Throughout my career, I’ve enjoyed the thrill of several transitions between parallel (related but different) professional camps. In each case, there was some level of misalignment between professional villages, ranging from misunderstanding to distrust and even acrimony.

Three major transitions I’ve made

1. From MR to VoC
My first leap was departing the world of traditional market research (MR), with its admirable but hidebound methodology adherence, for the move-fast-and-break-it world of SaaS voice-of-the-customer (VoC) data collection, analysis, and action platforms. A mentor cried out that I was making a huge mistake pigeonholing myself in the customer satisfaction space. Market researchers criticized VoC practitioners for not sticking to academic rigor, while customer experience (CX) metrics folks reminded them that business decision makers can’t wait three months for stacks of indecipherable cross tabs and Power Point decks that are outdated before they’re finalized. Whew, relations between those two camps remained so rocky that I was inspired to write a post on making the transition.

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