Data Gurus

Welcome to another informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Today, Sima is happy to have Singe Deakins joining her on the show. Singe is the London-based CEO and Founder of CitizenMe. In this episode, Singe shares his background and talks about how the ecosystem is changing and shifting data processing out to the edge. He also discusses how Citizen Me is combining economic impact with social value, bringing more civility to the internet, and helping people to manage their data and choose what they want to do with it. Singe’s background Singe has a background in digital innovation that goes back about two decades. He spent the early days of his career putting newspapers online and helping British Airways get their booking systems online. In about 2000, he started using multi-digital channels and using mobile at the center of everything. Asia He spent the next twelve years in Asia, based in Singapore, doing open internet work. He helped several hundred million individuals get on the internet with th

Welcome to another exciting and informative episode of the Dara Gurus podcast! Sima is excited to have Katie Gross as her guest for today’s podcast! Katie is the Chief Customer Officer at Suzy. In this episode, Katie discusses her background. She also shares her secret to being a successful woman and talks about what Suzy is doing to help and empower companies. Humble beginnings Katie grew up in Plymouth, England. Her mother wanted Katie and her siblings to have everything she did not have, so she insisted that all her children had the best education possible. Meeting different people Katie met people from different places and different walks of life when she was at university. Being surrounded by smart and ambitious people opened her eyes to exciting new possibilities for the future. Entering the market research space Katie got into the market research space partly by choice and partly accidentally. She studied psychology and criminal justice at university and came out of that with an SPSS skill set.

Welcome to another interesting and informative episode of the Data Gurus Podcast! Today, Sima is happy to have Richard Thornton joining her. Richard used to work at CINT, and he recently founded an advisory services business. In this episode, Richard shares his career journey. He also talks about taking risks, his mindset, and his core beliefs. Stay tuned to hear more! Richard’s journey Richard studied Business and Marketing at university. After that, he joined a business that served hardware and software players in the imaging space, like Hewlett Packard, Xerox, and Canon. He worked as a research analyst, supporting a team delivering content and insights around subscription syndicated services. That exposed him to working with data. He saw the value that data-driven insights could bring to organizations and gained a toolkit that he utilized extensively later in his career. After spending four years there, he moved on and became a consultant. Entering the market research industry In 2003, Richard fell

Welcome to another exciting and informative episode of the Data Gurus Podcast! Sima is delighted to have Lisa Wilding Brown, the CEO of Innovate MR, joining her today as her guest for the podcast. In this episode, Lisa talks about her journey to becoming a CEO, building confidence, the importance of role models and culture, and what the future holds for market research. Lisa’s journey Like many others, Lisa had no intention of getting into market research. After accidentally falling into the industry almost twenty years ago, she quickly got hooked! She started as a project manager of an online research team and then moved over to the panel team, where she worked closely with the survey methodology team researching research. She got to know a lot about methodological implications and learned how to do things the right way. In 2009, she moved to uSamp. Moving from a large global traditional research firm to a tech startup with only a few employees was an uncomfortable change. In 2014, Lisa joined Innovate

Welcome to another interesting and informative episode of the Data Gurus Podcast! Sima is excited to have Bob Fawson, the EVP of Business Strategy at Dynata, joining her today. In this episode, Bob and Sima cover several hot topics related to challenges within the industry around data and sampling. Bob Fawson’s background Bob has an academic background. Before getting his Ph.D., he decided to take a break for a while and work. So Bob applied for a sales job at a research company. He enjoyed the experience, and after a short time, he and a few others in the research company started a panel business. They grew the business. It merged with SSI, which merged with another company to later become Dynata. Bob has played various interesting and fun roles in the company over the years, from sales and operations to research science. Most of his career has been in building and maintaining Dynata’s supply. What’s driving the data and sampling segment of the industry?  Several things are driving the data and sampling

Welcome to another exciting and informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Today, Sima shares Part 1 of Investing in Research, a panel discussion about agencies from the recent WIRe (Women in Research) Conference. In this discussion hosted by Nikki Lavoie, experts Sima Vasa, Sherry Fox, and Elaine Riddel talk about one of the prominent myths currently circulating in the insights industry. According to that myth, only tech and SaaS-based companies receive investment funding. The panel of experts will explain why that myth is untrue and clarify how service-based companies can begin to access investment funding if they wish to do so. The experts  Sherry Fox is a career Global Insights Strategist focused on health care. She is well-versed in strategic brand development and regulatory environments. Sherry is an industry expert and futuristic thinker who can facilitate collaborations leading to the growth and acquisition of service companies. She has also founded future health strategies to leverage the inte

Welcome to another exciting and informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Sima is excited to have Ted Pulsifer, the Executive Vice President of Enterprise Solutions at the Schlesinger Group, as her guest for today’s show. In this episode, Ted talks to Sima about his career, his panel discussion at SampleCon, asking the right questions, and incentivizing people to do research surveys. Ted’s career journey Ted’s started his career in the technology space, working for large companies like General Electric and AOL, and then he spent a year working in the wine business. After that, he was recruited into market research by a company called Peanut Labs that did a lot of real-time sampling through applications on Facebook. He was later part of an acquisition into the company now known as Dynata, after which he moved to Federated Sample, now known as Lucid. In 2014, he joined Market Cube as a partner. They successfully exited and sold the business to Schlesinger early in 2020. Advantages Ted experienced many

