Jeffrey Henning’s #MRX Top 10: Broken Societies, Brexit, and Beer

By Jeffrey Henning

Of the 5,037 unique links shared on the Twitter #MRX hashtag over the past two weeks, here are 10 of the most retweeted…

1. Matters of Opinion 2017: 8 Things We Learned About Politics, the News, and the Internet – Abacus Data surveyed 2,000 Canadians about the intersection of politics and online behavior. They found a smartphone-powered addiction to Facebook, facilitating “myopia”, with Twitter relevant for word-of-mouth: “A small group of hyper-connected, hyper-engaged Canadians can be instrumental in breaking the myopia-barrier.”
2. Kantar Tops MRS League Tables – The Market Research Society has published its analysis of the top 100 UK MRX firms: they grew 6.7% year over year (2015 over 2014), with 71% of agencies experiencing growth. The largest three firms are Kantar (WPP), Wood Mackenzie Research & Consulting, and Dunnhumby.
3. She Knows Best: Insights Into Mums’ Shopping Decisions – GutCheck looks at the skepticism of mothers about the health claims of foods, as well as what they look for in games and toys.
4. Discovery: A New Tool for Accessing Longitudinal Cohort Studies – Ray Poynter of NewMR provides an overview of a tool for analyzing 8 longitudinal UK studies.
5. Captains of Industry Say Business is Already Suffering the Consequences of Brexit – Ipsos Mori interviewed 114 executives from top British companies: 58% believe Brexit has already had a negative impact on their business, and 66% say post-Brexit will be negative for their firms.
6. The Best Data Scientists Get Out and Talk to People – Writing for the Harvard Business Review, Thomas Redman points out, “Great data scientists know they have to understand the strengths and weaknesses in the data in great detail.” Three keys: See how the data is collected; learn the full context; integrate these findings into your work.
7. Write Right: Convincing Content – Isabel Gautschi of Cascade Insights provides concrete tips including this gem: “Don’t subject your audience to stream-of-conscious business blogging.”
8. Why Machine Learning is Meaningless – Tom H.C. Anderson of Odin Text gives two examples that can be labeled “machine learning” even though they different dramatically in complexity.
9. Has Craft Beer Lost Its Cultural Capital? – Nigel Hollis of MillwardBrown wonders if the craft beer industry is aleing. He seems hopped up and bitter to me!
10. Six in Ten Around the World Think Their Society is “Broken” – Ipsos-Mori surveyed over 16,000 adults in 23 countries: 81% lack confidence in political parties, 68% lack confidence in the media, and 61% lack confidence in big companies.

Note: This list is ordered by the relative measure of each link’s influence in the first week it debuted in the weekly Top 5. A link’s influence is a tally of the influence of each Twitter user who shared the link and tagged it #MRX, ignoring retweets from closely related accounts. Only links with a research angle are considered.