Navigating Innovations and Ethical Challenges

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Episode 48 was packed with valuable insights and updates. Karen and Lenny kicked things off with practical reminders about summer travel, emphasizing the importance of checking passport expiration dates. Next, they had an encouraging discussion about job opportunities through the Insights Career Network and the upcoming Business and Innovation Survey. Excitement is also building around the IIEX AI and IIEX LATAM events in Miami.

A major highlight was the growing number of partnerships in the market research industry. They explored the innovative use of synthetic samples and generative AI, while also acknowledging the challenges they present. Ethical considerations around paying research participants were another key topic, reminding us of the importance of fair compensation.

They also delved into the crucial role of data quality and the value that suppliers bring to the table.

In industry news, we covered significant changes such as Microsoft and Apple leaving OpenAI's board, Amazon developing a chatbot, E.L.F. Cosmetics launching a virtual storefront in Roblox, and Apple's intriguing plans for AirPods with cameras.

Many thanks to our producer, Karley Dartouzos. 

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Transcript 

Lenny Murphy: What's happening? There we go. We're live. It worked. Yay.

Karen Lynch: There we are.

Lenny Murphy: There we are. We're live. Hey, we timed that pretty well that time, didn't we?

Karen Lynch: I know we did good. We did good. We did just...

Lenny Murphy: Yes. After a week off, like...

Karen Lynch: I'm telling you. I'm telling you. I missed it though. That's what's interesting about this is I missed it. I don't know how you felt, Lenny, but I like these talks.

Lenny Murphy: I did. I absolutely missed it and I am fired up for today. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Fun fact, friends like Lenny and I got on just a little bit prior and we got into it right away. Cause he's like, I just got off the phone and anyway, we'll get there. We'll talk about what fired him up, but we have a bunch of other things to talk about.

Lenny Murphy: So yeah, busy week.

Karen Lynch: So I, you know, I do want to share, and this is where, um, uh, you know, before we even begin, there's a couple of green, but news items, then there's some other, you know, basic little like housekeeping things that I want to point to everyone too. But I do really want to share this PSA because summer travel is a thing, right? People are going places. We did have somebody who was scheduled to speak at our Europe event, and they didn't get to the event because their passport was within a window. It hadn't expired, but it was in a window of three months, and it needed to be three months or more. Like, it can't even be close. So, which is a different thing. Like, it should be, if you have an expiration date, you should be able to go up to the expiration date. But that being said, the PSA is, Check your passport dates, certainly if you are, you know, if you're going to speak at an event or if you're traveling from country to country for fun. And we have a link to this really cool U.S. In particular passport online beta testing for renewals. And anyway, I just want to make sure that we can all travel the way we want to travel because absolutely. You have a global audience. Lenny's like, why are we doing this, Karen? We have a global audience. And I feel like it's a PSA to people. Check your passports, renew them, keep them current. Don't be the poor person at the airport who can't get to where they're going because they didn't realize that an expiration date wasn't an expiration date. Check the guidelines.

Lenny Murphy: Yep. It happened to, uh, to Greg last year. So Greg last year, he was about to get on a plane to, yes, to go visit a client in Ireland and couldn't do it.

Karen Lynch: So, um, I see that somebody was at the airport in London and they couldn't get to us. They were literally at the airport and they could not get to us because they're like, I'm at the airport. I can't. Get through because my passport's within the three month window, which I don't know what all the windows are, but everybody just checks your passport. Like when you get off this call today, check your passport.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Check your passport. All of your ID, right? The, uh, it's important and it may become even more important in a variety of ways, which we'll get to at the end. So, uh, and I drew on top of the insights career network, which you are.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Yeah. I'm, you know, I'm, um, I'm super passionate about the Insights Career Network. You know, when they were starting up, they had asked if somebody from Green Book would represent them on the board, and I took on that role. So, you know, I'm, I stay in the know about everything that they're doing. We really try to support them any way possible. They're launching a hiring study. Karley just shared the link. And, you know, just go ahead and take that study, just, you know, do a service, do a solid service to the industry and help out an organization that is actually helping industry job seekers at a time when, you know, they really need the leg up. And, you know, lots of jobs, I don't know what their metrics are exactly, but lots of jobs have been found. And even if jobs haven't been found through that organization, the support has been offered. And that's really the biggest thing that's doing is they're giving people momentum to keep going with job searches if they need it. And they're giving an opportunity for allies to give back. So, you know, kudos to that whole team. And please, other industry folks, please take the survey. Yes.