Today, Sima is excited to bring you an encore episode in which she has a conversation with Mario Carrasco. Enjoy the show! Multi-cultural research, strategy, and understanding is what Sima and Mario Carrasco, Co-Founder and Principal of ThinkNow Research, chat about on today’s podcast. Mario worked in the early days of digital marketing, building online communities for MSN Latino, and didn’t know what a research panel was until researching it for a job interview for a closer-to-home job. He got his start in market research building what became the first national representative panels at Garcia Research. As research numbers started pointing to the US becoming a minority-majority country in the near future, Mario realized there was a need for a market research company to be focused on multi-cultural consumers, and this is how his ThinkNow Research came about. Mario is also the newest Board Member to join the SampleCon team! HISPANIC MARKET RESEARCH, THEN AND NOW In the early days of market research, partic

Sima is excited to share an encore episode she did with Menaka Gopinath, Lead of Social Intelligence and Communities at Ipsos, in which they sit down to discuss the use of social media in social intelligence to help answer business questions. OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM As the market has matured with social intelligence, there’s a lot of amazing things happening in the social intelligence realm for insights, but it’s not being leveraged as broadly it could be. On the flip side, the people who are using social listening tools across the board in marketing and digital functions probably could be getting a lot more insight out of it. The data is already available, but there’s so many ways to use it more strategically. DEFINING SOCIAL INTELLIGENCE This can be many things to many people, but from the perspective of Ipsos, it’s about leveraging the datasets for insights. From a classic research sense, most clients are using a social listening tool and at the baseline they are listening to what people are say

Today, we’re excited to be airing an encore episode of an interview with Vivek Bhaskaran, who is the founder and CEO of QuestionPro. He's here today to share his experience bootstrapping QuestionPro. About Vivek Vivek grew up in India. After completing his primary education there, he left the country and moved to Russia, where he lived from 1995 to 1997. When he left Russia, he moved to the United States, and there, he obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science from Brigham Young University in Utah. Founding QuestionPro After obtaining his Bachelor’s Degree, Vivek moved to Seattle, and he started QuestionPro in 2005. He has never raised any capital for the business from outside investors, and he has managed to build his company up by himself, slowly, over time. What QuestioPro does QuestionPro started as a survey platform, and currently, it serves as both a survey platform and as an experience management platform. Over the last couple of years, the company has turned upmarket, and Vivek has identified

Welcome to another informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Today, Sima shares the second part of the two-part series related to her recent opening session at SampleCon. The session was titled Future-Proofing Our Industry and covered a range of different topics. For this episode, the focus is on the implications of the capital coming into the industry, user engagement, proving the process of user engagement, and some key lessons learned by the esteemed members of the panel, both personally and professionally, related to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. The panel includes Patrick Comer, the CEO and Founder of Lucid, Bob Fawson, EVP of Business Strategy for Dynata, Mario Carrasco, the Co-Founder and Principal of ThinkNow, and Rebecca Brooks, the Founder, and CEO of Alter Agents. The industry  Over the last several years and even more over the last twenty months, the amount of capital coming into the market has increased. Mergers and acquisitions have also increased, and the ecosystem appears to ha

Welcome to another informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Today, Sima shares the first part of a two-part series she created from the session she moderated at SampleCon, which took place in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. The session was titled Future-Proofing Our Industry and covered topics that included talent topics related to how people will return to work, supply topics, and market dynamics. The panel includes Patrick Comer, the CEO and Founder of Lucid, Bob Fawson, EVP of Business Strategy for Dynata, Mario Carrasco, the Co-Founder and Principal of ThinkNow, and Rebecca Brooks, the Founder, and CEO of Alter Agents. What work looks like for the next six to twelve months Rebecca: Alter Agents had an easy transition to working full-time remotely during the pandemic. Their staff also doubled during that time. They decided to allow their lease to lapse at the end of June 2021 and keep on working remotely. It has been challenging not to have the usual opportunities to interact and chat with colleague

Welcome to another exciting and informative episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Sima is excited to have Mike Stevens, the Founder of Insight Platforms, as her guest for today’s show.  Mike is joining Sima today to talk about his company, Insight Platforms, and discuss the changes happening in the data and insights space. About Insight Platforms Insight Platforms was originated as a directory of platforms for insights, software, and data tools, across the spectrum of market research, UX research, CX research, and analytics. The Genesis of Insight Platforms Mike has always worked in the intersection between insight, marketing strategy, and technology. The genesis of Insight Platforms was Mike’s consulting business, where he did lots of advisory work around digital transformation. A surprising number of new startups were happening in that space, so he built a directory. Mike’s background In the late 1990s, Mike started his career working in a niche boutique marketing strategy consulting business, helping peopl

