Research 2009 did not have an official conference theme. It was, confessed the programme chairs in the opening session, a deliberate ploy to enable the market research industry to convene and explore its future in an "open and generative" way, free of assumption and prescription.

Such a plan - or lack of one - was tacitly endorsed some 24 hours later when author and Demos researcher Charles Leadbeater took to the same stage and opined: "There is no media organisation in London that knows for sure what its business model will be in five years time - except, maybe, for Google".

His comment was directed to the "creative classes" facing the double-whammy of the rise of the web and a prolonged recession. But by the time his presentation had concluded, his prognosis was more far-reaching - technological connectivity was going to radically alter