Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sample

At the weekend I watched the BBC’s superb 1979 adaptation of John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – something you should treat yourselves to, if you’ve never seen it. But of course market research is never far from my mind, and within the intricate story I found a research parable of sorts.

Nobody’s likely to write any novels about the inner politics of MR agencies, and if they do the books won’t be called “thrillers” – but nonetheless spies and researchers have something profound in common: both are information brokers. And the temptation at the centre of the Tinker, Tailor story is one I recognise from research – and social media research in particular. Spoilers ahead!

It goes like this. A new source of information has been uncovered – and the information in question looks very good indeed: valuable, authentic, apparently endless and close to on-demand. Excitement is the order of the day – so much so that perhaps too few questions are asked, and those who ask them find themselves criticised. The information, after all, turns out to be a superb conversation starter with the business’ biggest client (in this case, US Intelligence): why let such an exciting opportunity be jeopardised by poking at the source too much?

Now, clearly the data we find and mine online isn’t the result of some vast anti-research conspiracy, so the consequences of taking it for granted won’t be quite as dire. But it’s still worth remembering that everything being said online is being said by someone, to someone else (or a set of imaginary someones), and it’s being said for a reason. That reason almost certainly isn’t “to give researchers accurate data for free” – and the context of online speech always has implications for its accuracy.