Lenny Murphy: And just to kind of add a little reality to that, I mean, right now there are many large companies in the space that are either have been laying off or will be laying off. For a variety of reasons due to overall kind of individual company conditions. So there's a lot of folks who are looking for jobs and are going to be looking for jobs. So help everyone understand how you optimize your experience so you can be employed and people can, you know, support their families. That's what it comes down to.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah, for sure. So yeah, and speaking of surveys, let's just share what's happening next week, because it's a big deal.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, we are launching the next wave of GRIT. This is the Business and Innovation Survey. So this is the one that has the GRIT 50 in it. So that's coming. Remember, we have two waves of GRIT, one in the spring, one in late summer, early fall. The one in the spring we just published about two months ago. That's kind of the nuts and bolts of methodology usage, et cetera, et cetera. This is around, you know, innovation and, and of course the GRIP50. Please, when you see the invite, take a few minutes, participate, help us help you.

Karen Lynch:  Help us help you. Grab a cup of coffee first. If you see it in the morning, grab a cup of coffee and, you know, recognize you're doing a solitary industry by participating in that one. So yes.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah. Shout out to our friends at Forrester, who again, are providing the data collection platform. And there's other folks on the back end, but this is, this is when Forrester is doing their heavy lift. So I want to give them a shout out.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, cool. Thank you. Thank you. So yeah, so that's very exciting. Karley has the link there to the current report, if you haven't read it yet. I mean, it was, you know, we had our grit forum, the report, the spring report, you know, went out there, we had our grit forum, we presented it at both North America and EU events. And so you can see that one is available to download. So the survey next week will inform the next wave. So absolutely.

Lenny Murphy: And it's only getting more important guys that the industry is transforming quickly. And this is where we help quantify that and look at it in a deeper way. So please, please do take a few minutes to participate. We need that so we can help give you the appropriate information and guidance for your career, for your business, for your department. Yeah. All right.

Karen Lynch: Let's keep going with some shameless plugs, right? Because the other two things we just need to talk about before we get into the meat, folks, we just want to talk about two of our upcoming events and what's going on with them. So AI, our AI event, that call for speaker, Karley on the job, I love it so much. That call for speakers is active. We were going to close it today. I have talked to our marketing team and we might keep it a few more days because there are some specific things that I started to look for this week that I didn't see in the submissions. And I just encourage people to go beyond. This one we're talking about, this is beyond the basics. This needs to be, you know, really advanced thinking for this particular event. So I'm scrutinizing these submissions that come in to make sure they are moving the industry forward, not just recapping where we've been and where we are today. But this event is in October. We are going to be pushing your knowledge and making it as current as possible. So the call for speakers will probably stay open through next week. But I'm telling you, it will probably shut down Friday for sure, because we've already extended it. In that one week. So you can also register for the event. Registration opened already. We're working real time to bring a stellar agenda. At the same time, we'll be allowing people to participate. It's virtual. It will be global. We'll have participation from around the world. So it's exciting.

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, it's a great event. And again, an important topic. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, obviously. All right, one more event plug, right? Yes, LATAM. LATAM. So what's cool about LATAM is, you know, that this year we're doing it in Miami. Registration opened. That agenda is, I think we have some speakers already being uploaded. The agenda is almost shored up. We just have to work with, you know, Rafa, our partner on this to finalize that and get that up for you. But it's going to be a great event in Miami. With people coming from all over the LATAM region and also people in the U.S. Who are doing work in the LATAM region. So it'll be a cross-pollination of all things for that market, both here in the U.S., that market here in the U.S., but also that market in the world and people who are doing business there.

