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An Interview with Rick Olsen

Today, Jenna and I ventured over to UNCW – where we are both undergraduates – to talk to Professor Rick Olsen. He’s an associate professor and Department Chair in the Communications Department. His background and specialty is in market research and man does he have a lot of good things to say during today’s podcast.

He leads with what I’m sure is a word that he says to his students all the time… “Me-search”. But it’s the first time I’ve heard the term, and I love it. It’s research vs. me-search.

We have a varied conversation about how to get students interested in market research. He talks about the technique of turning every statement into a question to break down barriers with clients.

I was interested to talk about how business owners who have no real experience with market research can (a) come to see the need for it (b) can rely on it, and (c) can figure out how to get started with it. Rick Olsen provides some great insight on how to make this happen.

It all comes back to me-search vs. research. Breaking down the perception of “I know what’s right” is key to shifting from one to the other.

We didn’t get a chance to talk about this in the podcast, but if you’re interested in more on how bad we are at projecting the future, check out this TED talk on happiness by Dan Gilbert.

He asks the question: If you could choose to either (a) win the lottery or, (b) to become a quadriplegic, which would you choose. To find out which one will actually make you happier, you’ll have to watch the clip. You might be surprised…

Thanks to Rick Olsen for being on the podcast today. If you’re listening to this as one of his students, we’d love to hear from you in the comments. What are your thoughts on market research? Love it? Hate it? Don’t care either way?

Happy Friday everybody!