I’ve been reading with interest the reaction to Morgan Stanley’s publication of the research results of their 15-year old intern, Matthew Robson.

While I’m sure that he didn’t actually learn all about banking in a week – as alleged in the FT article – it’s been amazing to read what everyone else has written about the report Morgan Stanley published, which was subsequently posted and blogged over ad infinitum in the past week.

First of all, some folks should get off the kid’s case; it’s presumptuous to suggest that any favours were done for Robson on the basis of anything other than that he’s a 15 year-old who, out of the vacuous midst of many of his contemporaries, handed in some articulate and well-constructed insights to his work experience supervisors.

Secondly, it’s compelling research. We’ve spent time lately with product and product marketing folks in the mobile sector who displayed little more than a cursory awareness of the realities of the sector in which they purportedly specialise for their network operator employers. Robson’s shown the sort of nous which comes from actually having a clue about his nominated specialty which, in his case, is simply being fifteen years old.

And thirdly – we’ve recently sponsored some market research which suggests that – in the mobile sense – his observations were absolutely on the money. Albeit restricted to certain countries in South Asia, we’ve discovered that a certain age demographic – in this case, under 18 – displays trends and usage patterns dramatically different from say the 18-25 age bracket. Like, they don’t really like pay-as-you-go mobile services, preferring the known costs of a fixed broadband line. And they can easily resist the bling factor of the latest iPhone/smartphone de jour, instead carrying a less desirable handset that simply does the job.

The balance of Robson’s report is worth reading, and while it shouldn’t be considered as authoritative in isolation, it should simply be evaluated for what it is – a well written insight into what 15 year-olds think about various technologies.

And it’s right.