum and how this may impact existing research methodologies.
3. Prepare your business for the changes that may take place in the way research is conducted once the “old” analog spectrum starts to be used by new wireless products and services.

Title: Ethnography – Myths and Realities From Around the World
Presenter: Siamack Salari, EverydayLives Inernational Ltd
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours Research Process or Qualitative Techniques

Session Description: Using new video footage, anecdotes, good and bad client experiences, Siamack will walk delegates through 14 years of trying to understand how ethnographic research should and shouldn’t be done. From China to the USA and Moscow to South Africa, Siamack will bring to life the way everyday happenings and events were articulated in extraordinary new ways, using video.

Learner Outcomes:

1. What ethnographic research should really all about
2. When not to use ethnography – common misconceptions
3. The future of ethnographic research – from Hampton to Hollywood.

Title: Marketing Research on a Shoestring Budget
Presenter: Meghan Langlais, Brand Insight Manager, Au Bon Pain
PRC: 1.25 Contact hours in Business Operations-Financial/Budget/Costing

Session Description: Learn how Au Bon Pain conducts market research on a shoestring budget. In this session we will discuss how Au Bon Pain relies heavily on current café consumers, café management teams, sales data, and even consumer calls and emails, to help drive business decisions.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Appreciate Au Bon Pain’s ability to meet consumer product needs on a very small research budget.
2. Identify with Au Bon Pain’s regular consumer interaction in cafes to gain valuable research insights which to marketing decisions.
3. Understand how ABP relies heavily on sales data and Café Management Teams to evaluate test product success.

Title: Stand On Your Head and Open the Door - A Modern Guide to Exploratory Research
Presenter: Liz Torlée, Managing Partner, TerraNova Market Strategies Inc.
PRC: 1.25 Contact hours in Business Development Sales or Business Operations

Session Description: Is research working as hard as it should or is it sometimes a waste of money? Pressed for quick solutions, organizations too often default to formulaic approaches that do little more than skim the surface or confirm biases. With stories, pictures and a little humor, this presentation offers a provocative point of view on the pitfalls of conventional thinking and shows how market research can – and must - be more creative, collaborative and productive. It gives specific ideas on developing a whole new perspective, tapping into unexpected sources of wisdom and surfacing more potent insight to break new ground.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Address business challenges with new inspiration and perspective
2. Harvest the untapped expertise of other stakeholders and thrd parties
3. Use guiding principles and practical tips to put new ideas to work
   

Speaker: Jill Donahue, Nestle Purina Petcare
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Research Category

Session Description: This closed session will feature roundtable discussions that allow all to participate. A variety of topics will be covered, including; but not limited to: data quality, new research methodologies and communicating research results within your company.

Learner Outcomes by Topic:

• Data Quality: Determine similarities/differences among different End User industries
• Data Quality: Share experiences that have improved data quality and situations where poor data quality was a concern
  
• Respondent Cooperation: Understand if respondents are being leveraged appropriately among different End User industries
  
• Respondent Cooperation: Learn about CMOR’s work on response rates
  
• Alternative Methodologies: Understand how other End Users use alternative methodologies
  
• Alternative Methodologies: Developing emotional insights
  
• Alternative Methodologies: Move beyond packaging and concept research

PRC: 1.25 Contact hours in Business Operations

This invitation-only session is open to business owners, presidents and CEO’s. The purpose of the session is to offer an open forum for executive business decision makers to discuss concepts and ideas in a secure environment. This session will include topics such as: Employee Compensation; Financial Concerns/Cash Flow/Collections/Etc.; Exit Strategies & Succession Planning; Marketing & Advertising; Client Contracts & Negotiation; Company Strategy; and Sales Force.

Business owners and operators will share experiences, discuss critical issues and provide insight on relevant business topics. The session will be conducted primarily through roundtables with strong leaders at each table to guide conversation, provide factual information and offer personal experiences.

