Wrapping Up 2024 … and THANKFUL for a Career that Allows Us to Be Curious and Creative Every Day
By Tamara Kenworthy, MBA, IPC, PCM | Editor-in-Chief, QRCA VIEWS Magazine | President, ON POINT STRATEGIES | Des Moines, Iowa, tamara@on-pointstrategies.com
The seasonal cycle of life has us close to wrapping up another year—as the calendar launched our extended holiday season—the “most wonderful time of year.” Whether we’re enjoying scary movies and candy in October or loving Santa Claus and holiday music in December, sandwiched in between is a special holiday to enjoy for its purity—Thanksgiving!
On behalf of our VIEWS editorial team, we’re “thankful” for our authors who bring their thought leadership to the magazine, and especially “thankful” for our readers, who inspire us to ensure we bring you valuable content each quarter.
Not only is life seasonal, but this issue has a seasonal vibe as well. Our cover story features a special adventure of curiosity at the QRCA 2024 Annual Conference and bookends with our QRCA 2025 Annual Conference article.
Having visited Meow Wolf after last year’s conference in Denver, I read with delight our Travelwise cover story, Exploration is Curiosity Put into Motion, by researcher Natalia Tafur, who was inspired by this phenomenally unique tourist attraction. You’ll enjoy her fun take on how she aligns Meow Wolf’s creativity with qualitative researchers who help our clients explore curiosity every day. Speaking of the annual conference, we’re headed to Philadelphia in February 2025—read about the curated schedule and additional attractions in our annual Conference article.
I was very intrigued with this quarter’s Luminary who has focused an area of her work on “network mapping” for personal and professional growth and opportunities, something I want to carve out time for to map on myself. Speaking of business growth, our Business Matters column explores side hustles for independent quallies who own their research business and want to secure a consistent cash flow throughout the “year and seasons.”
Two challenging areas of our work that keep us on our toes are research bias and participant fraud. In Toolbox, we take a look at understanding and preventing participant fraud, which is ever-worrisome; the article helps us know what to look for. Our Quant Lens column—our new column on quant research for the qual researcher —explores what to watch for and be mindful of as we navigate the many areas of research bias.
Seasons come in all forms! So, wanting to take timely advantage of what we can learn about research from this year’s “political season,” our Trends column showcases an interesting Q&A with political qualitative researcher Rich Thau as he took a deep dive this year with swing voters in the presidential election.
Turning our focus now to our international neighbors, global tourism continues to be a hot topic, and in our Global column, we explore the evolving landscape of the tourism industry through a semiotics lens, in which the author does a great job highlighting this unique methodology. Then, traveling specifically to Japan in our Schools of Thought column, we learn about kintsugi (in Japanese, “golden joinery”), where our author weaves a wonderful story of how kintsugi inspired her research work by breaking insights to build masterpiece research recommendations.
Lastly, don’t pass up the Book Reviews section—take time for yourself and relax as you experience three great books for inspiration! Or, if audio is your jam, then listen to Mike’s Podcast with Joe Indusi, who has shaped his approach to UX research based on his experience working in film and television.
Please share this Winter issue (qrcaviews.org) with your network, post the digital flipbook link on social media, and email your clients an interesting article relevant to them.
Happy reading!
Tamara Kenworthy
