My, how time flies. If our calculations are correct, this is the 400th issue of Quirk’s. Debuting with our October/November 1986 edition, we’ve been a bimonthly, a monthly/bimonthly hybrid and are now back to publishing six times per year – kind of a textbook example of the famine/feast/famine lifecycle of an independent, long-running B2B print magazine that has survived into the digital age!
Since we entered the event space in 2015, the magazine has gone from our flagship product – the thing that made the company what it is today – to an almost vestigial entity. No Quirk’s Event goes by without a few attendees telling us they weren’t even aware that we published a magazine – a sentiment, by the way, that I don’t blame them one bit for in this twilight of print publishing! (And to an extent it says even more about the quality of our events if people feel they just somehow sprung from the ground, fully formed.)
In August, I will have been editor of the magazine for 38 years. I can see the end of the road for it and I’m thankful our small but mighty team has been able to keep it going this long. I appreciate the research companies that still purchase print ads and fill our various sponsored content sections in each issue.
Our founder Tom Quirk was himself a corporate researcher and also a research company owner and he recognized the need for a magazine that would educate readers on the applications and benefits of various research methods while also making a case for the value of marketing research as a business discipline.
When he brought me aboard in 1988, a newly minted journalism school graduate with a specialization in magazine editing, he basically gave me the keys to the car, his few bits of direction being that the editorial content had to be high-quality, as objective as possible (no research company “puff pieces,” as he always called them) and focused on the needs of end-client researchers.
Decades later we applied those same guideposts to the planning of our first Quirk’s Events and I think that’s helped us grow them into the successes that they are.
From the first issue of the magazine in late 1986 we have served the corporate researcher, offering a host of free resources without ever charging a membership fee. Suspecting that the same people who don’t know that we publish a magazine may also be unaware of the many other resources we offer, here is a quick overview:
Free online learning resources
- Access to all 400 past magazine issues.
- Access to archive of 12,000+ articles.
- Audio versions of all 12,000+ articles.
- Digital magazine subscription.
- Quirk’s GPT – your research questions answered on demand.
- Access to Quirk's video archive with 300+ recordings.
Free research tools
- Online statistical calculator.
- Glossary of 1,300+ research terms.
- End-client research survey findings.
- Global directory of research suppliers (including ability to send RFPs).
- Directory of focus group facilities.
- Directory of global research associations.
Free employment resources
- Research job board (free to post and view).
- Access to over 200 research career articles.
- Industry salary data.
- Directory of research-related degree programs (including online programs).
Never wavered
Our focus on corporate insights workers has never wavered, even as other industry bodies – seemingly out of nowhere – discovered a whole other half of the industry beyond vendors and agencies and began pursuing end-clients’ attention and employee development budgets.
I’ve even heard hints over the years that we as a for-profit company are viewed as somehow less noble or altruistic than non-profit insights organizations and that therefore our motives are transitory and disingenuous.
To those who feel that way, I would simply point to the page you’re reading for free right now (either printed or digital), the fact that we’ve been publishing this magazine for nearly 40 years, that our founder was a corporate researcher and that our track record of promoting the use, value and understanding of marketing research is unmatched.