Curator: Makiko Taniguchi (IDEO)

Keitai, Blog, and Kuuki-wo-yomu (Read the atmosphere): Communicative Ecology in Japanese Society
Tadamasa Kimura (University of Tokyo)

The objective of this study is to explore the socio-cultural contextualization of social communications via mobile phone and blogging in Japanese society, relying on and advancing the methodological perspective of “communicative ecology.”
In mobile communications studies, Japan is known for its “keitai culture.”  However, the actual use of keitai among the Japanese is anything but glamorous. In comparison with other advanced information societies, it has turned out that the Japanese make a limited use of advanced ICTs, including keitai, as a communications medium.  In this respect, strong preference of online diary and diary blogs among the Japanese is remarkable.
What is puzzling, however, is that the Japanese online diarists and bloggers have been astoundingly self-effacing.  What communications are they engaged in, with providing little information about themselves?.
Based on intensive ethnographic researches in Japan as well as in Korea and in Finland, this study discusses the way online diaries and blogs are intertwined with mobile communications, embedded in the communicative ecology related to each other.  It also reveals the way “kuuki wo yomu” (read the atmosphere) motivates people’s expectations and actions in social communications, contributing to the formation of the communicative ecology.

Creating meaning in an open source community:  The role of the ethnographer.
Charline Poirier (Canonical)

The open source community is a new environment for practicing ethnography, user research and usability. This is partly because findings about users have traditionally been conceived for an audience (e.g., corporate clients, design teams) quite different from this one – quite literally a community, comprised of highly technical, highly motivated people, mostly volunteer and self-directed developers.
The open source history, culture, and work practices make for a very different kind of client.
My project began with an investigation into how usability findings could be effectively reported to open source developers.  Initially, the goal was simply to co-design along with developers a sensible presentation format to communicate information about users. The results of this knowledge-sharing process, however, did not result in what I had hoped it would – that is, in a robust shared and actionable knowledge. Instead, I found that, if the ethnographer is to ensure the implementation of her user research findings, she must actually engage in some of the work practices and communication modalities of the community.
In short, this paper will discuss how, in the open source world, the role of the ethnographer has to be blurred with other roles, and what we can learn from this partial merging of roles.

Navigating Value and Vulnerability with Multiple Stakeholders: Systems thinking, design action and the ways of ethnography.
Melissa Cliver (Independent design consultant, Institute of Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion)
Rudy Yuly (Independent consultant)
Catherine Howard (Jump Associates)

A growing cadre of organizations, corporations, NGOs and philanthropic foundations seek to address difficult global problems like poverty using social innovation and technology.
These problems are multivalent, deep-rooted, ever changing and culturally specific. Amid this complicated terrain, ethnographic tools and methods are uniquely suited and key to successfully address these large-scale dilemmas.
In our project, we use research, strategy and creative thinking to provide scalable financial service prototypes designed to promote financial inclusion for the world’s poorest individuals. We focus on sustainable trade coffee farming cooperatives and stakeholders in this industry (farmers, venture capital, consumers, importers, etc.) because sustainable trade has an established economic and empathetic framework with direct links to the poorest day laborers.
Global networks such as the sustainable trade industry are comprised of a complex web of interested parties with differing agendas and interwoven relationships. Fostering holistic solutions in this arena requires new ways of researching, designing and delivering innovation. We navigate these complex environments with program flexibility, radical sharing and an embrace of systems thinking. Our paper describes these three imperatives as key to our approach. We share our strategies in order to inspire ethnographers, designers, and business strategists working on global social innovation projects.

Ethnography in the Age of Analytics
Adrian Slobin and Todd Cherkasky (SapientNitro)

As North America begins to emerge from the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, companies are turning up their investment dollars. This investment includes a renewed focus on what might loosely be called “the customer experience.” In our recent consulting engagements, this focus often comes in the form of a clearly stated client demand for a very unclear concept – a “360 view of my customer.” The metaphor conjures up a pantopticonal image of customer beliefs and behaviors which, in the hands of a (hopefully beneficent) company, would precipitate a perfectly calibrated set of products and services. Ethnographic practice would, one would think, be well positioned to support this renewed focus on experience. While ethnography may find its way into the conversation, we have found that the conversation about customer experience typically begins with analytics and business intelligence. In other words, this metaphor of a “360 view of my customer” has led to an emphasis on data acquisition, with less of a focus on experiential understanding – or so we will argue. That said, data modeling can be fruitfully employed with the interpretive practices of ethnography – as long as the focus returns to experience and away from data hoarding. We will close with recommendations for how ethnography can and should seize this moment to deliver a more valuable perspective on the customer.

Turn and face the strange: An ethnographic approach to change management
Mads Holme (ReD Associates)

The ability to lead organizational and cultural change has never been a more critical factor for success in business than today. With renewed urgency many executives ask what do with their company culture(s): ‘Why can’t we build organizations that are more innovative, inspiring, and more agile – and why do our change initiatives typically fail?’
Based on project engagements where questions like these have been a focal point, this paper aims to shed light on the conditions and role of business anthropology to take active part in enhancing organizational change programs. Through concrete examples, it discusses central challenges on how we as ethnographers can strengthen our approach when navigating in change programs – not only in terms of how we decompose and diagnose culture (telling companies what they should not do) – but more importantly on how to play an active role in leading the way and tackling complexity through positive enablers of change.