(Based on a True Incident)

You get a call from the smartest person in your research wing, just as you are about to start thinking about starting for office, and she says,

Can we meet somewhere else, and not in the office?

You wonder why.

Why? Something wrong?

No, no, nothing wrong, its just that I want to talk to you somewhere else because I don’t want to talk about this in the office meeting—it’s at 11, right?

Yes, but wh—

You know this Coffee Bar, just at the corner where you take the left to reach the main traffic?

By the time you reach, you are curious, and a little annoyed because this is going to make you run late for everything through the day. She is sitting there with a lot of papers—presumably from the recent market thing you did for the new jewelry line you are planning to launch next month.

You frown as you sit down and say,

This is not done yet? You are supposed to discuss this in the meeting today!

Her look is mixture of fear, embarrassment and anger. She says,

Look at this. These are the demographic data sheets, all the numbers, how many women actually use jewelry, what kind, and age-wise distribution for preferences. Everything.

So what’s the problem?

Well, this is OK. But see, there are these hundreds of documents that the survey has culled from various sources, and these are—well, these are in a thousand different formats, and they are all text.

But all we really want is the numbers.

Yes, well, but no. Look at this woman says in her blog—she says she knows at least a hundred other women who really, really want this design. She’s even tried to draw a picture here. See? Now I want this woman there in with us. That’s not all. I have been talking to the marketing guys. Look, to tell you the truth, I just can’t stand them and their numbers. People, they feel things about commodities, see? They are going to speak, or write. Text, we call it. Now these guys they just want numbers, and I have talked to them for a long time yesterday, and we have had a bad fight, and I will tell you straight that I don’t want to come for the meeting because these guys will be there, OK? Hear me out. Numbers are fine—you know I can deal with them, in them, whatever, that’s a major part of my job, right. But now think of these rather smart survey guys, whoever did this report for us—the person I mean is smart. I think she—maybe it’s a he even—is trying to tell us something I think.

After a pause, you prompt her,

What?

Look at this too. Your coffee is getting cold. Now here is a fifteen page text file in which—this is from the web, by the way—someone has measured the life cycle of a piece of jewelry—when do women buy jewelry, festival times, marriage, birth and so on, and so on and on and on, and how they store it, when do they wear it, and when do they merely show it off, and all that is going to affect us directly—because this is not just about festivals, everybody knows women go mad about jewelry festival time, but the file gives a rather detailed description of many other things.

And so? you say.

Take this jewelry catalogue, all these things from women’s magazines, look at what women are writing in letters to these magazines. I showed this to the guys, and they said, you know, basically, so what, we have all the information required, we now know the market like the back of my hand, this guy said, I mean what a cliché, but let that be—and we can go ahead.

Hmmm

, you say.

Now if you count the number of pages that I have read over last night, that comes to about four hundred pages of text, ok, and my eyes are hurting, but I want this to be used in some meaningful way, but there is no way I can do it right now.

Either I do this slowly, and carefully, because there’s still a lot that I haven’t read, or they take the thing over, and I move on to something else, after which I will not touch any of this again, and I will refuse to be singled out for the brick-bats when things begin to go wrong. And they will. Because the analysis is not complete until we include all that is said in these files, and find a way of relating that to numbers and categories. So this is what I think, and I hope you make a decision before the meeting begins and let me know, because I am certainly going home now. OK? God knows I worked hard enough and could do with some sleep, so it’s either them or me having the last word.

She puts money down on the table, and says bye and goes home.

She turns back and says,

Numbers? There is nothing to discuss in them. Text, well we have to talk about it and understand. People speak in languages, not numbers, you know. Call me on my cell.

You reach your car, and as you start it, you think, this was good advice that she gave, she can do with less temper, but the advice itself, was it golden, or silver? As you slowly ease the car into the traffic, you settle for silver. Nobody gives golden advice. Silver is better than numbers.