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St. Patrick's Day and the 2011 Las Vegas Market Research Conference

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It's St. Patrick's day.  The Irish-Catholic holiday that encourages the entire Christian influenced world to wear green, drink green beer (or at least Irish beer), eat green eggs and ham or corn beef and cabbage (green pancakes if your wife, girlfriend, mom, significant other likes you), pinch each other (for those that like to be pinched and refuse to wear green), and listen to Flogging Molly. 

I woke up today to my son dressed like a Leprechaun.  It was startling.  He wasn't embarrassed at all...I was mortified that he'd go to school looking like that.  His class was having a contest to see who could wear the most green and he was intent on winning.  "I don't get embarrassed dad," when asked if he wouldn't at least bring something to change into.  I hope he wins.  I can't imagine another child dressed in more green.  I find it scary. 

I'm a Welshman who doesn't feel particularly comfortable wearing much green (I'm colorblind) and I don't really see much excitement in the holiday.  It hasn't always been that way.  As a child I enjoyed it, it must have been the build-up from my school and my parents.  We used to attempt to trap the Leprechaun that turned our milk green.  We'd set up bear-type traps all over the house in an attempt to catch him/her and take the gold (they weren't real bear traps, but homemade inventions with relatively little risk...I did catch my mom once).  We'd wake up to green milk, green pancakes (my mom liked me), and we were sure to wear green clothing (put it on the night before...it kind of hurts to be pinched by your brother).  When I woke up this morning, I wondered about the source of the holiday and learned a few things about it.  Here are a handful of interesting facts about St. Patrick's Day:

• St. Patrick's favorite color was actually blue.  
• The earliest written account of St. Patrick's Day celebrations is found in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.  It mentions celebrations in London in 1713 where Parliament took holiday on the day and all of the public buildings had green decorations.
• The first St. Patrick's day parade wasn't held in Ireland, it was actually held in Boston, MA in 1737.
• The consumption of Guinness beer more than doubles on St. Patrick's day from about 5 million pints to about 13 million pints.
• There are actually more Irish-Americans (36.5 Million) than there are Irish (6 Million).
• The world record for number of leafs on a clover is 14.  That's one lucky clover.

The Marketing Research Association's Southwest, Southern California, and Northwest Chapters hold an annual conference in Las Vegas.  Coincidentally, it's called the Las Vegas Conference and it's been going on for 25 years.  On this the day of luck, for those of you who weren't lucky enough to attend the 2011 Las Vegas Conference, here are a few things I learned:

• Social Media Research will not likely ever replace traditional market research, but it does provide a way to look at information in ways that are difficult to get at using other methods.  For instance, time series analysis is possible using social media research methods and it may be easier.
• There are still a lot of organizations that don't know what to do with all this "Social Media Stuff" and the fact that they call it "Social Media Stuff" is one of the first indicators.
• Ethnography continues to be a very valid source of market research information.  The methods of storing ethnographic information seem to be changing (is it possible to have an online ethnography?), but the goal is still the same.  Help your clients tell the stories that are meaningful.
• There are ways for online access panels to check whether "who you say you are" is really "who you actually are".  Online methods continue to evolve, change, and improve.  Figure out if your access panel has the measures in play to run this core test.
• Prezi.com has a really cool presentation platform that really stands out.  Much like this, to avoid commoditization you have to be differentiated.
• All those useful insights provided by others using hashtags on Twitter don't mean a thing if you don't save them somewhere...online or otherwise...(yeah, I wish I had all of that information instead of just my own notes and what I personally tweeted).

And, I guess one final observation...I dance a little like Elaine from Seinfeld.  For those of you at the Kinect party, I'm sure you'll concur.  Fortunately for me, much like my son, I don't get embarrassed...to easily.  

All-in, the annual Las Vegas market research conference is truly a gem, a conference filled with holiday like atmosphere, educational and networking opportunities, and lots of after-hour fun.  An emerald in the market research industry as it were.  In the spirit of the season, here's a great Flogging Molly video: