Oral History Review 2016

Sunday, December 11th, 2016

At the Christmas Party and AGM, Frank Winter reported that this has been Year of real progress with the Oral History Project. There are now 16 interviews on the MRS Website, with the recent additions of: John Samuels, Bob Worcester, Nick Phillips and Pam Edwards. MRS website…

There are 14 interviews in the process of / awaiting editing, so by early 2017 there should be 20 interviews fully available, thanks to the generous financial aid of some key sponsors.

Neil McPhee has carried out the most recent interviews during the course of the year and is now standing down as principal interviewer on the program. In 2017, Sue Robson will be joining the Oral History team as moderator.

Plans for 2017 include the final editing of all the interviews so far carried out and completion of a couple more individual interviews to ensure that, by the end of 2017, there are 30 individual interviews available on the MRS Website.

During 2016, the Oral History team held a number of Strategy Meetings to determine what direction the program should take. Initial thoughts are about moving away from the format of individual interviews towards: 1) Mini Group Oral History Interviews covering the development of key sectors in Market Research such as: Advertising Research, Telephone Research, Product Testing, Opinion Polling, Social Research etc.; 2) The use of short Self Interviews, possibly via Skype, under the overall topic of "RESEARCH REFECTIONS". More details will be provided during 2017.

The Oral History Team would like to thank Lawrence Bailey for his continuing involvement in the Project and Neil McPhee for his enthusiasm and dedication, in completing a large number of interviews in 2016.