ethnography, methodology, research, chauncey, zalkin, girlonthestreet, whatwomenmake, user-centric, design, innovation, people-centric, "focus groups", qualitative, trends, knowledge, tribes, anthropology, cultural

1. Presenting Ethnography
a cultural approach
to marketing and development
Chauncey Zalkin © 2009

2. What is it?
How does it work?
Some Examples
Now you do it

3. The new core competency is ethnography. Companies use it to
gain insights into the culture and behavior of their customers.
But the demands of business are different from those of an
anthropologist doing field research. The most obvious is speed.
– Business Week 6/06

4. an·thro·pol·o·gy / •
n.
the study of humankind, the
comparative study of human
societies and cultures and their
development
Antropología: estudio de los
seres humanos desde una
perspectiva biológica, social
y humanista.

5. Observation

6. And participation

7. Ethnography

8. Both a method and a product

9. What is the difference between
ethnography and classic qualitative
market research?

10. Ethnographers enter the natural
habitat

11. adapting to their surroundings

12. Using an array of story-telling tools

13. they immerse themselves

14. Traditional Focus Groups

17. Verification vs. Discovery

18. What I say
What I do

19. What I didn’t know I needed

20. The world is changing so rapidly

21. How can ethnography help us in the
business environment?

22. To gain insider information

23. To explore emerging and unmet
needs

24. Test developing theory

25. Revise as you go

26. Find out how people live with existing
products

27. You never know what you will learn.

28. Stop guessing.

29. So how do we do this?

30. Choose who you want to speak to

31. Find a way in

32. Interviews / Videography / Journaling
Accompanied
Day-in-the-life
purchase
And in our case, quickly
Observed Product Usage Mystery Shopping
Investigation of
cultural artifacts
Guerrilla/blitzkrieg ethnography
Open-ended Cultural studies
…
..Other methodologies and parameters

33. Method: observed product usage in private settings

34. Method: observed purchase or mystery shopping

35. Synthesize. & Discover deeper insights.

36. Case study; digital ethnography: Pink

37. Case study; Journal Ethnography:
truth®

38. checks and balances

39. Now you be the subject

41. Now lets try it on one of your current
challenges

42. THE CHECKLIST
Substantive Contribution: Does the piece contribute to our
understanding of social-life?
Aesthetic Merit: Does this piece succeed aesthetically?
Reflexivity: How did the author come to write this text.
Was there adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for
the reader to make judgments about the point of view?
Impact: Does this affect me? Emotionally? Intellectually?
Does it move me?
Expresses a Reality: Does it seem ‘true’—a credible
account of a cultural, social, individual, or communal
sense of the ‘real’?
-Laurel Richardson, Professor Emeritus Sociology, The Ohio State University

43. Some tips

44. The End