Author Archives: Zontziry (Z) Johnson

About Zontziry (Z) Johnson

Z's passion is learning about and sharing best practices and new trends in market research (MR), from writing the best questionnaire possible to crafting a story that will resonate with stakeholders. Follow her musings on the MR industry on Twitter (@zontziry).

The (sluggish) speed of insights

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I know it’s been quite some time, but some conversations recently have re-energized my passion for making waves in this industry that used to be called Market Research, sometimes still is, but to make ourselves feel more current, we’ve now started referring to ourselves as being “in insights.” As maybe you can tell, I’m feeling a modicum of frustration with… Read more »

Season 2: Ep 1 – A Bunch of Research Types

Late June, Kristina and I recorded an episode where we talked about the future of the MRxplorer podcast. In that episode, we shared that we would be looking for people to share their stories and experiences of being BIPOC in market research. We then took a summer break in part for our sanity, in part to allow ourselves time to… Read more »

Reflection, Resources, and the Future of MRXplorer

We’ve been doing a lot of learning, listening, and self-evaluating the past few weeks with the renewed emphasis on systemic racism in the world. We wanted to share some of our fledgling thoughts and actions, and our decision for where this podcast is going to focus next.

Catching up with the Joneses

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gold colored figure among a sea of white figures

Do we really need to saturate the market research supplier field with lookalikes, where every firm is a “full, end-to-end service” firm but without any real differentiation?

The blog goes pod (and digital nomad thoughts)

I published my first podcast a few weeks ago! It’s short, hopefully both entertaining and thought-provoking. You can find the episode titled Digital nomadery and market research on Anchor, and eventually on all podcast services. In fact, I think it’s hit all of the services by now (iTunes, PocketCast, etc.). However, completely unscientific Twitter survey says most would rather read… Read more »

Z’s IIeX NA 2018 Memory Book

A few years ago, I started this blog and started becoming active on Twitter (@zontziry), where I quickly found the hashtags #mrx and #newmr, and I connected with and was continually inspired by market research influencers like Annie Pettit, Jeffrey Henning, Ray Poynter, JD Deitch, Kristin Luck, Lenny Murphy, and many more. I was new on the Twitter scene, new… Read more »

What ONE skill do you need to succeed in market research?

If you had to cite ONE skill that market researchers need to be successful long-term, what would it be? Knowing how to discover someone’s actual business question? Consulting? Analytics? Big data? Here’s my answer: learning. I recently listened to someone talk about shifting their organization from IQ to EQ to LQ: intelligence to emotion to learning. He described the way… Read more »

AI: the dream vs the reality

Artificial intelligence has received a ton of attention lately, along with other forward-looking technologies like blockchain, microtech, etc. I recently had the pleasure of listening to a talk about AI that felt far more realistic than most talks, and I found my dreamer self battling it out with my practical self. Suddenly, I thought, “Oh, that would be a great… Read more »

Mobile and Market Research

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I’m going to eventually write a post about my 18-month journey to taking a tracker from mobile unfriendly to device consistent. That’s not this post. This post is about the terminology being used when discussing surveys that are being adapted for mobile and a lesson I’ve recently learned about how we use these terms thinking we all understand each other,… Read more »

Why do YOU love market research?

Did you know not all market research is created equal? Of course you did. But did you know that not all market research ROLES are created equal? I’ve been considering this lately as I’ve been evaluating my career, what I’ve done, what I want to do, what drives my passion. Like so many others in market research, I happened upon… Read more »