David Smith will be running a seminar entitled Every picture tells a story at the BHBIA Annual Conference 2013 on the art of combining storytelling in business with using powerful visuals to get over the central message. No one wants to be overloaded with ‘data that poses a cognitive problem’. Today everyone wants ‘instant visual […]

David Smith gave a presentation at the IOD about ‘Why CEOs need to know their customers better than they know themselves’. His theme was the importance in the future of CEOs and senior directors, championing customer insight, within their organisation, if it is to be effective in driving business growth and profitability. Copies of David’s […]

Not too long ago market researchers were being lambasted for presenting their research process rather than integrating the evidence into a compelling narrative that would ensure their message for senior decision-makers ‘sticks’.  It is an easy habit to get into: we are all initially much more comfortable presenting different ‘blocks’ of desk, qualitative and quantitative […]

How the educational sector is responding to this difficult challenge The graduate who can thrive in larger organisation positioned in the comparatively protected and ordered primary labour market is not necessarily someone who will be able to survive in the more uncertain, complex and volatile secondary labour market where smaller entrepreneurial companies are to be […]

The arrival of mass graduate education against the backdrop of a dwindling number of ‘quality’ jobs In the early 1970s around 15% of the school leaving cohort went into higher education, compared to over 40% today.  Thirty years ago graduates in the UK had the choice of joining numerous businesses with substantial workforces, many of […]

Over the last month or so I have visited Universities in Georgia, USA, Milan, Italy and London, UK, to talk about the future of, and careers in, the customer insight industry.  This has been in my role as the ESOMAR UK representative, now Council Member, and as someone who has always been closely involved with […]

David Smith published an article in the latest issue of Market Leader Magazine. To read his thoughts, open the PDF ‘Consumer Research: The Perfect Storm’ or read it on the Market Leader website.

Will Hutton in his seminal book The State We’re In developed the idea of a ‘30/30/40 Society’, referring to 30% of adults being unemployed or economically inactive, 30% being in jobs but with extremely unsecure tenure and few benefits and opportunities, leaving only 40% in employment that offered security and prospects. Since Hutton published his book in […]