Title: Market Research in Europe: A Journey Through Differences!
Presenter: Fernand Wiesenfeld, Managing Partner, EFG/MV2 Group
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Research Process or Research Design

Session Description: Conducting Market Research in Europe is not an easy exercise, Europe being still very much a “patchwork” of different cultures and professional practices.The presentation will cover 4 major topics to help U.S. researchers to better work in Europe: EU history, EU key figures, Market Research in Europe, and Market research “tips”.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Have an in-depth understanding of How Europe has been built and organized economically and politically, and how this has been impacting local cultures and creating disparities between those.
2. How to best design a multi-country European research taking into account these local differences between countries. No such a thing as “one size fits all”.
3. Tips on optimizing collaboration with local vendors (MR, or data collection firms) to optimize budgets, timing, but most importantly, the quality and depth of the research findings

Title: Where 2 Next: Using Visual Stimuli to Help Cruisers Choose Among Alternative Designations for Future Trips
Presenter: James C. Fink, Ph.D., President, Infinia Analytics; Heidi Rodgers, General Manager, Strategy, Sterling Group; Kara Wallace, Manager, Marketing Research, Royal Caribbean Cruises
PRC: 1.25 Contact hours in Analysis Skills and Techniques or Research Process

Session Description: Planning deployment for cruise vessels of various classes and on-board amenities mix by potential port destinations and trip length traditionally relies on complex algorithms fueled by past customer behaviors. In this research program, visual stimuli were integrated in the questionnaire to derive informed projections of potential future cruise behavior, thus making logistics planning more accurate.

Leaner Outcomes:

1. Develop screening conventions to identify prospective customers, in this case, cruisers
2. To educate respondents about purchase options using visual stimuli, avoiding the need to bury them in info they don’t want
3. Apply correlation tools to identify relationships among behavioral and emotional components in consumer decision-making

Title: Experiential Research – A Catalyst for Powerful Brand Insights
Presenters: Dan Prince, PRC, President, Catalyst Healthcare Research; Mike O’Neil, VP of Strategic Initiatives, HealthSpring
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Client/Supplier Interaction or Customer Service

Session Description: Just as “experiential marketing” seeks to connect consumers to brands in personal, memorable ways, experiential research can help marketers understand and leverage those connections in powerful ways. In this session, see how this inventive approach to focus group research brought the customer into the service delivery setting, validating an innovative idea, and helped one of the nation’s largest Medicare plans for seniors break new ground in the healthcare industry.

Moderator: Jill Donahue, Nestle Purina Petcare
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Business Category

Session Description: This closed session will feature roundtable discussions that allow all to participate. A variety of topics will be covered, including; but not limited to: data quality, new research methodologies and communicating research results within your company.

Learner Outcomes by Topics:

• End Users’ role in the market research industry: Discuss how we can help impact the market research industry
• End Users’ role in the market research industry: Brainstorm ways to increase involvement of End Users
• Job industry: Discuss how companies are working through morale in a tough job market
• Job industry: To determine how other companies are screening for the “best talent”
• Becoming a Knowledge Center for your company: Share and discuss ideas to be the “go-to” person for consumer insights

Title: Mindreading & Measuring Emotion in Quali-Quant Research: It is NOT Smoke and Mirrors!
Presenter: Brent Snider, Client Director, BrainJuicer
PRC: 1.25 CH Qualitative Research Techniques or Research

Session Description: Part of the challenge of emerging research techniques that attempt to measure emotion and validate insights, is that practitioners fail when they simply move qualitative research with open ends and verbatims, to an online quant environment. Conversely, the benefits of new techniques in research are overstated unless truly innovative approaches to quali-quant research are tested against more traditional methodologies, and emerge as superior.

In this presentation the speaker will explore a number of industry attempts to transform research in order to achieve true breakthroughs in quali-quant results. Case studies will be presented on results achieved using combinations of inventive techniques as compared with traditional studies in consumer research projects. Specific examples will be discussed demonstrating the potential to get to the qualitative “whys” behind the quantitative “whats” using emerging techniques that measure emotional responses during new product development and well as pre and post product launch communication testing.

