Annual conference Imagining the alternative It is important to empathise with those with whom you disagree, and understand what motivates those with different political outlooks, said playwright and screenwriter James Graham. Graham, who has written plays, television programmes and films including This House, Brexit: The Uncivil War, and Ink said todays polarised political landscape lacks empathy, and it is good to walk in the footsteps of someone you politically or ideologically disagree with. He added: I have biases and very passionate political opinions, but I dont want to project them onto an audience that is boring and inert. It is more valuable to me to play devils advocate with my own political baggage and imagine the alternative world. Graham has spoken to political and public figures such as political adviser Dominic Cummings and newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch as research for his plays. What is the difference between accuracy and truth? Fact and fiction? The thing I enjoy most about my job is being allowed access to environments, people and professions just because you email someone. It is such a geeky thrill to be allowed a window into those worlds, Graham said. Like market research, it is often about how you frame the question what am I asking? What do I want to know? without leading you in a particular direction. He also cited the importance of conducting research without an agenda, to make people comfortable to open up about their actions and experiences. People can smell insincerity, and if you are there with a particular agenda, or to exploit or misrepresent, people know it instantly, Graham explained. If you turn up incredibly sincerely, with a genuine desire for your own preconceptions to be destroyed and really hear people, they open up even more. You need to be prepared to go home and delete everything you have written because someone has added a perspective. Graham writes a lot of notes, but avoids recording conversations, as he is looking to learn about someones ideas, spirit or demeanour, rather than specific quotes. He also tries to experience workplaces or situations about which he writes, such as being in the Vote Leave campaign offices at the 2016 referendum, or working for a major tabloid newspaper. Once you understand somethings process, you can understand a higher truth, he said. You dont need to go in hard on the big philosophical stuff you can enjoy the minutiae. The balance of long- and short-term insight Covid-19 has highlighted the agility of research teams, according to a panel discussion with Reckitt Benckiser, PepsiCo and Pearson. Elaine Rodrigo, Reckitt Benckiser chief insights and analytics officer, said: Weve seen consumer insight, data and analytics at the forefront of everything, from advising senior stakeholders and leaders about what to do, through to executive committees about what to do in the country. Asked how the pandemic had affected their various research functions, Dr Parves Khan, global research and insight director at Pearson, said her team had done more tactical types of research than normal. The insight team had not had the headspace to reflect on the bigger questions and bring in strategic insight, she said. We were constantly talking with the strategy team about the stickiness of the pandemic, about how long it will last. Likewise, for Tim Warner executive lead for insights, data, business intelligence & advanced analytics, PepsiCo the shape of work changed a lot, enhancing the need for greater agility and a degree of crisis management, responding to requests for information from across the business. [Our newfound] agility has accelerated what we had already started, he said. We needed to double down and ensure we have the best agency partners and tools to navigate the external environment in the next five years... Were moving towards not only keeping abreast of whats happened externally, but also how we work with partners to create more predictive capabilities. For Rodrigo, divide and conquer formed the crux of her teams strategy. It was about setting up to manage now, while not losing sight of the future. It was almost like day-to-day crisis management. It was all hands on deck, and a few of us took ourselves out of that and split into different teams, some working on short-term critical stages and others long-term. The panellists were asked what advice they would give agency partners: PepsiCos Warner has been very impressed with how agencies have accelerated their technology strategies in the past 12 months, and called for more of the same: Dont take your foot off the gas. Focus on what you can be world-class at, rather than try to be good at many things; and try to drive digital accelerations and develop tools. Pearsons Khan said she needs her partners to become a trusted adviser, a right-hand person that knows what I need without having to write a research brief. Rodrigo suggested that different agency types learn from one another: There are two groups of vendors some fast and agile, others slower, more strategic and good thinkers. It would be good if they could meet. 18 Impact ISSUE 33 2021_pp16-21_Conference .indd 18 26/03/2021 09:57