The new MRII Data Analysis Award, sponsored by Infotools Harmoni, honors insights professionals who showcase outstanding expertise in analyzing market research data and delivering actionable insights. All applicants submitted a 10 page powerpoint presentation from a global dataset about tourism to New Zealand, housed on the Harmoni platform that they were asked to organize and analyze. Jo Secher from Auckland NZ earned runner-up on the award and shares about his background and experience here.
MRII: Tell us about your background. Where you live, how you got into market research, your employers today and the role you play there?
Jo: Hi, my name is Jo Secher and I got into market research in 2016 shortly after completing my PhD in psychology at the University of Otago in New Zealand. I made the move after surveying the lay of the land in academia and deciding I’d rather transition to commercial research. I currently serve as Research Manager for Whakaata Māori—formerly Māori Television—an indigenous media company based in Auckland. At Whakaata Māori we focus on producing authentic, engaging content that is relevant to our audience. In particular, we play an important part in contributing to efforts to revitalise the Māori language, which has historically suffered from suppression after New Zealand was colonised in 1840. As the in-house Research Manager I lead research projects on behalf of most departments —HR, Marketing, Digital, Acquisitions—but my primary focus is on making sure we get our content balance right. While we mainly serve Māori, the Māori community is large and diverse and it is a challenge to meet the needs of such a wide audience.
MRII: What do you particularly like/enjoy about the work you do in market research/analytics?
Jo: Research is my job, but it’s also my hobby. I’m a bit of a geek! When I was a kid I liked to plan hypothetical journeys throughout Europe (where I used to live) based on published public transport timetables. I think it comes down to having an obsession with finding things out. Sometimes people ask me questions, just in the course of a casual conversation, and when I don’t know the answer I impulsively want to research it. In a professional context I’ve learnt that sometimes I have to control that urge—all research is interesting but not all research is commercially viable (unfortunately!). But there’s an additional challenge that comes with working as a market researcher: effectively communicating insights to decision-makers in a way that resonates and drives action. Without that, even the best research risks being overlooked. So I see this profession as being about curiosity, analytical skill and crucially communication. These are all skills I have in some measure, but I derive a great sense of fulfilment from working on continually improving them.
MRII: What was your experience like working with the New Zealand travel dataset we provided and the Harmoni software tool? What did you particularly like, find cool, or find frustrating?
Jo: Lovely! It’s a really solid, comprehensive dataset dating back quite a few years, so that enabled me to draw out some reliable trends. I had not analysed that dataset before either, so having the opportunity to go wild on an unfamiliar dataset made me feel a bit like a kid opening a present at Christmas! The software you provided—Harmoni—was a very good tool for exploring this type of tracker data too. The ability to use existing variables in the dataset to calculate new variables came in really handy, and the video with Geoff Lowe from Infotools was invaluable for getting up to speed quickly. The visualisations are intuitive and attractive, and the platform offers plenty of opportunities to customise analysis and lots of clever tools like the Fair Share feature. If I had to make one ever-so-tiny suggestion it would be that the SPACE charts (which look much like Correspondence Analysis maps) would ideally offer the option of having 2 or 3 dimensions. I completely understand why they default straight to 3 dimensions—3 dimensions will always be more explanatory than 2—but just from a user-friendliness perspective it is a lot easier to visualise perceptual spaces in 2 dimensions.
MRII: What do you hope to be doing professionally in the next five years and why?
Jo: While I really enjoy what I do currently, we are a fairly small research team. In five years time I would like to be working closely with a larger team of researchers, whether that is at Whakaata Māori where I currently work or elsewhere. The advantage of working with other like-minded professionals is that there is a potential for collaboration that magnifies the impact of all the researchers on the team. As the saying goes, “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” Because the New Zealand market is fairly small, you tend to find the largest teams of researchers in market research agencies. I have spent the majority of my career working client-side, but I would certainly consider moving to the other side of the fence. I think the skill I would need to work on to really succeed with an agency would be sales—I don’t think you can really reach the pinnacle of the market research profession without excelling at salesmanship. I tend to be quite an introverted person, but I relish the opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone and hone new skills, so that could potentially be a future direction for me.
To learn more about the award, visit mrii.org/award.