Lenny Murphy: Absolutely. Uh, this is near and dear to our hearts. So, uh, uh, again, where I started in Latin America. So, uh, and then we have the, uh, Rafael Cispedes, uh, Alice Karnica, you know, these folks that have been so instrumental in helping, um, and now to have it here in Miami makes it easier across the board. So, so go, if you always wanted to go, but you couldn't figure out how to go to Brazil or Peru or wherever it was. Um, now Miami in October, come on.

Karen Lynch: I know, right? It should be good. It should be good. Anyway, Okay. Actually, no, it's Miami in September, October's AI. September.

Lenny Murphy: Sorry. Miami, September. Same thing. Miami. Anytime.

Karen Lynch: It's the same. It's the same. It's the fall. Yes. It's the fall. All right. So let's get into some stuff. Um, let's get into some stuff. I really, you know, I want to talk to you about this, this, I don't know how much you know about Woxie, but, um, predictive analytics platform. And this week, I saw, and I know you did too, sort of that, you know, Zappi's in partnership with them. Then I saw Dig Insights is in partnership with them. I would not be surprised if you said to me, you know, who else announced this week that they're in partnership? So I feel like there were others in my newsfeed and I'm like, what is going on here? What are we seeing? And what do you know?

Lenny Murphy: I mean, Woxie is a forecasting platform, your approach to forecasting. Um, they think of themselves as the basic killer, um, quote unquote. Um, the leverage, yours, their words, their words, not mine. Yes. So no offense basis. But yeah, there's a lot of folks who came from that world who are leveraging data in a new way for forecasting. That's an important component for new product launches, etc, etc. They are a platform. So yes, they are integrating with other platforms. In the announcements this week of both zappi having added more kinds of the, the, the research lifecycle for folks that utilize Apply for testing. Which is more kind of front-end, you know, a little more qualitative, with qualitative elements, it makes sense to have that integration from a client standpoint, to be able to have more of a seamless process from concept into forecasting. So I think we'll see more and more of that as we move into the app ecosystem version of market research. We'll see more specialist applications that now sit and join with other solutions. Yeah, that's a partnership. We've certainly talked about that before.

Karen Lynch: Like, we're going to see more of these, you know, companies saying, let's, let's collaborate, because your offering and my offering, we're a good fit together.

Lenny Murphy: Yep. Yep. Absolutely. That is the world that we are rapidly moving into. So, uh, let me dig into this for a few seconds and it actually applies to everybody we're talking about. I mean, the world we're heading towards guys is there's the data layer and then there's the app layer on top of the data layer. That's what our industry is going to look like very quickly. It's already happening. Um, so these types of things are part of that development of the evolution of the industry. Yeah. Yeah.

Karen Lynch: You know, so speaking of evolution, I loved this article here about hot specs and growth. It's significant hot specs who happens to be, you know, so many of the people we talked about are our partners in one way or another, right, whether they are exhibitors in our booths, I mean, at our events with booths, or whether they are speakers on our stage, or whether they are writers in our, you know, commentary providers in our group report. Like, so a lot of the people we talk about are our partners. But Hot Specs, who's been, you know, a huge supporter of us recently, just posted a 48% revenue increase. So in a world where we start off this call talking about there are people losing their jobs, and we have somebody else sharing significant growth. So to what do you attribute that growth?

