{"id":220,"date":"2022-01-12T18:55:08","date_gmt":"2022-01-12T18:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.rm.gfolkdev.net\/advancing-research-community\/2022\/01\/12\/how-we-researched-and-designed-the-advancing-research-conference\/"},"modified":"2022-02-20T15:14:57","modified_gmt":"2022-02-20T15:14:57","slug":"how-we-researched-and-designed-the-advancing-research-conference","status":"publish","type":"resources","link":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/advancing-research-community\/resources\/how-we-researched-and-designed-the-advancing-research-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"How we Researched and Designed the Advancing Research Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are more researchers focused on users, customers, and products than ever before, and those researchers\u2019 needs are changing. Rosenfeld Media has already interacted with researchers through the <\/span>Advancing Research community<\/span><\/a>, which we curate, but wanted to learn more about who they are, where they work, and how they learn. And\u2014as a conference-production company\u2014we wanted to know what researchers seek from conference experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our survey ran from July 2-15, 2019, and 721 people responded. We\u2019ve summarized the results below, and have made our quantitative data available for analysis via <\/span>Tableau<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why we decided to research researchers<\/span><\/h2>\n

We began our research with the following assumptions about research and researchers involved in learning about how people use products and services:<\/span><\/p>\n

There are more researchers doing research than ever before.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

New technologies enable ever more powerful and complex products and services. They also create yawning gaps between the organizations that create products and the people who use them. Researchers help close those gaps, so the demand for people who can do research is dramatically increasing.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are more \u201cnon-researchers\u201d doing research than ever before. <\/b><\/h5>\n

There are not enough professionally trained researchers to meet the growing demand. And research tools are getting easier to use while simultaneously becoming more powerful. So more people with minimal or no training are being pressed into research roles.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

Research teams are getting larger.<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Large organizations with complex offerings require greater research capacity than ever before\u2014and are building large research teams to meet internal demand. In turn, those research teams require a level of operational and managerial support than ever before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Researchers are getting their seat at the table. <\/b><\/h5>\n

As research becomes more valued, research leaders are taking on increasingly strategic roles within their organizations\u2014and often aren\u2019t prepared to lead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Research is becoming increasingly cross-disciplinary. <\/b><\/h5>\n

As products and services become more complex, more types of researchers, research tools and methods are needed to study problems and synthesize the results from multiple sources. Accordingly, researchers are becoming less anchored to their home disciplines, research methods and tools, and perspective. And they\u2019re becoming more focused on solving complex problems using whatever approaches make the most sense, regardless of provenance.\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

These are exciting developments, and are leading to a flowering of ideas, conversations, and activities for and among researchers of all stripes.<\/p>\n

Rosenfeld Media is a provider of UX content, education, and conferences, and has a track record of supporting emerging communities that share our goal of creating better experiences for humanity (e.g., <\/span>design and research operations<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>enterprise design<\/span><\/a>). We wanted to explore the opportunity to create a new conference to meet researchers\u2019 needs, especially for the US market. We\u2019ve already been learning about researchers\u2019 needs through informal conversations within Rosenfeld Media\u2019s <\/span>Advancing Research community<\/span><\/a>. A broad survey seemed to be a logical next step.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What we set out to learn<\/span><\/h2>\n

We chose a variety of questions, both open and close-ended, to learn about who responded, their experience, and their preferred and actual means of learning. We also drilled deeper into one of the learning approach most interesting to Rosenfeld Media: conferences.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We were most interested in understanding how job title and organization size relate to how researchers learn new skills and think about conference attendance. The main objectives covered in the survey were:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n