As an editor, I’ve always viewed my role here as holding up a mirror rather than a cattle prod. I don’t have an agenda or strong feelings that the research and insights industry must do Crucial Thing A or Crucial Thing B in order to survive. Sure, I have some thoughts on which courses of action seem to hold the most promise. But I’ve never been a marketing researcher, so I don’t know what it’s like to walk a mile in your shoes. Thus I’ve never felt comfortable, as I’ve noted in this space many times, making grand pronouncements about the Future of Marketing Research.

But what I do feel comfortable doing is talking to people, reading the comments they make to us and to their peers across the various online outlets and trying to assemble content that reflects and hopefully adds to the intelligent discussion of the myriad issues they’re grappling with.

When I seek out content related to my own profession – editing – the stuff that I find most useful, whether it’s an article, a blog post or a Webinar, tends to be generated by other editors, people who have looked at the same problems or dealt with the same situations I’m dealing with and have some welcome advice (and empathy!) to pass along.

I think it’s valuable to let readers see themselves in our pages, see the topics and problems they are thinking about or working on and give voice to their doubts or fears or ways of getting through their daily challenges.

Along those lines, elsewhere in this issue you’ll find a recap of our Q&A piece in which we asked researchers to address a handful of questions about 2014 and their views of what’s ahead for 2015.

One question asked them which topics the industry is talking too much about and which the industry isn’t talking enough about. Space didn’t permit us to run the answers to that question in this issue (we’ll do that in a January edition of our e-newsletter) but here’s a sampling of what researchers told us is being talked about too much or not enough:

“A lot of column space has been spent on the potential of ‘new MR’ stuff, from big data to mobile to neuro, but we are not talking about how to implement and integrate input from those methods, we’re not really focusing on ‘How are we going to make this work?’” – David McCallum, managing partner, Gordon & McCallum

“There will always be a new methodology that seems to be the new big thing. I guess text analytics could be grouped with big data. Yes, it’s nice to have a new technology that you can use, or more data to analyze, but let’s get back to the basics: What is the question we need to answer and how do we answer the question in the best way?” – Andris Versteeg, senior data analyst, SA Health

“As for what’s being talked about too much, in many cases we are giving those consumers active in the online social space too large of a megaphone. While the spontaneous conversations that occur about brands online are useful, we need to remember that those who choose to talk about a brand or service experience online are not necessarily representative of the overall customer base – the ‘silent majority’ who drive the bulk of sales and consumption for most brands.” – Jeri Smith, president and CEO, Communicus Inc.

“What isn’t being talked about is the impact that DIY technology will have long-term on corporate researchers. We hear plenty about how technology has enabled corporate researchers in the short-term. The reality is that for years the research community has been perceived as tactical and not strategic. The concern long-term is how corporate will avoid falling into the same trap. If corporate isn’t perceived as strategic, then where does that leave the industry?” – Scott Layne, president, the Marketing Workshop