Year: 2025

Luminaries

From French Literature to Future Technologies: Maria Bezaitis’s Pursuit of Creativity and Diversity in Thinking as a Humanities-Trained Research Leader

April 4, 2025 0

Maria Bezaitis, a humanities-trained UX researcher and former Intel Fellow, shares her unconventional path from academia to pioneering ethnographic research in business and technology. With a PhD in French literature, she transformed her expertise in reading and interpretation into a powerful research approach, influencing corporate innovation at E-Lab, Sapient, and Intel. […]

Business Matters

Why Investment in Your Firm’s Brand is an Important Part of Your Growth Strategy

April 4, 2025 0

Insight industry growth expert Paul Griffiths explores the most cost-effective and easily executed ways to grow your research partner brand. Regardless of whether you are a qualitative solopreneur, part of a small qualitative shop, or the leader in a large agency, there are ways you can build brand salience and make sales activity more impactful that don’t require big marketing budgets. […]

Schools of Thought

Life’s Hallways: The Role of Liminality in Consumer Decision-Making A new way of thinking about customer journeys

April 4, 2025 0

As consumers transition through life’s milestones—whether turning 50, becoming a parent, or retiring—they enter a liminal state, caught between who they were and who they are becoming. This fascinating article explores how these threshold experiences shape decision-making and behavior, often creating moments of uncertainty or hesitation. By understanding liminality, market researchers can uncover deeper consumer motivations, enhance customer journey mapping, and identify new opportunities to support consumers in these transitional phases. From hallways cluttered with old shoes to the design of luxury resorts, this piece reveals how physical and symbolic spaces impact identity shifts—and how brands can leverage these insights for more meaningful engagement. […]

Trends

Return of the Big Idea Can AI philosophy agents make qual more valuable?

April 4, 2025 0

AI is capable of much more than transcribing interviews and summarizing findings. Qualitative researchers can use AI as coach, collaborator, and sandbox to expand their human powers of imagination and thought across every part of the qualitative research process, from the brief to the report. Ben Jenkins challenges us to think like philosophers, not afraid or encumbered in asking the “big questions.” […]