At the end of the session attendees will have a fundamental sense of where we have come as an industry in this challenge, and the “stay tuned” approach to e valuate emerging research techniques. Attendees will be better informed to address their clients’ questions about measuring emotional engagement in research, even if they don’t conduct these techniques themselves.

Learner Outcomes:

1. By the end of this learning session, participants will understand the potential for emerging quali-quantitative survey techniques to measure emotion and reveal rich consumer insights previously only achievable in pure qualitative research.

PRC: 1.25 Contact hours in Business Operations

This invitation-only session is open to business owners, presidents and CEO’s. The purpose of the session is to offer an open forum for executive business decision makers to discuss concepts and ideas in a secure environment. This session will include topics such as: Employee Compensation; Financial Concerns/Cash Flow/Collections/Etc.; Exit Strategies & Succession Planning; Marketing & Advertising; Client Contracts & Negotiation; Company Strategy; and Sales Force.

Business owners and operators will share experiences, discuss critical issues and provide insight on relevant business topics. The session will be conducted primarily through roundtables with strong leaders at each table to guide conversation, provide factual information and offer personal experiences.

Title: General Session: Marketing, Marketing Research
Presenter: Neil Marcus, Director, Market Research, Metropolitan Life Insurance Group
PRC: 1 Contact hour in Client/Supplier Interaction or Marketing

Session Description: As an industry, we need to do a better job of demonstrating the value of marketing research. For all those in the field of marketing research (corporate researchers, suppliers, consultants, etc.) this means showing our customers that we are business people first, researchers second. A more consultative approach with an emphasis on understanding how research is used to address business problems and decisions is the key to success.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Identify ways to enhance their value proposition to marketing research customers
2. Identify ways to build successful partnerships with customers
3. Identify ways we can come together to build the image of the marketing research industry

Title: Going Mobile in Europe and Asia: What Lessons Can We Learn?
Presenter: Rob Favini, EVP Client Services, Research Results
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hour Technology Trends or Cross Cultural Research (Nat’l/Int’l)

Session Description: The use of mobile technology in the United States has had the reputation of lagging behind other areas of the world. This presentation looks at Europe and Asia, specifically with an overview of the mobile technology landscape, consumer behavior, expectations and attitudes, and what this means for market research. As the past has shown, mobile technology used in Europe and Asia eventually hits the US market. Are you ready?

Learner Outcomes:

1. Gain a broad understanding of current mobile technologies in Europe and Asia
2. Recognize how access and use to this technology continues to change human behavior and attitudes
3. Identify technologies that may have an impact in the United States

Title: Results from a Pilot Test of “Cell Phone Only” Telephone Survey Respondents:How are they different from “landline” respondents and what does it take to reach them?
Presenters: Jeanne C. Wintz, Ph.D., EVP, Gilmore Research Group;
PRC: 1.25 Contact hours in Data Collection Methods

Session Description: This is an overview of a pilot study conducted for the CDC Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) in Washington State to test the feasibility of interviewing respondents from cell phone only households. The standard RDD study was adapted for the cell phone pilot and the results compared to the landline study. The unique challenges of conducting cell phone studies are described and the modifications used are evaluated. Suggestions for future research are provided.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Recognize the key demographic differences between landline and cell phone respondent populations.
2. Identify the unique challenges of a cell phone study.
3. Design a telephone survey targeting cell phone respondents using tested methods.

