corporate & business anthropology

An anthropologist at an architecture firm

Published on January 15, 2006 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology

(via Putting People First) Peter Merholz at Peterme.com writes about an “enjoyable dinner brought together by local members of the anthrodesign mailing list“. He was particularly excited talking to an anthropologist who’s started working for an architecture firm (MKThink), “because he’s getting MKThink to move beyond standard architectural practice and consider ethnography as a method toward constructing better built environments”.

>> continue

(via Putting People First) Peter Merholz at Peterme.com writes about an "enjoyable dinner brought together by local members of the anthrodesign mailing list". He was particularly excited talking to an anthropologist who's started working for an architecture firm (MKThink), "because…

Virtual Armchair Anthropology: Trend Watching Fieldwork Online

Published on November 30, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, corporate & business anthropology, cyberanthropology, fieldwork / methods, internet

“I predict that we will slowly see the return of the “armchair anthropologists” Malinowski so famously dethroned.” The reason: “The web offers a tremendous, and ever growing database of lived experience”, Kerim Friedman wrote in an earlier post on Savage Minds. Via del.icio.us/anthropology I found the article “Visual Anthropology” by trendwatching.com. They list several tips on how to conduct online-fieldwork – anthropology light – to find out about peoples’life. From their introduction:

As consumers around the world pro-actively post, stream if not lead parts of their lives online, you (or your trend team) can now vicariously ‘live’ amongst them, at home, at work, out on the streets. From reading minute-by-minute online diaries or watching live webcam feeds, to diving into tens of millions of tagged pictures uploaded by Flickr-fueled members of GENERATION C in Mexico, Mauritius, Malaysia and dozens of other countries.

What’s so interesting about this feature are the large number of links to explore. In many cases, the photo sharing service flickr gives insight into peoples life. Or obscure sites like What’s in your fridge?

>> continue to Virtual Anthropology. An emerging consumer trend and related new business ideas

"I predict that we will slowly see the return of the “armchair anthropologists” Malinowski so famously dethroned." The reason: "The web offers a tremendous, and ever growing database of lived experience", Kerim Friedman wrote in an earlier post on Savage…

Ethnography for Marketers: “A pretty tragic book”

Published on November 20, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, books, corporate & business anthropology

Ethnography is a buzz-word in the marketing industry. But do anthropologists and markerters have the same understanding of what it means to be a good ethnographer? Maybe not according a new book that anthropologist Simon Roberts from Ideas Bazaar reviewed: Ethnography for Marketers by Hy Mariampolski. A quite tragic book, he writes, as it focuses too much on the practical, on how an ethnography project is set up:

To focus so strongly on the fieldwork seems to me to reveal the dynamics of the market research industry itself: namely ‘fetishise’ the method, commodify it and then sell it by the unit. Ethnography offers the opportunity to sell thinking not research, but this book offers little in the way of insight into how to think ethnographically.

(…)

This focus on the practical and logistical is understandable but it betrays a common confusion as to what ethnography is, its roots and how this informs what we do as researchers and what we give our clients. Mariampolski seems to be writing about one aspect of ethnography, the act of doing fieldwork, focusing almost exclusively on being in the field. Ethnography, however, is as much about interpretation, the post-fieldwork-fieldwork, as it is conducting participant observation.

>> read the whole review

INTEL and Microsoft conference "a coming-out party" for ethnography

Published on November 17, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, applied anthropology, corporate & business anthropology, design anthropology, technology

(LINKS UPDATED 5.2.2021) It’s no longer news that high-tech companies are employing ethnographers and anthropologists. The first-ever Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC), organized by ethnographers at Intel and Microsoft was held at Microsoft’s campus on November 14-15, as TechnologyReview reports:

One talk examined an ongoing effort by ethnographers to root out organizational problems slowing down a software company’s development process. Another examined how bi-lingual, multinational teams could be formed more effectively, while yet another examined how technology affects, and is affected by, the trend toward “great rooms” in private U.S. homes. (…) It was an ethnographer who figured out that Japanese people don’t use instant messaging on their PCs, because interruptions are considered impolite.

The conference was “a coming-out party” for ethnography, said Marietta L. Baba, an ethnographer at Michigan State University.

>> read the whole story

Dina Mehta has blogged extensively about the conference. Read her summaries and thoughts here.

All conference papers are available online! (pdf)

(LINKS UPDATED 5.2.2021) It's no longer news that high-tech companies are employing ethnographers and anthropologists. The first-ever Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC), organized by ethnographers at Intel and Microsoft was held at Microsoft's campus on November 14-15, as TechnologyReview…

INTEL-ethnographers challenge our assumptions of the digital divide

Published on October 27, 2005 by lorenz Posted in anthropology in the news, Asia, corporate & business anthropology, development empowerment, internet, Latin- and Central America, technology

(via Bits and Bytes Interesting story by INTEL-etnographers Tony Salvador and John Sherry (one of them – Sherry – is actually an anthropologist!) on their work in India, Peru and Hungary. They summarize some of their findings after four years circling the world to find out how computers are being used by typical people in different cultures.

One of their main points:

The split between those with and those without access to digital technologies is referred to as the digital divide. But that phrase hides the complexity of the problem, because it focuses on the “having” and the “not having” of technology. Instead, what really matters is the ability to benefit from technology, whether or not that technology is personally owned.

They go on with various examples, among others they show how even the computer illiterate reap the advantages of the Web, made possible by public Internet facilities. The ethnographers remind us of that only about 10 percent of the people on the planet are familiar with the Internet and what it can do.

>> read the whole story in Spectrum Online

UPDATE Kerim Friedman comments:

I believe we can better understand the impact of new communications technologies if we emphasize the similarities, rather than just the differences, with older technologies.

>> read his post on Savage Minds

SEE ALSO

Internet and development in India

“How Media and Digital Technology Empower Indigenous Survival

Intel is using locally hired anthropologists in new development centers

More and more blogging anthropologists – but the digital divide persists

(via Bits and Bytes Interesting story by INTEL-etnographers Tony Salvador and John Sherry (one of them - Sherry - is actually an anthropologist!) on their work in India, Peru and Hungary. They summarize some of their findings after four years…