WWWF in Media City

This year's Weird and Wonderful World of Field conference was held in Media City, Manchester, and it proved to be the perfect place for a gathering of fieldworkers in the industry.

Hosted by Acumen Fieldwork, the event included a wide range of guest speakers with an insightful keynote by Jo Fairley (founder, Green & Black’s chocolates). Jo was supported with talks from across the market research industry: Daniel Nolan (The E-Word) on the importance of social media, along with presentations about
consumer ‘happiness’ from Karen Schofield (Join the Dots), Dominic Box (Tangible Branding) on ‘DIY Research’ and the dangers of censorship in the research industry from Neil McPhee (Nuance Research).

There were many other impressive and motivational sessions, too, and I think we all gained some useful information about how to be more confident at networking events and how to be the best you can be.

The evening social event was a rare chance for fieldworkers to meet each other; bridging the gap between recruiters and fieldworkers with drinks flowing and a backdrop of live music, courtesy of local Manchester Band ‘Wired Duo’. They played some fantastic Northern covers that had everyone boogying!

Field managers don’t get many opportunities to leave the comfort of the office so it was a welcome break to meet like-minded people and listen to interesting and inspiring speakers. WWWF…. See you next year!

Soula Foster
Field manager, Jigsaw Research

This article was first published in InBrief magazine, December 2015
Copyright © Association for Qualitative Research, 2015