Title: Bridging the Gap: Leveraging Communities for Qualitative Research
Presenter: Dean Wiltse, Chairman and CEO, Vovici
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Research Design or Qualitative Research Techniques

Session Description: Generally, market research yields numbers, graphs and charts that dissect the opinions of a company’s constituents, removing all human elements. Bridging the gap between this quantitative data and the qualitative characteristics of a population is essential to developing a clear picture of customer satisfaction. By building custom online communities, organizations are able to gather feedback from a group of individuals that have a common interest and meet a set of qualifications that the Company has established. The ability to meld survey techniques with these online communities gives researchers the “what” and “why” of customer thinking and provides critical insights that can have a profound effect on long term organizational success.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Participants will be able to have a clear understanding of how hosting an online community can not only benefit the organization, but also the overall customer experience and interaction that is crucial for engaging with modern consumers.
2. Participants will have a firm grasp of how to get the gather actionable customer feedback and opinion that can shape the organization going forward.
3. Participants with the required knowledge to increase customer engagement and garner the opinions and suggestions from an organization’s most important critic: the customer.

Title:How to Attract and Retain Top Talent
Presenter: Karen Morgan, President, Morgan Search

PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Business Operations-HR

Session Description: Retaining talent is a huge challenge for companies in today’s competitive market. This presentation will address why companies lose people and offer some insights/solutions into how to change the cycle. Bridging the generation gap (millennials vs. baby boomers vs. Gen Xers etc.) will be part of this discussion. Companies are missing out on senior talent because we are such a youth driven society. Expectations of people coming into the workforce now are completely different to what they were ten years ago.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Attract and retain market research talent-best practices in holding onto talent.
2. Gain insight into how different generations approach work, how their expectations vary and how this impacts company stability.
3. Ways to bridge the generation gap that will lead to better teamwork and company stability.

 

Title: Using Ethnography Research Methods to Illuminate Online Communities
Presenter: Lisa Galarneau, Ph.D., Research Director, Intrepid Consultants
PRC: 1.25 Contact Hours in Project Management

Session Description: While ethnographic methods have been widely lauded in market research as a complement to more traditional research methods, there is often a great deal of confusion regarding acceptable parameters for a rigorous use of such an approach, particularly in more complicated digital spaces. Citing examples from a four year ethnographic research project covering one particular online community, this talk will address methodological and ethical considerations, as well as addressing the benefits of short-term studies with ethnographic aspects.

Title: Building & Maintaining a Marketing Research Sales Force
Moderator: Paul Kirch, VP Business Development, Common Knowledge
Presenters: Tim Sauer, President/CEO-Delve; Chris DeAngelis, PRC, VP Sales, Survey Sampling International; Thomas Mularz, Sr. VP, Synovate
PRC: 1.25 Business Development/Sales or Business Operations-HR

Session Description: People in every workplace talk about building the team, working as a team, and my team, but few understand how to create the experience of team work or how to develop an effective team. Belonging to a team, in the broadest sense, is a result of feeling part of something larger than oneself. This experienced panel will discuss how they have developed, managed, and maintained some of the top sales teams in the marketing research profession.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Identify best practices to hire, train, and motivate a highly effective sales team.
2. Understand the various ways sales teams can be compensated; the structure of commissions and bonuses and other financial incentives.
3. Learn how to assign territories, key accounts and prospects.

Title: General Session: Anatomy of a Market Research Project—A Working Laboratory
Presenter: Ed Sugar, PRC, VP, On-line Communications; Jon Last, VP Corporate Marketing & Research, The Golf Digest Companies
PRC: 2 Client/Supplier Interaction or Project Management

Session Description: The relationship between research supplier and client/end user is critical to the overall success of a market research project and to the ultimate ROI of the marketing organization. In this hands-on workshop, end-users and suppliers will partner to reach effective solutions to a real-life case study. The process and its results will provide unique insights to all of the key players in identifying and accounting for the critical success factors tantamount to a successful research project.

Goal of Workshop - To provide attendees the opportunity to collaborate in developing solutions for a market research-based case study.

Learner Outcomes:

1. Participants will gain a greater appreciation of the interdependent roles of end user and research supplier as well as the issues that confront both client and supplier in executing a successful market research project.
2. Participants will gain practical, hands on experience in solving real life research project issues, gaining the perspectives of all involved in the ultimate success or failure of the project.
3. Participants will tap into the collective experience and expertise of local and nationally prominent research clients and suppliers to better understand the dynamics of successful project management.