A key set of recurring themes that we will be exploring involve what might be called “Market Research 3.0” — the new challenges and opportunities for market research that are being spurred by the re-invention of innovation.

To be sure, market research traditionally has played a central role the creation of new products and services…and, more generally, market research has provide crucial support for almost every form of business innovation and creativity.

So it should be no surprise that the re-invention of innovation is helping to spur a corresponding re-invention of market research.

As their client organizations wrestle with their new “innovation imperatives,” market research firms are facing their own set of new imperatives.

In fact, virtually every aspect of market research is feeling the effects of clients’ voracious hunger for fresh insights that can drive innovation and creativity.

For instance:

• New sources of data — Market researchers are finding it necessary go far beyond the traditional means of data collection…and to become more knowledge and more adept at handling the new sources of information (especially online sources) that are becoming available.
• Sharper targeting, sharper insights — The ultra-precise marketing that is possible (and necessary) on the Web is placing ever-greater emphasis on obtaining deeper, more sharply-targeted information about their client’s key constituencies.
• Emphasis on early signals — Today’s information-saturated and hyper-competitive business arena places an ever-greater premium on market researchers’ abilities to develop sensitive early-warning antennae that can capture the weak signals that are the harbingers that provide advance notice of important emerging trends and developments.

And these quick examples only begin to scratch the surface of new demands on market research and the radical transformation that is under way…and which will be a central topic of discussion at re-inventing-innovation.com.