I attend 3-5 research conferences a year. If I am lucky, 1 per year turns out great. What makes a conference great?
I know it is great when I leave thinking about many of the things I am facing at work and challenging myself on different ways of approaching them. It is great to feel re-invigorated to do my best and before I fall back into the grind be able to decide how to make adjustments to what I am doing that make a meaningful difference.
CRC 2016 was a great conference. Here are four key takeaways with the biggest impact for me.
- Bring a brick, not a cathedral - Learning teamwork through engaging in activities works. More importantly, the activities we did I can use. Second City at CRC was a hit. Many of the people left the session wanting more. Many of us talked about how to translate it back to what we do. I have listed out some of the basic concepts as well as activities done and a few teams I work on are going to be doing some active learning.
- Prescriptive Neuroeconomics - I did not know Baba Shiv before his keynote. Now I do. His discussion on reducing stress and improving as a leader is going to help me get better. His diagram of factors influencing mindsets is currently drawn on the white board in my office and there will be a more permanent solution soon.
- Research logistics - Since I lead our marketing I listen intently for key words to use to better describe my business. Pratiti Raychoudhury and Mark Kershisnik used the term, “Research logistics”. That combined with other speakers and conversations reinforced my vision for our position in the research industry and helped me with how to communicate what makes us different.
- MRA – Talk to anyone that has been around the MRA for a few years and they will all say that they get more out of it then what they put in. I am beginning to see this come true and I only started volunteering my time recently. Now I am reinforced to continue and do more as the opportunity presents itself.
Thank you to everyone that contributed to this great conference. I look forward to many of these to come.
