Data Gurus

Kristin Luck is a serial entrepreneur turned growth strategist. She most recently served as a partner and President/CMO of Decipher until its acquisition in 2014. Currently, she works as a growth strategy consultant specializing in non-traditional sales and marketing strategies, for early and mid-stage companies preparing for global expansion, funding or acquisition. She is consistently ranked as one of the top 100 sales and marketing experts to follow on social media. Today, she talks about growth strategies and women in marketing research. Kristin Luck - Growth Strategies for Men and Women Alike Kristin has been running Luck Collective for three years now. The growth strategy firm that caters to clients in marketing research and startups looking for opportunities to supercharge their growth. She is also the founder of the eleven-year-old Women in Research (WIRe). The non-profit organization started off as a cocktail hour for women in marketing research that became a quarterly routine. It eventually branch

Ray Poynter is the Founder of NewMR.org. He is also the author of several books and chapters about market research, a teacher, blogger, facilitator, presenter, coach, and consultant. Studies have listed him as one of the most influential leaders in the industry. In this episode, he gives an in-depth take on artificial intelligence, GDPR and so much more. Ray Poynter - Market Research Specialist Ray has spent more than 30 years in market research. At NewMR, they focus on innovative methods. They don't try to compete with others in the field. They help people to get started and to boost their presence. Difference of GDPR in Europe When it comes to General Data Protection Regulation, Ray believes that it all boils down to intent. There is nothing to worry about if you just want to do the right thing. "Anybody who is trying to do the right thing will not get into trouble." - Ray Poynter on GDPR An interesting news came that Verve, the ad tech company, is closing all of its offices in Europe. They do not believe

Philip Delvecchio is the Program Director at VentureOut, a business accelerator that works with companies from around the world. What are the market trends and what type of companies are they looking to help grow and scale? Tune in! Philip Delvecchio - VentureOut Global Business Accelerator VentureOut seeks to invest in post-seed companies who want to enter the ecosystem in New York. These companies may come from the United States or from countries abroad. "Maybe whatever you are building up until now can only get you this far. In order to take it to the next level, you have to bend yourself in a way that is very hard and very uncomfortable." - Philip Delvecchio As the Program Director, Philip helps run and manage VentureOut. At present, the foreign companies they are working mostly come from Europe. But, they are always open to opportunities from other countries. Opportunities for Partnerships Because of the robust ecosystem, VentureOut also wanted to focus on developing programs in China. And there are vari

Dr. Scott McDonald is the President and CEO of Advertising Research Foundation (ARF). Since 1936, they seek to advance the scientific understanding of advertising and marketing. Dr. Scott McDonald - The Science of Marketing For 81 years now, the Advertising Research Foundation serves as a platform for major power centers and functional groups in the advertising industry. Ad agencies, media companies, clients, as well as big social platforms are equally represented at ARF. All bring together and discuss scientific methods in marketing. "Digital continues to transform and disrupt all cultures. It continues to be something everyone is contending with both in positive and negative contexts." - Dr. Scott McDonald Job in the Advertising Industry According to Dr. McDonald, applicants are naturally attracted to companies where there is a sign of growth and money. There is also an intrinsic value on the future. He advises them to take a job that brings excitement. Also, consider filling a role that will give you the

Vin Vashishta is a data science and machine learning expert and the founder of V-Squared Data Strategy Consulting. He's built the most trusted brand in data science and machine learning around the concepts of simplicity and profitability. Data science is a field that is up and coming. There seems to be a blending of market research, consumer insights and data science. Vin Vashishta - From Gaming to Machine Learning Vin has been in technology for the past twenty-two years and the last eight in data science specifically using the modern tools and architectures. He's done everything from gaming companies to third-party distribution. In the early days, Vin was moving access databases around. he's kind of 'been there-done that' when it comes to technology. He went to school specifically for machine learning but was about fifteen years too early. It's been a long road but he's happily ended up where he wanted to be in the first place. What is a Data Scientist? If you are someone trying to come into the field, the

Today, Sima Vasa talks with Mark Kapczynski. Mark leads the retail and restaurant shopping insights at Yodlee. They provide connectivity between fintech companies - financial technology apps - and the data within financial institutions. Becuase of this connection, Yodlee gets to see consumer financial transactions and that translates into shopping behavior. Data Collection From this data, Yodlee can determine how many times do people go to McDonald's, how many times do they buy online or do they have a Pandora subscription. The transactions have date stamps but not timestamps. Potentially, Yodlee can get information online and offline depending on how the customer pays. For instance, if a customer buys something on an E-commerce site and they use their debit or credit card they can compare that to the purchases the customer makes at a brick and mortar department store. This data is used to look at the distribution of online and offline behaviors. Yodlee Taco Stand Case Study Two different Mexican fast food

