Hello, faithful readers! I’m back from maternity leave and ready to share more MR musings with you all. Did ya miss me?
[Deafening silence.]
Moving right along then!
I believe I’ve mentioned this in previous blogs so some of you may remember that my husband works for the University of Minnesota athletics department (Go Gophers!) as the director of IT. And once a year, he attends an event called the Sports and Entertainment Alliance in Technology Conference (SEAT). SEAT connects sports and IT pros so they can tour different athletic facilities and learn how technology can make their jobs easier and improve the fan experience.
Before my husband left for Kansas City, I asked him to tell me about the conference tracks and give me an example of some of the topics that will be covered in the sessions. He mentioned using mobile apps to improve the fan experience, using digital signage to increase revenue and using electronic tracking to follow fans as they move about the venue to see where they spend their time and how they navigate the space.
Hmmm. Replace the word “fan” with “customer” and “venue” with “retail space” and you’ve got what we in MR call CEM and path-to-purchase.
Digging a little deeper, I saw that my husband was adding the hashtag #SEAT2013 to his conference-related tweets. When I went to the SEAT2013 feed, I couldn’t believe how much overlap there is between his sports and IT conference and my MR shows.
For example, this tweet reminded me of these three articles Quirk’s has featured.
And these tweets looks exactly like something you’d see tagged at TMRE! 
I feel like this goes to show that research by any other name truly does smell as sweet. Call it what you will but regardless of industry, MR is absolutely relevant and absolutely necessary. It may not look the way it used to but with a good grasp of MR and its many applications, a researcher’s expertise could find a home just about anywhere.
As big data, mobile apps and social media continue to pervade every facet of business today, do you see a greater need for the MR skill set? How can we let those looking to improve the fan experience and at-arena tracking know that what they’re really looking for is a solid MR solution? Do researchers know that their talents are a hot topic and in high demand? Are we looking and listening in the right places?