Matthew Robson
Sukumar Ranganathan -
Wednesday, July 15, 2009 6:34 PM
Most people have by now heard of Matthew Robson, the 15-year old who is currently enjoying his 15-minutes under the sun, thanks to his efforts to help the folks at Morgan Stanley and in Big Media to understand how teenagers consume media. While the report and Master Robson's insights have been received with much oohing and aahing by media companies -- making some of us worry about how little everyone seems to know about, say, building a succesful financial model around a twitter feed -- it has also come in for some criticism, most notably, here, and here.
Should we taking a 15-year old seriously?
Yes (after all, at 15, most of us were not interning at Morgan Stanley), but with the usual caveats about 15-year-olds.
1. At 15, most of us thought we had the world figured out
2. At 15, some of us thought it was cool to smoke -- anything
3. At 15, most of us didn't know whether or not we wanted a moustache and definitely had no clue as to how to wear our hair
4. At 15, most of us thought our fellow 15-year olds were morons
5. At 15, some of us thought either that we knew everything there was to know about everything or that it was bad manners to use the phrase "I don't know".