W7: They just don't get it: Strategies, tools, and best practices for explaining ethnography to stakeholders

Abstract

Ethnography is a popular buzzword, broadly used but poorly understood – and even harder to explain. Furthermore, ethnography is driven by the logic of discovery, not verification. Ethnographers don’t bring their preconceived notions to the settings they study; they don’t want to predict just what will be discovered before fieldwork has begun. While the inductive nature of ethnographic research is its strength, this very strength makes it challenging to explain the benefits to folks who operate in business environments where managers pre-set their targets.

The goal of this workshop is to share and leverage each other’s experiences in explaining what ethnography is. The benefit for participants is to be able to anticipate and address challenging questions about ethnography, as well as fill in gaps about how best to explain it. The target audience is (1) ethnographers who are stumped or frustrated with repeatedly answering the hard questions, and (2) anybody who wants to clarify his or her understanding of ethnography.

We will review some of the frequently asked questions ethnographers are faced with when explaining ethnography to their clients. For example: some clients are concerned about generalizability of the findings that ethnographers glean based on selected samples. How does one convey the value of such findings? Other clients are bothered by the subjective nature of findings, as the quality of findings can depend very much on the individual skills of the ethnographer. How does one offset this concern? Some clients may be disappointed when ethnography delivers results that are considered interesting but not obviously actionable. How does one reposition findings so they are still useful?

Our combined experience over the years with different clients in a variety of settings has yielded response strategies such as: explanations with examples and metaphors; demonstrating the nature of ethnographic research through observational exercises with client stakeholders; adapting explanations to the language and concepts familiar to clients; and more.

To extend this experience to workshop participants and build on each other’s insights, we will seed the discussion with the list of questions we have heard. Participants will then add and parse questions and formulate answers in groups. We will also address how to distinguish ethnography from related methods and concepts with which it is often confused – such as usability tests, time and motion studies, and behavioral modeling.

But the perspectives won’t be insular. In addition to ethnographers, we are inviting industry stakeholders (e.g., potential clients of ethnographic research projects) who will share their experiences on the “receiving” end. In particular, we will ask them how they understood ethnography initially, how their understanding changed over time, what confused them the most, and what helped to clarify the confusion.

Finally, as an outcome of this workshop, we hope to create a comprehensive map of questions and responses in a platform that enables anyone to edit and advance the shared ideas. We envision this platform as a resource for any ethnographer in industry.

Approach

Ethnography is a popular buzzword, broadly used but poorly understood – and even harder to explain.

Driven by the logic of discovery (vs. verification), ethnographers don’t bring their preconceived notions to the settings they study. They don’t want to predict just what will be discovered before fieldwork has begun. While this inductive nature of ethnographic research is its strength, this very strength makes it challenging to explain the benefits to folks who operate in business environments where managers template their targets.

The goal of this workshop is to share and leverage each other’s experiences in explaining what ethnography is.

The benefit? To not just anticipate, but address challenging questions about ethnography. To fill in gaps about how best to explain it. To help create and draw on a resource for the industry. (As an outcome of this workshop, we hope to create a comprehensive map of questions and responses in a platform that enables anyone to edit and advance the shared ideas. We envision this platform as a resource for any ethnographer in industry. Participants should bring a computer or some other device for accessing the web and email.)

Structure

We will review some of the frequently asked questions ethnographers are faced with when explaining ethnography to their clients. For example...

Some clients are concerned about generalizability of the findings that ethnographers glean based on selected samples. How does one convey the value of such findings?

Other clients are bothered by the subjective nature of findings, as the quality of findings can depend very much on the individual skills of the ethnographer. How does one offset this concern?
Some clients may be disappointed when ethnography delivers results that are considered interesting but not obviously actionable. How does one reposition findings so they are still useful?

We'll share strategies. Our combined experience over the years with different clients in a variety of settings has prepared us with a list of typical hard questions we are asked and the effective ways to answer them (including but not limited to: explanations with examples and metaphors; demonstrating the nature of ethnographic research through observational exercises with client stakeholders; adapting explanations to the language and concepts familiar to clients; etc.).

You'll interact with us and each other. To extend this experience to workshop participants and build on each other’s insights, we will seed the discussion with the list of common questions we've heard. Participants will add and group questions and formulate answers in groups. We will also address how to distinguish ethnography from related methods and concepts with which it is often confused – such as usability tests, time and motion studies, and behavioral modeling.

