Advancing the Value of Ethnography

Advancing the Value of Ethnography

Tag: professional issues

10 Things You Should Know about Moving from Academia to Industry

10 Things You Should Know about Moving from Academia to Industry

In the fall of 2016, I made the jump from academia to UX research. As opportunities for permanent employment in the social sciences are becoming more and more scarce, this move is becoming increasingly common. And yet, I made this transition with few resources or mentorship, feeling unprepared and...

Our Collective Project of Change

Our Collective Project of Change

EPIC2016 at the University of Minnesota was wonderful for all sorts of reasons—in particular, the hard work of our fabulous organizing team and the fact that our community is more diverse than ever. EPIC People are practitioners in technology, consumer product, work process and healthcare, working...

Enabling Our Voices to Be Heard

Enabling Our Voices to Be Heard

Identifying differences in how ethnography is practiced in academia and in business is the key to successfully developing ethnography further as a business discipline. In the following paper, I propose that the key difference between the practice of ethnography in academia versus business is the...

The Full Epiphany

The Full Epiphany

PechaKucha Presentation—The Full Epiphany suggests that epiphanies are the real metric for ethnographic success. An epiphany is an out of this world understanding for how humanity works. When you have an epiphany you might simultaneously feel the following: 1) believe you see something so...

Ethnographers, Bearers of Bad News

Ethnographers, Bearers of Bad News

Ask any applied ethnographer what is the hardest thing about their work. Go ahead, just ask one. More than likely, she will exhale slowly, slump back in her chair, fix you with a steely stare and say, “I spend so little time on actual research.” Her gaze may drift away at this moment. She might...

How Being rather than Doing Can Add Value

How Being rather than Doing Can Add Value

When the currency of business is “doing,” how do we embrace “being?” When tight deadlines and budget cuts drive us, how can we pursue something you can’t see or measure? How can we cultivate a culture of patience when we don’t get smoke breaks anymore? How Being Rather Than Doing Can Create Value...

A Little Humility, Please

A Little Humility, Please

“Things, not, mind you, individual things, but the whole system of things, with their internal order, make us the people we are.” Danny Miller, Stuff (p. 53) The fall of Icarus—wax melting, loosed feathers eddying as he plunges from the sky into the Aegean— is a central image in western mythology....

What European Businesses Expect from Us

What European Businesses Expect from Us

This paper presents considerations of strategies for communicating the value of ‘business anthropology’ and ‘insights’ to sceptical business audiences, based on a number of studies with a total of 47 interviews with executives in 27 large companies in mainly Europe, but also the US. The paper will...

An Ethnographer Goes To Career Day

An Ethnographer Goes To Career Day

As a working mother it’s important to me that my 5 year old knows what I do. This isn’t just so that she understands where mommy goes all day. It’s also because I feel that it is critical that I provide her as many examples as possible of women who are taking leadership roles and making an impact...