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The latest Intel Technology Journal (Volume 13, Issue 30 reports the research and development activities of the Intel Digital Health Group and its colleagues.
One article, entitled “From people to prototypes and products: ethnographic liquidity and the Intel Global Aging Experience study“, documents how a large-scale, multi-site, ethnographic research project into aging populations, the Global Aging Experience Study, led to the development of concepts, product prototypes, and products for the independent living market.
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Larsst
collections along the way
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Ethnography and the Corporate Encounter Reflections on Research in and of Corporations Edited by Melissa Cefkin Berghahn Books (July 2009) Hardcover, 253 pages Businesses and other organizations are increasingly hiring anthropologists and other ethnographically-oriented social scientists as employees, consultants, and advisors. The nature of such work, as described in this volume, raises crucial questions about potential implications to disciplines of critical inquiry such as anthropology. In addressing these issues, the contributors explore how researchers encounter and engage sites of organizational practice in such roles as suppliers of consumer-insight for product design or marketing, or as advisors on work design or business and organizational strategies. The volume contributes to the emerging canon of corporate ethnography, appealing to practitioners who wish to advance their understanding of the practice of corporate ethnography and providing rich material to those interested in new applications of ethnographic work and the ongoing rethinking of the nature of ethnographic praxis. Melissa Cefkin is a cultural anthropologist with experience in research, management, teaching, and consulting for business and government. Currently based at IBM Research in the area of services research, she earned her PhD from Rice University and remains dedicated to pursuing a critical understanding of the intersections of anthropological practice within business and organizational settings. Chapters |
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Danah Boyd, a social media researcher at Microsoft Research, is quite in the news these days, including a very nice profile in The Guardian:
The Guardian – 9 December 2009
ReadWriteWeb – 10 December 2009
On her blog, Danah links to the crib of her talk, and to the LeWeb video and the Supernova video (where she presented the same talk). |
A few years ago I was enjoying brunch with some friends at the Tavern at Lark Creek, which is rightfully known for excellent food and attentive and friendly service. Part way through the meal I had to excuse myself to use the bathroom. The bathroom was up some windy stairs, and was very nicely appointed, even more nicely treated than the dining room itself. As restaurant bathrooms go it was very pleasant, but I did not give it much thought.
At the end of the meal before hitting the road for a slightly long drive, I decided to make another pit-stop. This time I saw a downstairs bathroom, which was not as nice as the first one I had used upstairs (thought it was not by any means unpleasant). It became clear that I had taken a wrong turn the first time and had used the employee bathroom.
I could have chosen to be miffed that the restaurant didn’t ensure that the guest bathroom was as good as it could be. Instead, I realized that the quality of the employee bathroom was one sign that the restaurant cared for its staff, and recognized that taking care of the EX – the employee experience – is a prerequisite to a consistently high quality UX – user (customer) experience. They realized that “customer centric” does not mean ignoring employees. In fact it’s just the opposite, if you want to offer truly good service to customers, you need to start with treating your staff right.
As Olive Garden President David Pickens puts it, “It’s very difficult for the experience of the guests to exceed the experience of the staff.”
When you look at the company’s that consistently deliver superior UX – Zappos, Amazon, Google, Southwest, Starbucks back in the old days, Levenger, Niemen Marcus, the one thing they all have in common is that they pay huge amounts of attention to the quality of life of their staff, creating a culture and infrastructure of training that help their staff do the right thing, even when there isn’t an exact rule about what to do in a novel situation.
As an extreme example, read the letter that Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh wrote to employees when the acquisition by Amazon was announced. It is manically focused on the culture of the company and the worklife of the staff, superseding just about every other concern. “Culture” shows up 23 time in it, 7 times in association with “unique”, and 21 times with “brand”. In other words, Hsieh makes an intimate connection between the internal culture of the company and the external brand as it appears to customers – he recognizes that the EX is directly correlated with UX.
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Mobile phones for development and profit: a win-win scenario Rohit Singh Overseas Development Institute, 2009 The number of mobile subscribers globally is estimated to have reached four billion in 2008 (ITU, 2008), with mobile penetration reaching 61%. Around 58% of subscribers are in developing countries, and subscriber growth in Africa – more than 50% per year – is the highest in the world. Studies have shown that this rapid increase in mobile penetration has contributed significantly to economic growth. Fuss, Meschi and Waverman (2005) looked at 92 countries, both developed and developing, to estimate the impact of mobile phones on economic growth for the period 1980 to 2003. They found that a 10% difference in mobile penetration levels over the entire sample period implies a 0.6% difference in growth rates between otherwise identical developing nations. The effect of mobiles was twice as large in developing countries as in developed ones (Waverman, 2005). Mobile phones have brought three kinds of benefits (id21, 2007). First, incremental benefits, improving what people already do – offering them faster and cheaper communication, often substituting for costly and risky journeys. Fishermen in India, for example, can earn more money and waste less fish by phoning coastal markets to see which market has a shortage of supply. Second, transformational benefits that offer something new. Innovative applications, such as m-banking and m-commerce, are bringing banking services to millions for the first time, and enabling people to use mobile phones to pay for goods and services. Third, production benefits that result from the creation of new livelihoods, not only through professional telecommunications jobs but also through activities like re-selling air-time or phone cards. Since the liberalisation of Nigeria’s telecommunications sector in 2000, the industry has become a key source of new jobs in the economy, employing about 5,500 professionals, and responsible, indirectly, for another 450,000 jobs. (via MobileActive) |
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The New York Times interactive group creates an online encyclopedia of all their stunning inventions, reports Cliff Kuang on Fast Company.
And apparently, the site was designed to inspire conversations about how to apply immersive storytelling techniques to… the advertising process. |