Ginny Valentine Badge of Courage Award…..

Last Monday I told you about the award we won the week before from the Market Research Society……

The MRS judges said, for their award:

“After seeing hundreds of sessions at Conference over the years, this is one of the few we will never forget and we suspect most others attending felt the same.”

well it didn’t stop there….I couldn’t mention it at the same time as we were all sworn to secret squirrel lips until it was announced in America at the ceremony on Monday evening their time.

It always seem strange and sad, when there’s been such a tragedy as there was last week, with the Tower block fire, that life, for those not affected, goes on as normal. Many were affected and their lives are put on hold and changed, whereas life around continues as normal……….😔

We (Lisa Edgar me and the MRS) have won the 2017 Ginny Valentine Badge of Courage Award – Ginny was a real pioneer in research and was known all over the world. “she challenged traditional market research and evangelised for the adoption of new thinking to improve the discipline.”
She sadly died a few years ago and her family set up this award for people who do something different, interesting and brave in research – and they are awarding us for giving a voice to an issue that normally goes unheard.

I know, many of you might be saying that we’re always talking about stuff, but in the market research world it’s relatively new. I also realised we’ve got the award for ‘seldom heard’ groups, but we’re actually ‘seldom listened’ to, so at least we’re making inroads into a new set of people who have influence.

Results can be seen here:

https://www.research-live.com/article/news/mrs-kantar-tns-and-cando-among-ginny-valentine-winners/id/5023792

They did ask if we could go over to Atlanta to receive the award 😳 but thankfully we decided against the idea as it was an awfully long way to go just for an award, nice as it might have been.

If I sow seeds into the minds of those who have power to influence change, then it makes all the hassle worthwhile.

I also gave you a link that didn’t work on Monday, so for those interested here’s one that does as this was the research that won us the award:

http://www.the-big-window.com/thebigmovies.html

Who would have thought that a diagnosis of dementia could lead to such opportunities. Just goes to show how it’s simply the start of a different life, and like anything, you have to work at it.