Thread by @lillianmli

1) To give a clear example of how I researched, framed and synthesised.

Here's a breakdown of how I put one of my pieces together - specifically on Chinese agriculture tech.

A topic I had little knowledge about beforehand but was able to write a 1,500+ piece in a week.

2) To refresh, my process is:
- Start off with tree trunk knowledge / primers
- Have key questions you are asking
- Background mental models / similar examples
- The finding additional info
- Talk to people and then talk some more

https://twitter.com/lillianmli/status/1485261864556658689?s=20

3) For the agricultural piece, I started to look for primers by googling, scanning documents quickly to see what keywords arose.
Turns out the keywords was 'Digital Agriculture' in Chinese, and once I found the particular lexicon for the field, going further was easier.

4) This is true for all fields, there will be one or two magical phrases that open up the entire space.
For tree trunk knowledge, it turned out in this case academic papers were more useful than corporate reports.
Be open to all info types and be happy to consider them.

5) Once I had read through a few academic papers, I had a good grasp of the issues. This was accelerated by my existing frameworks on agricultural market.
Which is that
- There's always a demand for food, so bottle necks are typically supply led

6) - Supply is always constrained by arable soil area
- It's often an optimisation problem between different inputs and farming processes since existing parameters are set
- Policy are often an accelerate and directional guide in China, not absolute.

7) The key questions I had while forming the tree trunk knowledge was
- What's the issue with this market that it needs reforms?
- What's the supply chain like? Aka how does it make money
- Where is there potential for tech to be accelerant?

8) The key questions guided my reading for a new topic. I didn't have to know everything, but I needed to grasp the existing economic conditions in the supply chain and who exerts power in what way.
As well as why and how it was an industry ready for a tech change.

9) You'll notice the questions I've posed are subtle refinements of each other and that because the further along the research process, the questions should be getting more narrower and precise. Not getting bigger.
This way one can zone into specific issues

10) Diagrams are my way of visualising my hypothesis at any one time from reading, but you should find the way that works for you.
I typically scribble in my notebook various shapes and linkages as I read to better clarify the relationships and my existing hypothesis.

11) In terms of talking to people and gaining additional info.
I did open Kuaishou and look specifically for farming content and also went to an agricultural conference to pick up additional information.
Look for information close to source if possible
lillianli.substack.com/p/the-product-…

12) The resulting article I'm relatively happy with, but let me know what you thought. If you found this thread useful, consider a retweet and a follow.

I'll be back in due time with another thread on Chinese tech soon.
lillianli.substack.com/p/prediction-a…