GreenBook Future List Spotlight: Alyona Medelyan

Where do you see the future of insights heading in the next 10 years?

More and more people are becoming data literate, whether it’s understanding charts, relying on data rather than intuition or understanding the limitations of data. We will continue to see an increase in data literacy in the next 10 years and with that an increase in the quality of insights derived from data. At the same time, the availability of data and how it is shared will continue to rise. This involves both structured (how many people died of the coronavirus) and unstructured data (things people said on Twitter about the coronavirus). Natural Language Processing will get more and more accurate at capturing themes in unstructured data, meaning that we will be able to drive deeper insights (the emotional and social impact of coronavirus in different segments of the population).

What challenges do you see facing newer MRX professionals as technology advances?

Technology is becoming central to how most industries operate. As an MRX professional, your main challenge is to stay on top of innovations: What kind of tools, solutions, and technologies are being created, what are their benefits, how they are different from each other. In a way, you need to not only be an expert in market research, but also an expert in technology. It is challenging, but if you don’t stay up to date, the way you conduct research will become obsolete. Here are 3 practical steps you can do today to keep up:

1. Find a community of peers to exchange tips and ideas. You are welcome to join our LinkedIn group Insights for CX and Products.
2. Find role models in your industry who are doing things well and start following them on social media
3. Get demos of various solutions and ask for case studies

What’s a fun fact about yourself that would surprise people to know?

During my Ph.D., I had published a popular open-source solution called Maui. Maui could read a set of documents and automatically categorize them by topic according to a taxonomy. In many cases, it could do it better than people. Before I started the customer insights solution Thematic, I was consulting for companies who used Maui and wanted to extend it in various ways.

One day, I got a request from NATO. Turns out they employ hundreds of scientists. Maui could analyze their publications and the knowledge of who and how many have published about a topic that could enhance the collaboration between scientists. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to work together because NATO can only work with companies from NATO countries and I lived in New Zealand at that time.

Outside of insights, what are your passions and interests?

I’m passionate about gender equality. I’d like to see more women being financially independent and empowered to make their own decisions. In order to achieve this, we need more women in leadership roles, more women in tech, and more women starting their own companies. I’m actively trying to contribute by running my own company and putting myself out there. If I can do it, so can you! I’m also hiring women and trying hard to support and coach women on my team.