But the perspectives won’t be insular. In addition to ethnographers, we are inviting industry stakeholders (e.g., potential clients of ethnographic research projects) who will share their experiences on the “receiving” end. We'll probe them on how they understood ethnography initially, how their understanding changed over time, what confused them the most, and what helped to clarify the confusion.

Target Audience

Anyone who has been stumped or frustrated with repeatedly answering the hard questions. And anybody who wants to clarify his or her understanding of ethnography.

Organizers

Yutaka Yamauchi
Dr. Yutaka Yamauchi is an ethnographer at PARC (Palo Alto Research Center, a Xerox company). Yutaka has studied various types of work practices and learning in the workplace such as product development, software engineering, consulting, and customer-service providers. His current work revolves around research and development (R&D) management. Currently, he is working on "demystifying" how PARC innovates, matches technologies and markets, and creates new capabilities and businesses. Yutaka helps clients transform themselves in a similar way. Yutaka earned his Ph.D. from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and Master's in Computer Science from Kyoto University.

James Glasnapp
With expertise in domestic and international work in ethnography, evaluation, planning, behavioral theory, modeling, requirement analysis, competency transfer, advertising, and public health, James Glasnapp manages PARC's Workscapes and Organization team. He is currently interested in how ethnographic observations of information flow in hospital and clinic settings during transitions to EMRs can facilitate improvements in work practice and streamline processes. James has conducted ethnographic research in eight countries on a multi-national global account sales team to inform the development of PARC technologies that improve the way distributed teams will work in the future. Interested in technological innovation with respect to human interaction, James co-developed a model for human-display interaction with PARC computer scientists based on ethnographic observations. He motivates clients to look beyond the obvious and imagine future possibilities, and is inspired by opportunities to use ethnographic data to achieve process and/or technological innovation. Dr. Glasnapp received his doctorate and masters degrees from the University of California, Berkeley, where he was also an award-winning educator. James is an avid competitive swimmer and hiker.

Peggy Szymanski
Margaret "Peggy" Szymanski is a senior researcher at Palo Alto Research Center. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara specializing in the study of Language, Interaction and Social Organization (LISO). At PARC, her research has examined topics such as communication across knowledge boundaries, social engagement at museums around electronic guidebooks, ethnographic training for corporations, and the organization of remote and copresent multi-party conversational interaction. Before joining PARC, Szymanski was a bilingual, elementary school teacher in Los Angeles studying how native Spanish-speaking children transition to English literacy.

Nozomi Ikeya
Nozomi Ikeya is a senior researcher at PARC, and studies "knowledge in action" in social settings from an ethnomethodological perspective. She has conducted ethnographic studies of work practice in various professional work settings, including: emergency medical practice at hospitals and emergency call centers; wellness instruction service practice; library services, particularly service design practices and reference service interactions; system engineers' project management and discovery; and hardware designers' work practices. She also has experiences in holding ethnographic trainings for professionals such as researchers in engineering, software engineers and advertisement planners. Nozomi was recently a visiting professor at Comprehensive Open Innovation Center at Saitama University, and was also Associate Professor of the Sociology Department at Toyo University in Japan before coming to PARC. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.

Aki Ohashi
Aki Ohashi is PARC's Director of Business Development responsible for developing and managing client relationships in the Japanese market. He is involved in all aspects of setting up projects with our Japanese partners: from the initial introductory meeting and defining of project deliverables and resources, to contracting and IP term definition. Aki works with all of PARC’s corporate clients in Japan including Fujitsu, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd., and NEC Corporation, as well as our Japanese university partners and governmental organizations. Prior to joining PARC, Aki was a Partner with the Venture Capital Investment Division of ngi group, inc. (formerly Netage, Inc.) in Japan, where he led investments in, and served on the boards of, Internet-related startups in both the U.S. and Japan. Before ngi group, he served as the COO of Tilefile, KK, a Netage-funded Internet startup in Japan. At Tilefile, Aki worked on structuring the intellectual property agreements with a sister company in Australia, as well as helping fundraise, manage software development, and execute business and market entry strategies. Aki has also has served in management and IT consulting roles at L.E.K. Consulting and Cognizant Technology Solutions, respectively, where he led client engagements for major corporations in both the U.S. and Japan. He began his career in technology at Mediaplex, Inc. (acquired by ValueClick, Inc.), an Internet advertising technology company in Silicon Valley. Aki earned his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Architecture and Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. While Aki was born and raised in the United States, he has spent 4 years living and working in Japan and communicates with clients in both English and Japanese.