Jennifer Collier Jennings

Perspectives

Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life

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a book review by SIMON ROBERTS, Stripe Partners Anthro-Vision: A New Way to See in Business and Life Gillian Tett 2021, 304 pp, Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster → Watch Simon Roberts in conversation with Gillian Tett & Donna Flynn Ulf Hannerz once proposed that “common sense is cultural ‘business as usual’; standard operating procedure, one’s perspective at rest” (127). Gillian Tett’s journalism unsettles perspectives at rest. If there’s one simple message for the general reader in her new book Anthro-Vision it is this: the promise and value of anthropology lies in making visible that which is close to hand but ignored. It offers a means to see the world differently. There’s also a message for those whose work involves the application of anthropological thinking or ethnography: we should revisit our own assumptions about how we conceive of and communicate our value. The book is a resounding call to arms in a world beset by a ‘tunnel vision’. What is the basis for Tett’s faith...

Perspectives

How Ethnographic Methods Make APIs More Usable

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abstract design
by LIBBY KAUFER and MARIA VIDART-DELGADO, Ad Hoc LLC Ethnographic methods that center systems-thinking, how knowledge is constructed, and how knowledge is shared among communities are the best approach for developing collective digital products like APIs. Application Programming Interfaces, commonly known as APIs, connect the front-end interfaces we see when we navigate the internet (like websites and apps) to the back-end systems, or databases, that store information. APIs enable people to carry out transactions online, like purchasing goods, booking flights, or applying for government benefits. While they are invisible to end-users, APIs are crucially important to developers and to the way many websites, programs, and applications function. Like codebases and databases, APIs are objects consumed collectively and collaboratively by teams of developers who work together to integrate front-end to back-end systems, run tests, and monitor and troubleshoot integration issues. In the context of APIs, typical UX research methods...

Talks

Anthro-Vision: A Manifesto for Ethnography in Business

Video screenshot of Anthro-Vision: A Manifesto for Ethnography in Business

Watch , author of Anthro-Vision and editorial board chair (US) of the Financial Times, in conversation with , VP Global Talent Management at Steelcase, and , EPIC Board President  Anthro-Vision is a powerful argument for the predictive, strategic, practical, and moral value of understanding the world through a cultural lens. In her new book,…

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Perspectives

Best Laid Plans…An Ethnographic Approach to Foresight

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by STEWART ALLEN, MindSpark With an ethnographic lens on foresight and planning, we can see how futures unfold through people's daily journeys of anticipation and improvisation. What is Foresight? Foresight is an umbrella term used to describe a wide variety of methodologies and approaches for considering and preparing for possible and probable futures in order to help inform present and future courses of action. Today, it is an important and widely deployed practice that has developed in a variety of fields, from public policy such as state and town planning, to technology and R&D, and more recently strategic and financial approaches in business fields to help ensure the long-term survival and success of companies. Many of the approaches that come under the umbrella of foresight blend into one another. The majority of approaches to foresight typically employ pre-defined categories in their analysis – identifying trends in the social, technological, economic, and political spheres and extrapolating these using various...

Perspectives

Ethnography for Sensemaking in Times of Trauma

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Photo from book cover 0f "Dealing in Desire"
a book review by SHARON BAUTISTA, Mozilla Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work Kimberly Kay Hoang 2015, 248pp, University of California Press The Labor of Care: Filipina Migrants and Transnational Families in the Digital Age Valerie Francisco-Menchavez 2018, 256pp, University of Illinois Press The March 16 shootings in the Atlanta-area of Georgia in the southern United States, when a person shot dead eight people, including six Asian women, sent me into deep grief. I could barely register the text messages from concerned friends recognizing me as an Asian woman and offering support. Trying to muster the focus to work the next day, I felt the urge to mute the Slack streams of sincere acknowledgements and thoughtful compilations of Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) resources shared by co-workers. Alongside my grief, I was frustrated by the meager news coverage of the people—and specifically the Asian women—who were murdered. There seemed almost...

Perspectives

How Ethnographic Exhibits Can Shift Business Paradigms

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Photo of a neighborhood shop (warung) in Indonesia
by ADRI REKSODIPOETRO (Nation) and ALEXANDRA MCCARTER (Spotify) Through the art of exhibition, curators immerse people in new worlds and new points of view, whether by transporting visitors to 18th century India or through challenging art history’s colonial gaze. The goal of an exhibition is a shift in perspective, to move people to think differently about something than they did before. Researchers do something similar: our first task is to learn something new, but the ultimate goal is to share what we learn in a way that shifts the perspectives of our colleagues, organizations or clients. In this article, we show how we applied curation techniques for a project we worked on together at Spotify. The project focused on understanding people in Indonesia who bought Spotify Premium, and the exhibition served as our main deliverable. The exhibition jump-started a new way of thinking about Spotify users because it enabled our colleagues to experience a different understanding of value and music streaming in the country. Why an Exhibition,...