Lenny Murphy: Yeah, so Hospex. Yeah, Shane Skill and the CEO of Hospex is a friend, truly a friend. So they're near and dear to my heart. He's just a, he's a character. If you haven't had a chance to meet Shane, you should. Regardless of that. So there is a force of personality that cannot be, it is. I mean, Shane's very visionary and he is a hard charger go-getter. So that is a piece of it. But where the real growth, I think, came from is when they have, they have IP, their, their emotional map. And that certainly is important to understand emotional drivers of behavior. It's been productized across the research lifecycle. And then they bought an ad network, right? And so they're engaging. And that's where I think a lot of the growth has really come from, is that going from you know, testing optimization now directly in implementation from an advertising standpoint, um, for big brands. Uh, so there, uh, and, uh, I mean, they're a $60 million business now. So, uh, that's that in our space, that is significant. Uh, and they were not there a few years ago. So, so hats off to them, hats off for everybody as an example for everybody on, unorthodox thinking, right? I mean, that was just a hallmark of Shane as a CEO to think, well, why can't we own an ad network? Why shouldn't we do that? And I think we all have to think outside the box that way. You know, where do we add value? Where does it go in a data-driven world? How do we own more of the data supply chain and drive more, more, more value creation for brands? That's one way to do it.

Karen Lynch: Yeah. Well, in the Kantar partnership, Red Slim and Kantar are working together on this world panel data access, Red Slim Sprint BI. I don't know enough about that one in particular. I know a bit about Power BI, but I'm imagining it's similar dashboard for data visualization.

Lenny Murphy: Data layer and app layer. Right. I mean, World Panel has extensive data on shopper behavior, etc, etc. Moving into making that more accessible, more usable by brands. It's another revenue stream on leveraging existing information that they have. So it makes an awful lot of sense. I, you know, the way that works, and we're going to see more and more companies going that way is here's this existing data. Oh, now what, what don't we know? Or what does that make us want to understand more than you do? A research project on top of that. Then that feeds back into the data layer and that's just this synergistic virtuous cycle of data world that we are now enabled to live in.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, all of these solutions pointing towards, you know, yes, we have this data, but how do we extract insights from it? You know, how do we put the data together in such a way that helps us understand what we're seeing, right? The data is so, you know, in how you and I say all the time, like, you know, follow what other people are doing on some level and see how it applies to your business. Like, you know, That's what we're talking about here. We're talking about how you can learn from these conversations that Lenny and I are having to make informed decisions to move your business forward, so.

Lenny Murphy: Yep, and that goes to the next one, right?

Karen Lynch: Yes, yes, right? Nice segue, huh?

Lenny Murphy: Yes, Ipsos, their personal bot for enhanced segmentation studies. I think it's healthcare specific for now, but they're leveraging existing information combined with a kind of generative AI and the capabilities for that to create, you know, synthetic samples.

Karen Lynch: Um, uh, I mean, I just feel like we should just get into synthetic samples right now. I am seeing, by the way, case studies coming in for synthetic samples or our AI events. We'll definitely be digging in with some, some actual case studies. And I did just point, somebody reached out to me about the editorial and said, I have a, you know, I have a study where we used both and, uh, we're going to publish those results on the website soon enough. So, you know, it's a big, hot topic, you know, and it's, I think what's interesting about it, Lenny, is that just like generative AI was sort of like, but wait, but wait, but wait, and here we are using it. And now something's happening with synthetic samples, but wait, but wait, wait, and here we are using it, so.

Lenny Murphy: Right, right. We should be clear about the use case, right? I mean because there's so many different ways people think about this, right? Synthetic sample where you never talk to a human and it just answers all of your questions. That's one aspect And we're there for some very specific things and then there's this idea of okay. I only sample a hundred people if I'm going to use synthetics Sample, sorry to increase my end to 500 supplementing and that's one thing and that is more what Ipsos is doing which is kind of persona So it's that example from the standpoint that it is created from existing data to create these personas. I don't think that they're using it to answer research studies. They're using it as an exploratory tool in kind of an early stage, not to replace Qual, but like early exploration and discovery. To do hypothesis testing, those types of things. So still fairly confined from that standpoint. Ain't gonna be for long.

Karen Lynch: And again, I'm seeing some submissions that are more than that. So it'll be very interesting. But I think we should stick with it for a while, right? Because meeting this topic of conversation and using this as our springboard into what you were talking about on the phone earlier. I think You know, if we pay attention to the challenges that this brings up for all of us, like the big challenge of is synthetic data trustworthy and credible, then you're opening this whole can of worms about how do we define trustworthy and credible? Because guess what? Our industry has a bigger problem. And synthetic data is just a small issue in the world of issues when it comes to integrity.

