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Thursday, February 16, 2006 |
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Just read an interview with Ken Anderson, Manager of People and Practice Research at Intel. Two things he says that struck me as interesting, given that when I go to meetings and say I'm a qualitative researcher and ethnographer, people still wonder what or who an ethnographer is : "Ethnographers function more as the canary
in the coal mines... We're actually better at decreasing the odds of
failure than increasing the odds of success. We can say, 'Warning,
warning! A 44-inch box is not going to fit in kitchens in China. Don't
go there.' We know where people in China feel their technology belongs,
because we understand their values about the home. And we also know the
physical constraints - you're just not going to fit a 44-inch box
anywhere in anybody's kitchen. And if you do, they're not going to care
because it's just for display. In urban China right now, technology is
all about display. It's not about hiding it in the kitchen." and ..."Anderson still disagrees with the suggestion that ethnography ëhas hadí an impact on corporate culture. ëI think ethnography is having an impact on corporate culture. I still go to meetings where people say, 'What is ethnography?' And I go to other meetings where they say, 'Why should we care about how people live their lives?' I think that's still part of the change that's yet to happen.' But the future looks good, both for existing ethnographers and emerging hybrid ethnographer / project managers."  Just to illustrate the first point he makes, try asking a housewife in a group discussion setting to describe her kitchen and then identify needgaps. And compare that with actually visiting her kitchen, taking photos of it, and then in that context, asking her some questions - its a whole different dimension that is open now. The picture here is from a middle income household I visited in Mumbai on a study. I've added it here with her permission. 5:07:11 PM  comment [] trackback []
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Copyright 2009 Dina Mehta
