"Am I qualified to be here?" That thought whispered in my mind as I picked up my badge at QRCA's Annual Conference in Philadelphia. The familiar voice of imposter syndrome was making itself known, but what I discovered over the next few days would transform how I view my place in the qualitative research community.

In The New Rules of the Road, Dan Khan explores how the traditional media business model has broken down in light of the Internet revolution. As distinct media channels have transitioned to disorder, Khan observes: “We have both more control and less leverage over how our messages reach the masses — and what happens once they do.” His years of industry experience allow him to provide brand managers with a roadmap for navigating the digital shift.

Alright, let's dive into this. Basically, what I’m saying in this post is that these days, pharma companies are drowning in data, but just having oceans of numbers isn't going to cut it anymore. To really get ahead, you need strategic insights. Think of it like this: data is just the ingredients, but insights are the recipe that tells you how to actually cook up something useful.

Quality data is the lifeblood of our industry and the foundation for insights. Currently, the industry is wrestling with a number of threats to quality data, including AI, bots, bad actors, and fraud. Unfortunately, the industry is also dealing with self-inflicted challenges, including insufficient panel management, poorly designed and lengthy surveys, an ineffective application of sampling technology, and ultimately a poor participant experience. While we recognize the need for improvement, we understand the variables at work and can solve for these concerns.

Brands often develop personas as a way to keep customer characteristics top-of-mind as they consider communication and innovation efforts. In some situations, these personas are developed via qualitative research or internal knowledge/hypotheses about customers. When personas are identified in this way, one question we are often asked is ‘Now that we’ve defined these personas, can we build a typing tool to find and size them among our target audience?’

Last year, two people very close to me experienced significant health events. One underwent a heart transplant, and the other faced a prostate cancer diagnosis. Thankfully, both emerged on the other side with positive outcomes.