JULIA KATHERINE HAINES Google BOB EVANS Google Overview The TRACES methodology focuses on foundational research at multiple levels of granularity and across multiple dimensions, digital and embodied. It is an approach to gathering more meaningful data around people’s daily lives, as they move within and between different devices, services, environments and product ecosystems. In this tutorial, participants will learn about TRACES and how to implement it using the Paco mobile and desktop behavioral research platform. Paco is an open source tool used around the world in both industry and academia. It can capture both emic and etic perspectives using sensors and logs, surveys, experience sampling, triggers, and prompts. Background on TRACES and Paco: Toward Multi-dimensional Ethnography, Julia Haines Paco: Applying Computational Methods to Scale Qualitative Methods, Bob Evans This tutorial was presented in full at EPIC202020. The video includes instructor presentations; discussions and breakout sessions...

An EPIC Talk with RITA DENNY, SUSAN FAULKNER, JULIA KATHERINE HAINES & LEE RYAN Overview In our goal to understand meanings and practices, logics and relationships, cultural and social phenomena, our ethnographic practice hinges on ‘being there.’ Now, the coronavirus pandemic has radically restricted our ability to share physical space with research participants, stakeholders, clients, and colleagues. As we adopt new tools and strategies for remote and virtual research, it's crucial to ask, What exactly does 'being there' mean? Ethnographers have a wealth of concepts and methods that will help us shift our practices in uncertain times. When we forego assumptions about which people and spaces are most authentic or 'real', we can position ourselves and our research participants in multidimensional ways that enrich our insights and impacts. This EPIC Talk has two parts: May 4: Panel Discussion Ethnographers with decades of experience in remote research will share frameworks for ‘being there’, consider...

EPIC2017 Platinum Panel Moderated by: MARTHA COTTON (Fjord) Panelists: JULIA KATHERINE HAINES (Google), BRIAN KING (HEC Montréal), MARIE-AGNES PARMENTIER (HEC Montréal), CARRIE YURY (Beyond Curious) & MICHAEL WINNICK (dscout) Overview This panel explores perspectives that emerge from the intersection of ethnography and agile methodologies—from real constraints to exciting possibilities. We seek to better understand what “agile” is and where it comes from and then explore tools and approaches that allow us to be relevant in agile contexts. Is being “agile” just about efficiency and speeding up our processes? Or is it about ongoing efforts that offer the right spark at the right time? Or maybe something in between? In this panel we explore this timely topic that currently—or soon will—affect most members of the EPIC community....

JULIA KATHERINE HAINES Google, Inc. In this paper, I argue for the value of multi-dimensional ethnography. I explore the potential for ethnography to venture beyond sites, into different dimensions. As an example of work moving in this direction, I present a new approach, dubbed TRACES, which emphasizes the assemblages that constitute our lives, interweaving digital, embodied, and internal experiences. Various data streams and sources provide different vantage points for analysis and synthesis. I illustrate how we have used these to gain greater insight into the human lives we study, with different data sources providing different perspectives on a world, then delve into our use of tools, data sources, and methods from other traditions and other fields, which, combined, give us not only a more holistic picture, but a truer one, which refutes the false dichotomy of the digital and the real. I argue that we must continue to adapt and extend ethnography today into such spaces, and that reformulating the sites of ethnography as dimensions...

JULIA KATHERINE HAINES University of California, Irvine The aim of this paper is to explore the potential for ethnographic approaches in technology startups and the venture capital firms that support and control them. The current practices and model of innovation aim for “disruptive innovation,” but most efforts fall short, prioritizing mass diffusion and not focusing on where true disruptive innovation lies—creating a change in meaning. I argue that an ethnographic approach can lead to innovation of meanings, bridging the gap between radical innovation and diffusion, and creating disruptive innovation. I discuss some ways ethnography can help product innovation in the startup sphere. But, more importantly, I discuss how ethnography holds great potential for reshaping the VC field, by driving meaning into the VC I then highlight alternative viewpoints that move beyond the “realist” perspective. Keywords: Innovation, Technology, New Product Development, Finance...

by JULIA KATHERINE HAINES, Google Innovation in the startup world is broken. Startups say their aim is “disruption”—a riff on Christensen’s definition, but much less precise. “Disruption” has been appropriated by startups to mean doing something that has widespread, radical impact. They are about “changing the world.” They’re obsessed with the concept…but are failing on their own terms. Unless you believe “changing the world” means doing “the things your mom no longer goes for you” (Arieff 2016). There are services that deliver beer to your door. Services that deliver X to your mailbox every Y months (razors, underwear, dinner kits). Apps to locate a rentable...anything. Not exactly revolutionary stuff. Are we running out of good ideas for innovation? No, not really. There are plenty of startups with good ideas, but they face a huge number of barriers, and we seldom hear about them. The ones we do end up hearing about—well, those are the ones that got funding from venture capital firms (VCs)....

by JULIA KATHERINE HAINES There are many ways to view Lean. Lean is a business science. It is a product development method. And in many ways, it is a communication medium. In my research with startups, I’ve also heard Lean referred to as a religion. If Lean is a “religion” in the new startup era, I’d like to propose another way to view Lean in practice. In this piece, I will show how Lean as a practice within startups fits the mold of a ritual—and how impactful such rituals can be. But I also want to suggest how Lean as a ritualized, or routine, practice can be problematic. But first, a little background on Lean. On Lean I have been studying startups that are participating in accelerator programs globally. Through my experience and close examination of startups and innovation, I found an underlying thread that connects them—it is, invariably, Lean. Lean Startup helped spur a startup mania around the globe. It was the first model to really describe startup creation as a science. The concept of Lean traces its roots...

JULIA KATHERINE HAINES Startup accelerators have expanded worldwide in recent years, fostering the development of technology startups and spreading Lean practices and Silicon Valley values to all corners of the globe. These accelerators clearly create value—for the teams whose development they foster, the products they create, and the larger ecosystems they build. But there are also a number of challenges arising from the model and how it is implemented in different contexts globally. Through fieldwork at accelerators in Singapore and Buenos Aires, I investigate the global expansion of this innovation model. In this paper, I discuss the most salient challenges and discuss potential opportunities emerging from these challenges, and how other methods and practices such as design thinking, intensive user research and flexible, bottom up-approaches can add value to the accelerator process. I also highlight mutually beneficial ways the EPIC community can become more involved in startups ecosystems....