by Shelley Forrester | May 19, 2021 | Relationships
My phone rang at 8:00 a.m. this morning. That’s not a typical time for my phone to ring, so I expected it to be a spam call – or bad news. Instead, it was someone with whom I hadn’t spoken in about a year. My instincts and curiosity drove me to take the call, not...
by Shelley Forrester | Mar 25, 2021 | Networking
While on a walk in my neighborhood, I saw three people I hadn’t seen before and realized how much I miss chance encounters and talking to strangers. I decided not to miss the opportunity to connect with someone new. Talking to strangers is a great way to make new...
by Shelley Forrester | Mar 3, 2021 | Qualitative Research
A few summers ago, while conducting focus groups for a well-known apparel brand, I experienced a first – a fire drill blaring about 30 minutes into a 2.5-hour focus group. As we walked down the three flights of fire stairs...
by Shelley Forrester | Feb 16, 2021 | Insight
Many of us are coming close to entering our second year of working from home. I’ve worked from home for over 20 years, since my second child was born, but never without plenty of travel and out-of-office meetings (missing those!). A few years ago, I “KonMari’d”...
by Shelley Forrester | Feb 9, 2021 | Insight
Play multiple sports. That was the advice from a panel of sports professionals hosted by the Westport Public Library, “The Power of Sports: Jeff Pegues in Conversation with Dave Winfield, Candace Parker, and Charles Smith.” That answer proved its value in the...
by Shelley Forrester | Feb 2, 2021 | Insight
When we used to have in-person conversations and meetings, we were more practiced in the art of conversation. We were more focused on getting conversations started with introductions. And we were more patient and cognizant of the power of starting slowly...
by Shelley Forrester | Jan 8, 2021 | Insight
I had the pleasure of speaking with Mario X. Carrasco on his podcast for ThinkNow. We discussed how market researchers can pivot their communications strategies during the pandemic to engage colleagues, clients, and consumers. Topics covered what digital tools –...
by Shelley Forrester | Dec 1, 2020 | Insight
Most of the webinars I’ve listened to in the past several months have acknowledged the mental health challenges that have occurred as a result of the ongoing pandemic. Many of these webinars begin with some inspirational morning practices or they focus...
by Shelley Forrester | Nov 18, 2020 | Networking
Bruce Carlisle, CEO of Conference Hound, estimates that 40 million people attended in-person conferences in 2019. Before the pandemic, I attended several conferences each year, keeping up on the latest tools, technology and case studies, being in good...
by Shelley Forrester | Nov 2, 2020 | Customer Service
Why do customer experiences go wrong? Why does the experience feel inconvenient, tiring, even adversarial? What if customers were the priority and helping them, providing good service, and resolving problems are second nature?...
