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Member Spotlight – Jeb Bullis

20 Nov Posted by SWMRA in Cactus Call | Comments Off on Member Spotlight – Jeb Bullis
 

  • Name: Jeb Bullis
  • Title: Voxco US Sales
  • Company: Voxco Group
  • Current City: St Paul, MN
  • Hometown: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
  • Years in the market research industry: 5 (still a newbie)
  • What duties does your current job position include? Helping Market, Policy and Social Researchers be successful. We make the technology they use to do their jobs.
  • What’s the best aspect of your current job position? Hands down, the best part of Market Research industry is the people. The quality of their industry passion and professional courtesy vs. previous verticals like finance, technology, pharma and med device makes for a more amiable and collaborative business environment.
  •  …and the worst (if there is one) ? Seeing the results of research not always used to their fullest. Our industry performs amazing data collection and insight reporting to help their clients make the best decisions for finance allocation, policy, product and service planning. There are limits to how effective the end clients will adapt or interpret the insights provided. That is why I love seeing the consistent messages at conferences about telling the story. Our customers do some amazing projects and it stings when “the horse doesn’t drink.”
  • What you see coming in the market research industry during the next five years? The continued advancement of melding classic research methodology with further technology advances in data and sentiment collection. I am excited by the confluence of passive and active opinion and data, especially physiological data through sensor and scanning innovations. All of this is driven through wide public adaption of smart devices and data collection platform advances. Our industry is more willing to jump into projects that involve new technology than ten years ago when the shift to Web surveys started. And the Market Researchers lead the way, adapting quicker than the social and policy sector.
  • How did you first come to work in market research? I started in 1997 at a global brand design firm in Minneapolis called Yamamoto Moss. They utilized extensive Information Architecture and usability research for our digital projects as well as performing market research. Years later, I worked for a Quebec Canada company selling a technology platform to regulated industries. Voxco Group is owned and managed by some of the same Quebec investors as that old company, who wisely tapped my shoulder and said come back and sell to Market Research.
  • What led to you to joining the MRA? Education first. Because I was not academically trained in Research, it has been a bountiful resource to learn the world my customers live and thrive in every day. Secondly is the excellent networking and business building relationships. And thirdly, the excellent information shared by the MRA lobby and legislative staff who keep our members apprised of the state of our business as it relates to regulation.
  • What is your educational background? I am a proud Badger from University of Wisconsin in Madison. (Statistics was my hardest course.) No Master’s degree or post graduate work so I am always charmed and getting education from the many clients who spent years both at academia and in the research workplace.
  • Where else have you worked in the past – including non-­‐MR positions? After college I was hired at the Art and Graphics department for corporate offices at Famous Footwear. I went to Madison for dual Art and Psychology majors, so getting a job in your field was a big win. I was recruited to a sales job in 1984 by a chemical company that was our vendor. I have been in technology sales and management since then.
  • What do you do in your spare time -­‐ hobbies or activities? I now have three children in college and my non-work schedule has transitioned from Child-Centric to Wife and Me centric. We spend time on the lakes in Minnesota and bike and hike with our dogs. I am also a fan of Rugby and sports.
  • Do you have any unusual talents? Too many to list. Seek me in person and I may be able to win you a free drink at a bar.
  • What would others be surprised to know about you?  I was once a cop. Department of Natural Resources officer. Hands up where I can see them!
  • Favorite book or movie? Capra’s “It’s a Wonderful Life” for movie. I read too many books to have just one, but the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey-Marturin series (21 of them) are hands down the best things I have ever read. And that wizard Harry has a great run of books too
  • What is your ideal vacation? Wife and I go to Mexico or Central America for some beach time every year, but those Viking River Cruise commercials look mighty tempting
  • Final comment or quotable: If you are volunteering already, Awesome! If not, great reward and opportunity comes from sharing yourself. You may never know the ways you made a difference but you will make a difference.