Intelligences

将（资讯）安全分析师考虑其中——从‘人机交互’到‘人机协作’

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ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH: Bringing the Security Analyst into the Loop: From Human-Computer Interaction to Human-Computer Collaboration 作者：LIZ ROGERS, IBM（资讯）安全 摘要 本案例讲述了IBM人工智能（AI）安全软件团队基于民族志和用户研究，放弃一个被购买决策者视为“酷”、“令人印象深刻”、和“复杂“的产品核心功能，采用新的交互式知识图谱（KG）的可视化设计，从而使得安全分析师用户们可以更加简单地理解和使用知识图谱（KG）。在民族志和用户研究的成果的指导下，QRadar Advisor with Watson团队创建了新的可视化知识图谱（KG）。与联想式的人工智能（AI）和“互联网的方式“相比较而言，这个新的可视化知识图谱（KG）更加匹配安全分析人员调查潜在安全威胁的实际方式。该新功能由IBM在2020年第一季度发布，并已被用作IBM开源设计系统的组成部分。此外，IBM目前正在对它作为专利申请的提交内容进行审查。...

Perspectives

Move Fast, Break Shit, Burn Out: The Catalyst’s Guide to Working Well

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a book review by TABITHA STEAGER, Workday Move Fast, Break Shit, Burn Out: The Catalyst’s Guide to Working Well Tracey Lovejoy and Shannon Lucas 2020, 305 pp, Lioncrest As I write this, we’re just a few months into 2021, and, well, the world hasn’t magically changed. When the clocks ticked over on December 31, it felt as if there was a collective, cautious sigh of relief while we continued to hold space for the grief and turmoil so many of us have experienced in the last year. Instead, we’re still in a sort of stasis globally, waiting for vaccine numbers to reach critical mass and learning how to combat new virus variants, so you’d be excused in feeling like this stasis is the new normal. Yet the days are getting longer and on my walks I see the snowdrops pushing their way up through the ground. It feels a little corny to write this, but spring is coming. It has been a long, upending year that’s left me on the edge of burnout (fully over the edge of burnout some days if I’m completely honest) and even more...

Perspectives

Evaluating Food Delivery in a Pandemic: Usability & Ethnographic Principles to Guide Consumers

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By CHARU AHUJA, Consumer Reports For almost 85 years, Consumer Reports has been detecting and anticipating shifts in consumer need for products and services so that we can guide consumer choice with rigorous research and testing. When the COVID-19 pandemic started to peak in March 2020 in the U.S., our ability to access the 63 product testing labs at our site changed. These labs house specialized equipment, such as a pressurized water dunk tank that is used to simulate conditions that electronics like phones and watches must be able to withstand if their manufacturers claim they are waterproof. And CR’s anechoic chamber removes all reflective sound signals, allowing a clean read on noise levels emitted by products. Such specialized equipment allows CR’s product testing experts to conduct repeatable and accurate testing across a large number of competing models in any given product category. Like most other organizations, we had to quickly pivot. To the extent possible, our product testers set up makeshift labs in their homes,...

Courses

Using Theory in Research: Applying Social and Cultural Frameworks

Learn how to use core models of society and culture to create better research, deeper insights, and more powerful value propositions for businesses, organizations, and communities. Instructor: KATE SIECK, PhD Enrollment: 20 Schedule: NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 DATES WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON! Course consists of 6 live online sessions + self-paced lectures, readings, and exercises. For details…

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Talks

Let’s Get Real about Burnout

an EPIC Talk presented by , Catalyst Constellations & EPIC co-founder Overview Burnout is at an all-time high and mental health at an all-time low. From vague head fogs to serious illness, we feel it in ourselves and our families, friends, teams, and research participants. What’s going on, and what in the world are we…

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Perspectives

加速用户研究：在Spotify我们如何从速度出发管理用研洞察

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What's slowing down user research? 4 speech bubbles with text: I have this amazing idea! Can we go validate it? / How's the user experience of this screen? / We are shipping next week but need to get this in from of users first! / Let's all work in lockstep like the good partners we are!
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH: Accelerating User Research: How We Structure Insights for Speed At Spotify 作者：SARA BELT, Spotify 不同于以往考虑我们如何能加快用户研究的速度，现在的问题变成我们该如何更好地将用户研究整合到产品开发流程中，以及加快组织学习和迭代的速度。 一直以来，由于人们认为用户研究的有效性较低，用户研究所得的洞察都在产品开发中被边缘化。我在职业生涯的第一阶段致力于提倡组织为什么该积极地听取用户的意见和想法，为什么每一个人应该相信定性见解可用于指导他们的决策，以及为什么用户研究是需要专业技能的实践领域。 随着用户研究逐渐证明贡献价值的能力，对于其效度的质疑和争论也在日趋减少。从数据、证据和同理心的角度来考虑产品的设计已经成为一种既定的方式。 在像在Spotify这样的公司中，用户研究的需求在快速增长，我们不得不开始考虑如何将用户研究的实践规模化。新的、更实质性的问题开始出现，要求我们以更快速度来创造价值的能力能够与快速将产品推向市场的财务和竞争优势相匹配。用户研究，或者是更广义上的洞察，一直因为产出速度慢而备受诟病...