Lenny Murphy: So do I get to jump up on my soapbox now?

Karen Lynch: Permission to rant.

Lenny Murphy: All right, fire it up! Yes, and let's put that in perspective, right? So we, you specifically, have been involved with the kind of exposé on Pay for Your Say that several folks have been involved with. And I had the opportunity right before this to meet with that team, as well as the Case for Quality team, and explore it even more deeply. Because what they've done with Pay for Your Say, which is, I understand, a very well-organized way for anybody to catch up, a very well-organized business and network to have people participate in fraudulent qualitative research, right? That's effectively what that is. And we already knew through some of the other work, the bot farms, et cetera, et cetera, that exist within Quant and the challenge around programmatic. But there's an in-between now. There are networks that exist for Quant that look like pay for your say. They are affiliate networks. These are businesses. Um, and not just that I, so during this conversation, I was, they took me into the discord server on pay for your say, and it's a community. These people are friends. They're helping each other. I mean, I, it's, it's just, I can't help, but kind of laugh at the ice movie.

Karen Lynch: I know, I know because what happened was, and again, Karley just shared the link to the article that, uh, we published about it, that Mickey hill. Catherine Hill and our friends at Echo MR had kind of, when I say we opened up the hood on this, they are in that community and they are seeing real time a lot of what's going on. I mean, does Des share screenshots in the Slack chat that we have all the time of this Discord server of people saying, and I read this one to Lenny and I will read it to you now. So again, hats off to Des and Mickey for continuing to keep me in the loop. This was a message that was shot out to the whole community on Discord. Important, very important message. And when I tell you, there's like police siren lights around this. This was everybody in this, and it was tagged everyone. So the entire community was getting this. When filling out surveys or screeners, never mention paid for your say. If they ask who referred you, always say one of the following, social media, direct email, or put down someone's name if somebody specifically told you about it. But they're basically coaching all of their people to not get pegged or caught or identified like they are working, working hard to protect their monetized business.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. And they are doing the same thing on the quant side, right? Um, and they're evil. Okay. So here's what I think needs to happen. Michael Collins did a great deep dive in understanding the ecosystem, which includes most of the panel providers. Now I want to be 100% clear here. I am not blaming any panel company for this. So people found, it's Maslow's hierarchy, right? Folks have a need. Um, many of these people are overseas. They, they, you know, in, in a dollar makes a big damn difference to them. Right. So, um, so they have a need, they're finding a way to address their financial needs. That can address other things, take the ethics out of it, right? That's the bottom line issue. Let's recognize that they found, uh, uh, vulnerabilities could be exploited systemically in our ecosystem. And so the panel companies are as much a victim as this as anybody else. And I want to make that 100% clear. But you cannot talk about this without talking about the panel companies. And I'm not going to get into that right this minute. That conversation is going to occur. We'll figure out what that needs to look like, But it is widespread. And this is the soapbox part. And I almost dropped an F-bomb. Because it is existential. And here's why data layer app layer, right? The contamination factor is no longer isolated to a single damn project.

Karen Lynch: Right. Right. And you cannot, there isn't anybody that can say that they are not, you know, that they are like, no, no, we are in lockdown. This is not our thing, unless we have those, you know, those internal panels that are protected and that have been carefully curated. Maybe they have permission to say it hasn't been gamified yet. But if you're getting, you know, a sample, if you are, You know, if you are recruiting, I mean, Isaac was talking so much about the steps that they have to take at Sago to make sure that people are not coming from these types of sources. Anyway, it's just everywhere and everybody is touched by it. Community shares a list of so many players in the industry from a quality standpoint, and they don't know that they're in these communities. But that also doesn't, if you don't know, it doesn't give you permission at this point to say, well, I'm not, I'm not affected by this. You likely are. I think everybody needs to assume that this is in their ecosystem and they need to, they need to deal.