Welcome to Part Two of an exciting two-part series on the future of work. Today, Sima continues her conversation with Kelly Monahan, the Thought Leadership Research Principal Director at Accenture Research. In this episode, Kelly and Sima discuss the different models that companies are considering, to bring people back into the office, create hybrid models, or go completely remote. Going back to the traditional model Some employers think they might encourage their employees to go back to the traditional model by compensating them with higher pay. Others are considering paying their employees less if they do not return to the office. A rational economic move Incentivizing people to work in less than preferred conditions was a rational economic move that was popular in the late 1970s. Henry Ford was a master of that tactic. In the short term In the short term, there will be a segment prepared to work in terms of an incentive to maintain an old paradigm. In the long run In the long run, however, it will not

Welcome to the first part of an exciting two-part series on the future of work. Sima is happy to have Kelly Monahan, the Global Lead Talent Researcher/ Principle Director at Accenture, joining her as the guest for the series. Research on the future of work Accenture took an in-depth look at the future of work. They wanted to understand what people need and feel today. So they went out and looked at more than 9300 global workers across ten different industries and ten different countries to represent a global workforce. Similar sentiments They had within their data set 70% workers and 30% leadership. So they could make some comparisons. They found that most people, workers and leaders alike, had similar sentiments. Predicting They wanted to predict what was causing people to feel a certain way or make them want to go back on site. How people are feeling about work Some people were optimistic and energized, but the majority were somewhere in the middle and or negative. Disgruntled people A third of the peo

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Today, Sima is happy to have Josh Chasin, the Chief Measurability Officer of Videoamp, as her guest for the show. Josh’s career journey Josh is an audience measurement professional in the world of market research. He has specialized in both media research and audience measurement and has always viewed his career as living at the place where research and marketing overlap. His first job was as a number-cruncher at Arbitron while he was still in college. He then moved on to a full-time job in Arbitron’s Statistical Services department. He was also studying marketing and doing an MBA, which enabled him to get a job as Arbitron’s Manager of Market Development. Learning from the best Josh spent his first seven years at Arbitron gaining a solid grounding and learning sample design from some of the best people in the business. Then he spent another seven years working for their advertiser agency group in marketing, positioning their services to the buy

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Data Gurus podcast! Today’s episode is a little different. Sima will be focusing on people, or founders, who are considering selling their company. In today’s episode, Sima hosts John Sipala, one of her colleagues at Oberon Securities. John is a Managing Director at Oberon Securities and has more than 25 years of experience in investment banking. The market right now Private equity firms want to be in the market and are looking for companies, so there is a lot of dry powder in the market right now. Many tech companies are performing very well coming out of Covid. Selling is not simple When the market is very active, people start thinking about selling. When talking to the founders of companies, John initially asks them why they want to sell and why they want to sell now. That tells him whether they have thought things through, whether they truly want to sell, and if they need to raise capital. Often, the founders don’t understand that selling will require them to g

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Data Gurus Podcast! Today, Sima is happy to have Tim Wilson as her guest for the show. Tim is the CEO and Co-Founder of Qutee. Tim’s journey After attaining a legal degree in the UK, Tim went to music school in Hollywood. He later returned to the UK, received some funding for a record label, and ended up touring with bands like Def Leppard and Alice Cooper and releasing some records. In 2009, after gambling with a few commercial projects in the UK, Tim moved to New York. Then, in 2012, he and his business partner acquired some NLP technology and embarked on a slow process of looking for areas where they could use the technology in unique ways. A comments platform They built a comments platform over the following two years. It was a simple yet ground-breaking plug-in to filter user’s comments. It could be used to listen, help engagement, and have smarter conversations with more insights. A survey tool They also built a survey tool that was used with some major heal

Welcome to another exciting episode of the Data Gurus Podcast! Today, Sima is happy to welcome Anton Umnov, the VP of Consumer Insights and Partnerships at Drop Technologies Inc., as her guest for the show. Anton’s journey to where he is today Anton started working in the consumer insights and data space about ten years ago. He spent a long time at Nielsen Data Analytics, where he had many engagements on the client-side with various experiences across multiple categories. Then, about a year ago, he joined Drop. Data analytics and consumer research Anton loves data analytics and consumer research. He particularly enjoys the intersection between data and research. Drop Drop is a consumer app with about four million users based primarily in the US and Canada. It is a downloadable platform that focuses on driving loyalty rewards and value for the clients, users, or consumers. Apart from getting great deals, shoppers can also get rewarded for doing surveys and playing games. Why Drop is different   You can con

In this exciting episode, Sima is excited to have Nitzan Shaer, the CEO, and Co-Founder of Wevo, joining her. Nitzan’s background Wevo is the fourth company that Nitzan has either started or joined early on. He loves the thrill of joining a team of like-minded people in the early days of a new venture. Skype was among the companies that he joined early on, which were all in the space of trying to help consumers solve a big problem. Wevo The context for Wevo got formulated while Nitzan was with Skype. He started thinking about other industries where the cost-per-minute was very expensive, and reducing the costs would make them more efficient. A nightmare At Skype, they wanted to understand more about their customers, but it was too expensive. It was also a nightmare to collect user research to know which products to build and which features to improve. The background for creating Wevo Wanting to listen to their customers more, and knowing they were in an industry where costs could get reduced dramatically,