Readings for the Week of November 13

Anthropologists Go Native in the Corporate Village

• Corporate anthropologists elicit the cultural patterns of an organization. What rules do people have of appropriate and inappropriate behavior and how do they pass it on?
• Big name businesses are trending to hire corporate anthropologists to understand their workers and culture better and to help design products that better reflect emerging cultural trends
• Anthropology's holistic approach that looks at evolutionary, cultural, linguistic and biological perspectives match the growing business complexity
• Can gain three insights: respect for cultural differences within and between organizations. 2) the ability to quickly identify the core organizational culture, and 3) the ability to recognize natural leaders

This article was very interesting. I always felt that I would do well as an anthropologist. I think it is important for organizations to understand how their employees work. I think too often people implement ideas or try to make an environment creative without actually knowing if it will. I think the anthropologist perspective gives a little bit more direction behind what the problems are and why people work in that way. However, there may be a gap in translation. The anthropologist may be able to identify why people are having a hard time working together, but it may be hard to change (depending on whether or not it is at the companies core)

The Evolution of Design-Inspired Enterprises

• today, the word 'design' denotes the totality of activities and competencies that gather all relevant information and transform it into a new product or service
• design creates competitive advantages by invoking emotional meaning in products
• evolution creates a design-focused enterprise, an organization that uses consumer-centered product development to move quickly from consumer knowledge to need satisfying product and service offerings
• traditional research asks people what they want, but consumers cannot reliably express their higher-order needs and aspirations, which may call for radical redesign or new offerings
• design-focused companies use design research to gain high-order need insights
• the best practice in design is to integrate people from different backgrounds into design research teams
• design research teams start with a variety of 'ethnographic techniques,' watching and recording what people do in real life
• design research also employs 'psychophysiological techniques,' such as bio-feedback, eye tracking and facial coding to understand the emotions underlying observable behaviour
• design researchers also use 'brand personification' to get the consumer to relate the brand to both a person and another type of product
• The following are useful design research techniques
• issue mapping, metaphors, consumer archetypes, work-flow mapping, storytelling, bulletin boards.
• most design-focused firms see the value in making as many mistakes as possible in the front-end phase, when they could learn the most at the lowest risk and cost

My promotions strategy class is actually discussing this topic from a different perspective. We are learning its from the ELM perspective. Again, consumers cannot express their motivations for purchasing a product. Motivations tend to lie in the subconscious. I think most people would find that few people actually know what they want in life, let alone in a product. Advertisers and product designers need to know what people actually want in order to better meet their needs. I like the concept of building the product from the consumer up. In fact, creative solutions stem from finding the concept that strikes peoples interest. For example, for banks, it isn't about the bank, it is about using money to live. When you start discussing money and life, people get excited. When one speaks about banks, people are only somewhat interested. It might also benefit design-research teams to just stimulate group discussion with a few seemingly unrelated topics to see what sparks their imagination. The best way to do this is probably by using metaphors. Get them talking about the metaphor and what they like about it. You can then translate many of those likings to the new product.

Virtual Anthropologist

• trend watching is a mix of curiosity, open-mindedness, and a fascination with manifestations of the new
• numbers are important, but more as evidence than a starting point for new products
• 'observing' and 'inspiration' at the core of trendwatching is like 'diet' anthropology
• corporation are hiring anthropologists to immerse themselves in the business world to discover latent needs, which then inspire new products
• one can live amongst the consumer by going online to webcams, blogs, etc. People are giving real-life testimonial to what they are thinking. They want to connect, to share, to create, and to show off
• virtual anthropology is about finding out what consumers want, not what you could or should do next to better serve them. It is not about spying on consumers to selling directly to them.
• you should share some findings with online population to return the favor
• live the lives of your consumers: games.textamerica.com, shangartgallery, whatsinyour fridge pool on Flickr, flickr.com/photos/tags/whatsinyourbag
• Look at blip.tv, youtube.com, castpost.com, vsocial.com, and don't forget blogs: postsecretblogspot.com
• roam the world's most inspiring places: londonist.com, shanghaiist, parisist, gawker.com

I always wished it was easier to find trend spotting sites. However, I am more intrigued with all that these consumers can give you online. I especially am captivated by visiting the world's most inspiring places to see how people dress, how they shop, and what they want. It is direct observation only using the internet. I am surprised that they didn't recommend social networking sites. I feel that companies are trying to understand the latent needs of their consumers. Images and videos are a great way to do that. However, I think some of the most powerful information can stem from social networking sites and blogs. People say a lot more to a blog than they would to a real person. It has a certain anonymity to it. You can also better target consumers that way. I would recommend anthropologists utilize those sites to gain a little bit more perspective on their target market.

TED Video: Charles Leadbeater

• it is when internet combines with inspired consumers that you get an exposion of creativity. Out of that you get the need for new kinds of organizations
• special people in special places think up special ideas
• radical innovation that effects a large amount of people are attached with a great deal of uncertainty. Payoffs are the highest here, but uncertain as to how it can be applied. It is only when that technology reaches the user that you know how it can be applied
• most creativity is cumulative and collaborative
• users are the source of big disruptive innovations. If you want to find new ideas, it is hard to find them in mainstream organizations. Big corporations have a tendency to support past success.
• information that use to be only be accessible to the elite, is now accessible to everybody
• patents are now being used to prevent innovation from taking place
• first critical challenge is to ask if we can survive on volunteers if it is so critical. Shouldn't it be organized? What kind of changes would we need to make that possible? Will see intelligent closed organizations moving to be an open organization
• this is about companies creating open communities
• open models multiple productiveness because convert users into consumers

The concept of open sourcing a corporate to gain consumer insight is an interesting ones. Several corporations have started to create consumer challenges. Google often created these challenges for things like Google Art and Designs. It was a way in which they could see what consumers wanted and how consumers used the product. Many innovative corporations are actually founded upon this concept. The founder of Jansport started Jansport because he wanted a product that could do certain things that no existing product could do. However, somehow, many companies lose that spirit. I think often we are so constrained by trying to continually do better that it doesn't happen naturally. Isn't that the way of life? Only when we get feedback from others do we finally overcome specific plateaus. I also agree with the concept that patents are preventing innovation. Economics discussed that patents create market costs because not everybody can benefit from the solution. However, companies also want to gain a competitive advantage. I think patents are good to have, but there has to be a way to promulgate creativity. Or, let your consumers play with your patent to see how it will best apply.