Lenny Murphy: It is. And let's, so the rule of thumb, on the quant side is roughly 30% of all samples are contaminated. It's fraudulent in one form or fashion. And it can be far higher than that. And for some studies, knowing that I'm gonna oversample by 30% and I'm gonna throw it out because it doesn't cost me much to do that, I get it. That is an okay business decision. But not if you're integrating that if you're integrating that into an LLM, that internally your organization is building out to synthesize this information to create your own synthetic sample, your own personas internally to help do early stage exploratory research. That risk of a contaminant being in there is now infinitely worse. Then what it could be in just, you know, that I've got 30% of my sample and I've pulled it out. You know, this is an existential issue to a far larger degree than anything else we can think of. And here's the shout out to brands, right? Yes, cheaper, faster, better, got it. So, but you're going to have to pay more for quality samples.

Karen Lynch: You have to start paying people.

Lenny Murphy: We do because of these people, yes. Right. And we, we have to, and we, we, we have to understand. Consumers have no obligation to participate in research. They do it because it is meeting some need for them, either financial, social, interest level, you know, there is some desire. Generally, it's going to be financial because time is money.

Karen Lynch: Thing about the ethics of it all, because I think it would be really easy to get preachy about like, oh, but people, you know, people are, are, you know, blah, blah, blah. But if you, listeners, audience, people paying attention, or anybody who has ever seen somebody say, hey, can you vote for my dog in this most popular dog competition? Or like, you know, like, You know, like we sometimes do things to help somebody else out. And so this is just a different type of example of that. Like sometimes the lines get blurry for individuals. Who is making decisions? And if you go to the very basic level to what Lenny was saying before about there are individuals who I think that actually pay for your say group, I think they were in the states and so much of their community was because they're participating in personal focus groups in the states. These are people who are trying to earn money. Going back to the Insights Career Network, there are people who are trying to just earn a living. Get some extra income in or get some income in, pay some bills, provide for their families, do what they can, maybe have a better week at the grocery store. Like people's motivations aren't necessarily to do wrong. Their motivations are actually not bad. They're just misguided, right? And then, then, you know, gaslighted into thinking this is all okay. So, so, so, So we shouldn't be throwing, I guess my point is we shouldn't be throwing stones at anybody for doing this. We should meet the basic need that's being called out and say, yes, we're going to have to pay not only for data quality measures, so hats off to all the companies doing that work, right, and who are really, really digging in, but also start paying participants or at least incentivizing them or at least expecting less of them. You know, when we talk about internal research that we may be doing here at Green Book, I'm like, let's not ask people without something that they're going to get in return. They have to be able to get something for their time, because people have worth. Great.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, I agree 1000%. Preach it, Sister Karen, preach it.

Karen Lynch: Well, I just think, yeah, we're all people.

Lenny Murphy: Yes, we're all people.

Karen Lynch: Sometimes we wonder about you. Are you really a robot, Libby?

Lenny Murphy: And we've all made questionable decisions in our, in our past for good motives, potentially.

Karen Lynch: Right.

Lenny Murphy: Um, but wrong actions. So, uh, and I think, yeah, so I'm, I'm so glad that you said that it needed to be said. And now the other piece of that is suppliers. Um, if we want to thrive in the world of synthesized data, that unlocks so much value in so many different ways, then we need to focus on delivering more value ourselves. And that is the validation for a brand to pay more. So if we limit ourselves to just this myopic thinking of this is all that we do, and it's just the project, and that's all that it is, It is hard for us to increase the value that we deliver. And therefore, it is hard to increase our pricing. Here's what I think needs to happen. So if you're a supplier, I encourage you to think about this. Look at your current project costs and put a cap on it. Then, we're not talking about increasing costs of the project. We were talking about reallocating spend within your business. So today you're probably spending a project cost on, uh, on sample, right. With, uh, a minimal amount of that truly being around incentives, depending upon the project, right. It's bigger for qual and physicians and that type of stuff. But the, um, but that probably that proportion needs to change. I see panel companies that make 80% margin, you know, 80% margin.

