People Centered Research: Ethnography
By Jack Mixner
[Definition: Ethnography – "The branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures," The American Heritage Dictionary, Third Edition, 1996.] Nussbaum has gotten me interested in ethnography, especially since Intel seems to use it extensively (see all the references on the Intel website). He talks about an Intel posting describing transnationals and cosmopolitans - "people who live outside their home countries and who move back and forth between countries."Laptops, cell phones, web sites, instant messaging and video conferencing all assist them to communicate with the location they call home. In the southern California community, we all sense that there is similar growing communication between various Hispanic communities. It makes sense, therefore, that Intel is interested in future communication trends.
Watching how people use your products, as opposed to just asking, probably makes a lot of sense. It might be that ethnography has application to what you are doing in your company.Strategic Implication
The next fashionable trend in management? Probably not. I think ethnography is going to be here a while.References
Real People Real Lives: People Centered Research at Intel. http://www.intel.com/technology/techresearch/reallives.htmNussbaum, Bruce. Ethnography is the New Core Competence. BusinessWeek IN (for Innovation) Insert. June 2006. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_25/b3989414.htm