EPIC2015

Perspectives

The EPIC2015 Conversation

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by Your EPIC Board: MARIA BEZAITIS (Intel), ALEXANDRA MACK (Pitney Bowes) & KEN ANDERSON (Intel) Every year the EPIC Board opens the published conference proceedings with a Conversation—a reflection on key ideas and passions afire at the meeting and a gateway to continuing those conversations together. 11 years of EPIC Proceedings are free in Intelligences: we invite you to search, read, comment and download. EPIC Members can also access EPIC2015 & EPIC2014 conference video. EPIC2015 was notable for so many excellent reasons. First, the conference took place in an extraordinary city with a vibrant and growing population of EPIC people. Holding the conference in São Paulo enabled an influx of new participants and presenters from Latin America, expanding the community and conversation with new colleagues and stakeholders as well as new ways of thinking about people that develop out of different cultural perspectives. Second, we celebrated our first double-digit birthday—10 years! Our birthday gave us the opportunity...

Perspectives

Bridging the Gap between Ethnographic Practice and Business

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by CHRIS MASSOT, Partner, Claro Partners At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, I was enjoying a salad with a technology executive, in your typical CES “let’s grab a quick lunch in between two meetings that are only one hotel but somehow one hour apart from each other”. The executive was describing all the research that his company has conducted over the past year or two, when in between hurried bites he said flatly: “We are awash in data”. He then took a bite, gave a little shrug and a look that was either an ask for help or an indication that all this eating on the run was giving him indigestion. If there is one thing I hear out in the world of driving innovation and new product, service and experience development, it’s this: companies are good at generating research. They don’t need more data. It’s easy for companies to commission research and receive piles of reports and insights that end up on the “what now?” pile. What they need is to understand what the information means, and what...