As soon as Rachel Lee wakes up, she fires up her computer and starts scouring North Korean newspapers, television broadcasts, academic journals and obscure websites affiliated to the secretive nation.
Alongside the propagandist prose thick with dogma and slogans, images of politburo meetings, military parades, leadership rostrums, state anniversaries and funerals are parsed in search of one vital clue: who is inching nearer to Kim Jong Un, the supreme leader.
This painstaking research that the North Korean analyst has carried out for 20 years for the US government, think-tanks and news services, is critical in helping spy agencies and diplomats assess who might be gaining, or losing, influence in the leadership.