Karen Lynch: Yeah.

Lenny Murphy: Which means 20% right. Is going to the respondent. Yeah. Nope. That's bull shit and we need to rethink it. So we have to think of a different model that allows the business to be successful while ensuring that we are delivering value to the, the, the respondent and to our customers and focus on utilizing technology to reduce costs on the back end for data collection, while we can allocate more from a project bucket to respondents. And then fix the systemic loopholes that we have that can be exploited for fraud. There's no reason in the world that we shouldn't be able to do just what banks do and know your customer. We should be able to get ID validation and panels and do those things. There's platforms that do that. I spoke to one recently called Microblink. That's their business. There's tons of things that we can do to shore things up without uh, without driving costs back to brands, right. When it's going to be, they're going to be resistant to it because there's other options that exist for them now to get the answer to the business question. So we have to recognize that we have to play in that system and we have to think of what our value contribution is. Um, if we are going to be in the data layer, then, you know, we, we need to focus on ensuring that we're delivering quality and sorry, I told you I was fired up.

Karen Lynch: Um, No, it's just, you know, no, it's just an important conversation. And, you know, Charlie Rader, just thank you for your comment, Charlie. You know, we did this. This was at IIEX North America. This was actually a panel conversation that we had, you know, Kerry and Harrison from 10K Humans and Isaac and Mickey Hill, you know, had this panel discussion about this and are really focused on it. So I'm sure, you know, we'll link to all these people in one of our recaps and And you can always continue the conversation because we know they're passionate about it and figuring out how to stop it. And I know that, like, shout out to, we've mentioned her a lot, but Kareem Pepin, she is so on this. She just, it's like her, it's like her big thing, right? So if you want to have conversations with people who are doing some thinking and doing some work, aside from me and Lenny, who are doing this thinking all the time, like, you know, reach out to a few of these people that we are going to tag and continue the conversation, because you have to, have to take it seriously. They're too big.

Lenny Murphy: Yes. And I want us to get these other things real quick, but I want to make one more shout out. Many panel companies are aware of this. There are some companies doing good work. Right? They truly are. Some, they have limitations in some form or fashion. I mean, just as an example, right, our friends at YouGov, you know, their stock just took a hit. Why? Because their earnings are going to take a hit. Public companies have a whole other set of constraints on them and how they can allocate things. Let's recognize that. There is not a lack of desire to fix these challenges and lean into things. But there are sometimes challenges in doing that.

Karen Lynch: Lenny, if I were a brand, and I'm not, if I worked on a brand side, obviously, if I were a brand, it would be very clear to people who know me who I'd be. That's not what we're asking. If I worked for a brand, I would want to ask any new partner, what are you doing for data quality? And I would listen to their answers and decide if they're doing enough. And that would be one of the criteria for me selecting a new partner on any initiative would be, what are you doing? And then I will decide if it's enough, if I like their answer to that question. So not only start doing something, but shore up how you would answer a question like that. And, you know.

Lenny Murphy: Absolutely.

Karen Lynch: You think we can get into these other things? I do.

Lenny Murphy: I think we can run through these real quick because it's about data quality. I think we just have to give a couple of shots.

Karen Lynch: Really, all I want to talk about is Walmart.

Lenny Murphy: I know. Well, we'll get this. If you didn't know, Microsoft and Apple withdrew from OpenAI's board. That's interesting. I'm not sure exactly what to read into that. It appears to be a regulatory issue. The decentralization of big tech, I personally think it's probably a good thing that they're stepping back. They'll still partner, but it's just, it's interesting.

Karen Lynch: Yeah, it's interesting. Also, we don't have an article about it, but there was an infographic that there's a company called Superhuman that I got their newsletter from and they shared this great infographic about how Claude is kind of coming for open AI and is actually beating it right now. So it's just interesting to watch these players if nothing else.

Lenny Murphy: I used the cloud this week and I was very impressed. Um, uh, on that note, Amazon, uh, has their own chat bot menace, right? Yep.

