Better than expected

Predicting the future is always tricky, and it’s always fascinating when people give it a go – doubly so when the time comes to see how accurate they are.

Our November 2003 cover story, ‘News at then’, imagined the kinds of articles you might be reading in Research in 2013. We’ve still got three years to go, but a recent blog post from Cambiar partner Ian Lewis on his vision for MR in 2020 prompted us to revisit our own forecasts to find out whether we’re on track or way off course.

Below you’ll find a rundown of what we said, and how accurate we reckon we’ve been. Give us your verdict in the comments thread.

Prediction 1: Last of consultancy giants falls to MR

What we said: In a move that could sound the death knell for management consultancies, Refresh Research announced the £2.7bn acquisition of Sholto Douglas Consulting, the world’s largest management consultancy firm. Sholto Douglas has long been seen as vulnerable to takeover, after losing vast market share to market research rivals.

Accuracy: Not even close. Management consultancies remain rivals of sorts to research agencies, but by and large the two operate in different circles. If anything changes in three years, it’ll most likely be management consultants making increasing forays into research territory, rather than vice versa.

Prediction 2: Kennedy scraps UDecide polls

What we said: The Liberal Democrat Government is to scrap its “UDecide” opinion polling policy, accusing opposition voters of using the system to block promised reforms in many areas of government. UDecide was created to provide the government with an instant policy-making tool.

Accuracy: Hit and miss. To our credit, we predicted the Liberal Democrats would be in government. And the idea of devolving some decision-making responsibility to the public is a cornerstone of the ‘Big Society’ vision being touted by David Cameron, though that relates more to local decisions than those of national importance. The current government does seem quite fond of consultations – they’ve already asked the public to suggest ways of saving money in public services – but it’s unlikely that they will actually base policy solely on the outcome of polls, as we suggested.

Prediction 3: Single media measure hits brick wall

What we said: MegaCorp Media, the world’s largest owner of radio, TV, web, outdoor and text-based media, is threatening to halt payments to all media audience measurement bodies unless they commit to developing a multimedia measurement system within six months. CEO John Frankenheim, said: “The joint industry research committees have dithered over the issue of whether or not to adopt a single source media currency.”

Accuracy: Pretty good. A single-source media measurement currency remains out of reach for the foreseeable future. Efforts have been made to get there in a round-about fashion – the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising’s Touchpoints survey is fused with individual media currencies to create a cross-media planning database. But, as our report from the Media Research Group conference this week notes: “Unification of the various currencies ‘should be a core consideration of the media industry in the UK’, but there is no organisation to implement it.”

Prediction 4: IT spot

What we said: The PunterVista viewing facility has taken the radical step of introducing ‘BodyMatrix-Techno Chairs’. The chairs mould themselves to the respondent’s body and allow both the moderator and clients to observe minute fluctuations in body temperature, pulse-rate and pupil dilation.

Accuracy: Almost. The technology is not quite as refined just yet but biometric data is gradually gaining a foothold in market research.

Prediction 5: Silicon chip consumers to be ‘scanned’

What we said: BodySurveys has announced plans to implant 50 people with silicon chip technology, which uses electro-magnetic signals to collect a range of consumer data. Customers are scanned as they enter or leave stores, buy goods or pass adverts. Using a hidden code in electronic or broadcast media, the device also records media and advertising to which the individual is exposed .

Accuracy: There’s something here, although we have to give most of the credit for this prediction to Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Minority Report. The technology exists to allow this sort of consumer tracking to happen. It’s called Near Field Communication and is coming to a mobile phone or credit card near you soon. Actual bodily implants won’t be necessary but consumers will still probably balk at the prospect of one company tracking everything they do in the physical world, just as there has been a backlash to the tracking of consumer behaviour online.

Prediction 6: Handheld demands spell death of paper

What we said: Herculaneum Research, the last research agency in the UK believed to be using paper-based questionnaires, has announced it is to move all of its services to handheld computer as a result of sustained pressure from clients. The switch from paper to computer has resulted in a small number of redundancies within DP units in the UK. However, many staff have retrained as questionnaire programmers.

Accuracy: A bit like the ‘paperless office’, we’re not there yet. But we could be soon if Apple’s Steve Jobs has his way with the iPad.

Prediction 7: AI answers age-old question

What we said: A Scottish research agency has launched an ‘electronic respondent’ service powered by artificial intelligence. FutureViews Research has been working with the University of Edinburgh to develop a new system which allows researchers to build electronic respondents by asking individuals to fill in a detailed questionnaire and then feeding the responses into the artificial intelligence program. The program can then predict the respondent’s opinion on any subject.

Accuracy: At first glance, this seems a non-starter. But wait. What about DigiViduals, the research robots built by BrainJuicer to match certain demographic specifications which then scoure the web for people like them, “gathering their thoughts, blogs, photos, music and videos and adopting them as the robot’s own to produce a living, breathing single-person synthesis of the many thousands of people who fit the profile”. Close enough? Read more about them here.

Prediction 8: Cops nab sick MR trickster

What we said: One of the UK’s leading subversive respondents, Jonas DeScaro, has been arrested by police in a swoop on his home in the Cotswolds. DeScaro, a deputy leader of the anti-research organisation, People Against Nosy Institutions and Corporations (Panic), was later charged with a series of fraud offences. He is accused of falsifying and coercing others to falsify information given to research agencies working on behalf of some of the world’s biggest corporations.

Accuracy: Borderline fantasy, although there’s a serious point in there (somewhere) about the line research agencies and companies walk between knowing enough about their customers to make them happy and wanting to know so much that they feel their privacy has been invaded. No doubt, by 2013, that line will have become thinner, so tread carefully in the coming years.

• You can read Ian Lewis’s thoughts about the “digitisation of everything”, “the river of information” and other intriguing possibilities for research in 2020 here.