John R. Leeman is the co-founding and managing director of True Customer. They provide customer-centered marketing, media, analytics, content, and eCommerce consulting that drives scalable growth. John R. Leeman - From Advertising to CMO John started in the traditional brand and advertising business. He worked in the on major brands such as Campbell Soup and General Mills and Johnson and Johnson. John then moved on to work in digital CRM and media for companies such as Microsoft, Procter and Gamble and American Express. CMO to Entrepreneur John melded his two areas of expertise together to begin work in the CMO field. His stint at Fresh Direct as chief marketing officer was an invaluable and exciting experience for him. After his work with Fresh Direct, John took the leap to entrepreneur. He co-founded True Customer in November 2013. Why the C-Suite Changes are Scary The C-Suite is always interested in optimizing the business. There is a lot of money that goes into marketing and most respect that marketing is

Andrew Konya is a computational physicist currently working on his P.hD. in chemical physics at Kent State. He is also the co-founder and CEO of Remesh, Inc.  Remesh is a platform that replaces polls and surveys with conversations to gather real-time and actionable data. They [market researchers] said what we had built lived at the interseciton of quantitative and qualitative. - Andrew Konya  Andrew Konya - Natural Conversation Andrew wanted to know how to understand a country's worth of people in real-time, in a way that you can make the decisions based on what you learned from them in order to do what is best. Half of the problem is you must do it in a way that is engaging and people want to participate. The result is Remesh built a platform that lets a single moderator hold a real-time natural language conversation with 100's or 1000's of people simultaneously. The platform analyzes all the language coming in from people in real-time and then identify verbatims that represent entire groups. Quantitative D

Erik Qualman is a #1 Bestselling Author and Motivational Keynote Speaker.  His book Digital Leader propelled him to be voted the 2nd Most Likeable Author in the World behind Harry Potter’s J.K. Rowling. Qualman is a sitting professor at Harvard & MIT’s edX labs. It's those that live like the Flintstones and the Jetsons that will get the most out of life. - Erik Qualman Empowering the World What excites Erik is people. That gives him energy. His whole goal in life is to empower, educate and entertain 7 billion people in 10 years. When he started this journey, there were 7 billion people in the world and he wants to reach everyone. Erik Qualman Living in a Digital Age Erik is currently working on a new book. It's a marriage between the digital and the offline world. Let the digital tools work for you but don't work for the tools. Don't live on your phone. "Stop, breathe and ask yourself what is the one thing I should be doing?" - Erik Qualman Managing Digital Tools Erik is passionate about what he teaches and h

Jane Clarke works in a coalition for the research of all the cable and broadcast television networks and the media buying agencies. They started with a handful of large advertisers but ended up working with the ANA. They want to fully represent the buy side and the sell side to solve the current data challenges. TV Analytics Challenges - Jane Clarke The challenges are innovating in the area of cross-media management and the second is trying to push to bring more granular measurement to television. Granular measurement has traditionally been a handful of households that have a meter in front of the television and then the people have to push buttons. It's not ideal today. Accounting for Those Challenges Viewing is very fragmented and there are 100's and 100's of cable channels and it's very hard to actually get a large enough panel that can actually represent the long tail of viewing. Census type data like SAT top box data or smart TV data are coming into the market. Jane Clarke says that the problem with th

Ravi Parmeswar is a VP at Johnson & Johnson. He's in charge of global strategic insights and analytics. He has significant experience in CPG (Consumer Packaged Goods). "The Chinese proverb 'May you live in interesting times.' we certainly are." - Ravi Parmeswar The Changing Face of Analytics Ravi's responsibilities take global strategic insights and analytics to drive insights from any source. It's a global responsibility across all of the consumer business at J&J. In the last 3 years, things have changed drastically thinking about big data. It's becoming more real for CPG. When you get access to first body data the game changes significantly. Ravi Parmeswar Personalized Analytics Ravi thinks the way marketing is moving right now is the model of more data and more personalized data. It's better to look at the landscape of data we have right now and how to better connect and how best to use that for targeted marketing. The traditional way for brand positioning marketing was using attitudinal segments. It was

The world around us is changing faster than ever before. From automation, artificial intelligence, big data, geolocation to every aspect of how we work and live. This includes DATA. Welcome to the Data Gurus Podcast with Sima Vasa...our mission is to bring you a real-life perspective on what’s happening in the industry and how successful companies and individuals in this niche navigate through the sea of change. “Encouraging you to Be Bold, Be Brave and Be Fearless - Let’s navigate the Data Ecosystem together.” - Purpose of the Data Gurus Podcast with Sima Vasa About The Data Gurus Podcast with Sima Vasa A little about me, I am not only the host of the Data Gurus Podcast with over 20 years of market research experience but I also bring a unique perspective from my experience as a market research supplier, client and an entrepreneur. Some of my positions include President, NPD Techworld and Senior Program Manager and International Business Machines (IBM).  On the entrepreneurial front, I’m the co-founder of P