MRS Annual Conference: “We’re not good enough”
20 March 2024

Bethan Blakeley, Research Director, Boxclever

Bethan is the co-lead of content for the AIA (Advanced Insights & Analytics) Council for the MRS, the analytics columnist for the MRS Impact magazine, and Research & Analytics Director at Boxclever. With a background in Statistics & Operational Research alongside 15 years in the research & analytics industries, she's always been passionate about bridging the gap between them.

“We’re not good enough, and that’s just not good enough” was the main message landing for me from several different directions at the MRS Annual Conference this year.

Firstly, in terms of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (E,D&I). Some spoke about how there is work being done, but it isn’t enough, it isn’t fast enough, and there isn’t enough support for it. Where there were sessions on E,D&I, the audiences were small – the same faces showing up for this prevalent issue, whilst others just ignored it even exists. Jane Frost mentioned in her opening remarks that the gender pay gap in the industry had fallen – but not far enough. One thing is obvious – something needs to happen here, I’m just not sure what that something is. Because the same people banging the same drum just doesn’t seem to be shifting things along as much as it should. Or, perhaps, I need to be less angry and more accepting of the positive changes that have happened, no matter how minor. That just doesn’t feel like something I would do though.

What else isn’t good enough? Our storytelling skills. It’s always a hot topic at these events. How to get people to sit up and take notice. How to tell a story with our insights, instead of narrating a pretty data dump. How to turn insights into action. Thing is, a few people mentioned that we, as an industry, have been harping on about this for the last twenty odd years. And yet, here we are, still trying to make sense of it, still trying to land our work in an effective way.

As if they knew this would be a topic of discussion at the conference, some of the sessions, were, well – awful. I’m not one to sit on the fence – they were dull, and difficult to listen to. Conferences are mentally and physically exhausting. It’s even harder than normal to capture people’s attention – and we, as the insights and analytics industry, should know this. We should have practiced, well-honed skills to overcome this. Yet I didn’t see any evidence of those skills in a few sessions (note – it was only a few sessions I was disappointed with!)

And – of course – we can’t have a conference in insights and analytics in this landscape without discussing AI. There were many, many discussions around AI. My question is, are we actually saying anything in these discussions? It seems so new, and everyone seems so nervous, that conclusions of chats and panels and presentations tend to be quite similar, along the lines of “The future isn’t here yet, we’re still working it out”.

Do we need to change the narrative? The secrecy around “working it out” doesn’t share much and isn’t all that interesting. Is there an opportunity here to work this out collectively, rather than struggle individually, which is how it seems now? Can we learn something from the data science and analytics communities, where code is frequently openly shared and discussed to find a better way? Or are we too far removed from those communities to take advantage of collaborative working in the same way?

Bringing these communities and areas of expertise together is something I have always been passionate about throughout my career and is why I joined the MRS Advanced Insights & Analytics council in the first place. This year, despite some of the “we’re not good enough” messages, I did spot something brilliant. Small perhaps, but brilliant.

This year I noticed straight away that the language had shifted. It’s been a gradual shift across several years for me, but this time it was evident from the get-go. We weren’t referring to ourselves as the “insights industry”, but the “insights and analytics industry”. And about time too.