Karen Lynch: They want to develop a rival to chat with GPT. Just think about what that means for Amazon data. Yes. Informing that LLM, because basically it has like, it gives me goosebumps. It has shopper data, shopping at media. All of it built in. So that one's going to be really interesting to watch because it's not only going to compete, but it will be taught and trained with potentially a different data set. So super interesting there, right? Data layer.

Lenny Murphy: And they have the infrastructure to support that through AWS. So yes, very interesting. All right, you talk about Walmart.

Karen Lynch: I am just excited about this article about Elf. So, okay, Lenny, Elf is a makeup brand, right? So, you know, anybody who- I have daughters, I know. Known somebody who's worn makeup. But they are testing Walmart's social commerce in Roblox. So this is like, you know, the whole idea of, you know, we've been talking about, you know, the metaverse and what's happening in there. And we've been talking about these places where people go and there's community and yes, there's, you know, companies who are doing virtual research in there, but virtual storefronts where Walmart will have a virtual kiosk selling elf cosmetics in Roblox to an audience that didn't, I feel like we just talked about them last week too. Like these are definitely coming of age consumers who will start to get used to buying in a virtual world, just putting that out there for brands. Just maybe, maybe you want to do a little more exploration in space if you're, if you're not already doing it, because it's really interesting stuff.

Lenny Murphy: And talk about data to digital platforms and talk about Walmart's world domination, but that's, yes. The conversation. All right. And last but not least, the quest for wearables, um, continues. Uh, that Apple is going to begin mass production of AirPods with cameras in 2026. So, you know, glasses, helmets, pins, AirPods, right?

Karen Lynch: AirPods are already in our, like, we don't even pay attention to the people walking around in the world with AirPods now they might be walking around taking pictures. Like that will be seamless because we've already adopted the habit of wearing iPod or wearing, you know, earbuds and AirPods. And that to me, that one's crazy.

Lenny Murphy: I think the opportunities for, uh, for ethnography is the obvious one shop alongs in the store. I mean, so many different possibilities. So, um, yeah, cool stuff, guys. I know we went over, let's, uh, let's, let's do it. It ended in 40 minutes, so we can just say we went over 10 minutes. Um, and I know I took up most of that with my rant, but I think I ran it more. You, you were, you were uplifting. I was like, you know, but

Karen Lynch: I know, I know. Well, that's why, you know, the Yin-Yang thing. So I will, spoiler to those of you who tune in weekly, I will not be here next week because I will be on a beach with my closest friend, a girlfriend of mine since seventh grade. She and I are taking a weekend away and we'll, well, normally I might sign in for this. I'm not going next Friday. So Lenny will have a guest.

Lenny Murphy: I will, I will have a guest and I'm looking forward to, uh, uh, to having them on. So, um, On that note, everybody have a happy weekend.

Karen Lynch: You all will see you all soon. And yeah, thanks for being patient with us while we ran over. Charlie, thanks for engaging live. That's always fun for us. Yes, yes, Charlie. Yeah, that's it. That's it. All right. Bye, everybody. Bye.

Links from the episode:

U.S. Passport Online Renewal Enters Beta Phase 

Insights Career Network Launches 2024 Hiring Study 

Zappi & DIg Announced Strategic Partnerships with Woxi 

Dig Insights Partners With Woxi to Establish Global, Robust Innovation Testing Platform 

Rapid Growth for Hotspex Group 

Redslim and Kantar Enhance Worldpanel Data Access 

Ipsos Launches PersonaBot for Enhanced Segmentation Studies 

Case 4 Quality 

Unveiling the Market Research Game-Changer: The Disturbing Tactics of "Paid For Your Say" 

Microsoft and Apple Withdraw from OpenAI’s Board 

Amazon Developing AI Chatbot Metis to Rival ChatGPT 

e.l.f. Tests Walmart’s Social Commerce Capabilities on Roblox 

Apple to Begin Mass Production of AirPods with Cameras by 2026