The Curiosity Current: A Market Research Podcast

Great research starts with the business question and lets the right methodology follow. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Aksel Bedikyan, Founder and CEO of OhGee Insights, discusses why researchers should stay methodology-agnostic, how mixed methods can reveal insights hidden in conflicting data, and why existing data should be explored before new research is commissioned. He also shares how generative AI is changing the research process by taking on time-consuming analytical work and why curiosity, human judgment, and client relationships become even more important as automation improves.

What does it take to build a research function that leadership actually uses? In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Stephanie Vance and Molly Strawn-Carreño sit down with David Yin, a fractional research and marketing leader who has built insights functions at companies including Fitbit, Ancestry, Eventbrite, and Poshmark. David shares how researchers can build credibility from scratch, understand stakeholder problems, earn leadership buy-in, translate research data into business action, and turn consumer insights into competitive advantage.

For the longest time, market research has been focused on understanding why people behave the way they do. But what happens after the insight is delivered? In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Stephanie and Molly sit down with Will Leach, founder and CEO of Mindstate Group, to explore why researchers need to move beyond insights and recommendations and become behavioral designers who can help brands turn research into action. Will breaks down the say-do gap, explains why behavioral science and data analytics need to work together, and introduces the Mind State Activation Blueprint, a framework designed to translate behavioral research into practical creative and marketing guidance. He also shares how AI uncovered a cultural pattern across 19 different studies that he would have missed by looking at research one project at a time.

Data quality isn’t just about better fraud detection or securing individual surveys. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, Stephanie Vance and Jonathan sit down with Karine Pepin to explore what’s actually broken in the research ecosystem and why fixing one survey at a time can only go so far. Karine shares how researchers can establish their own “ground truth,” interpret conflicting fraud signals, question unrealistic sample claims, and rethink what’s possible when researching hard-to-reach audiences.

Turning research insights into action requires more than delivering good data. In this episode of The Curiosity Current, strategic foresight practitioner Mina McBride explores how researchers can build credibility, understand the political and emotional realities of their clients, and prepare stakeholders to act on uncomfortable insights. She also shares how foresight can help researchers distinguish meaningful signals from noise, take calculated career risks and stay focused on the work that matters most.