Connecting The Play of Improv with The Work of Ethnographic Research

Steve Portigal
ICSID/IDSA Connecting 07
October 19, 2007

Connecting the Play of Improv with the Work of
Ethnographic Research

1

This Talk

An (quick) exploration of the connections
between two very different tools (improv
and ethnography)
– Also available as a half-day workshop
– Google “portigal improv capstone” or “portigal
improv dux” to read more about full workshop

2
©2007 Portigal Consulting steve@portigal.com http://www.portigal.com

About Portigal Consulting

We help companies discover and act on
new insights about themselves and their
customers

3

What is User Research?

Examine users (consumers, professionals, whoever) in their own
•
context
– What are they doing (“usage”)
– What does it mean

Infer (interpret/synthesize/etc.)
•
– Find the connections
– We are not simply collecting data but are processing it to find the insights

Apply to business or design problems
•
– Use products, services, packaging, design to tell the right story

4

Examine Users?

Observation
1.
– Watching what people are doing, how they do it

Interviewing
2.
– Interacting directly with some people who can shed light on our problem,
(customers, users, former customers, future users, lead users)
– Asking questions, doing exercises, showing artifacts
– Listening to what they say, how they say it, what they don't say
– Paying attention to where what they say and what they do does not align

Understanding cultural context
3.
– Considering the culture within which our people are making decisions
– Looking at media, trends, advertising, and other symbols of cultural quot;normsquot;

5

Outcomes

Improvements to internal processes for innovation
•

Insights about people and their environments
•

Concepts for products, services, communications, etc. that support
•
new insights
Understanding of barriers to adoption
•
– Features, meaning, stories or other triggers that can overcome those barriers
Learning about the culture in a new market
•

Detailed, specific task-related needs
•

Evaluation and prioritization of features/concepts/solutions
•

Exposure to the details of the lives of “real people”
•

6

Recent Projects
Who/What we What was being Key Insight
studied designed
New mothers Infant formula packaging Lack of feedback when
preparing and following instructions led to
serving infant non-compliance
formula
Ritual of opening and Credit-card newsletter Consumers make rapid
sorting mail decisions to discard items
not perceived to be of
value; specific details cue
(lack of) value
Workflow and Next-generation interface Despite sharing most of the
environment of for trading software; market with one other
currency traders internal business player, startups were
processes; customer- capturing mindshare and
facing strategic initiatives deskshare

7

Recent Projects
Who/What we What was being Key Insight
studied designed
Construction workers High-value and high- To sell a high-end version
and their gear performance protective of an otherwise free product
headwear requires creating pull by
improving performance as
well as aesthetics
Communication and Digital tools for Leverage the “culture of
collaboration collaboration and celebrity” by tagging
practices of knowledge management documents with human data
knowledge workers (name, image, etc.)
at large multinational
corporation
Music enthusiasts Online service for Users of apps other than
and their MP3 managing digital music iTunes had abandoned any
collections and ripping/distributing notion of managing and
existing music collections organizing digital collections

8

Improv

Funny will come…

9

What it isn’t

Improv is not stand-up comedy
•
(it’s the name of a chain of comedy clubs)
•

In contrast to improv, stand-up is
•
– Highly scripted
– Rehearsed with timing nailed down to the
nanosecond

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What it is

A form of performance that is highly constrained but with several open
•
parameters

Unscripted
•
– Specifics assigned right before performance starts
– “Your first idea is often your best idea”
Emphasis on being “playful” more than being funny
•
– “I could never do that, because I’m not funny”
– It can be (at times) funny to watch, but not about trying to be funny
– “The funny will come”
– “Don’t let logic impede your fancy”

Moving the body – connections to dance
•

Cheaper than therapy
•

11

Improv, Applied

Entertainment
•
Acting
•
Corporate training
•
– Meeting facilitation and brainstorming
– Help companies become more “creative”
– Parallels with “Drawing on the right side of the brain”
– Pixar: used improv to create “the most trusting environment possible where
people can screw up”…when someone suggests an idea, others should
respond with “Yes, and ...,”

Product ideation
•
– “Informance” (from Interval) - give in to the urge to demonstrate
– Take personas and extend them
User research
•
– Users show what they can't talk about, free from constraints of what is (now
vs. the future)

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Benefits

Learning by doing
•
– Collaboration (“throw an idea”)
– Humor
– Timing
– Presentation
– Listening

Did I mention therapy?
•

13

Let’s Play

Storytelling Circle
1.
Broken Telephone, v2.0
2.

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Exercises

What did we see?
•
Molotch on change and conformity in balance in
•
product usage
“Folks pick up on the surrounding cultures in at least
somewhat idiosyncratic ways…Even with a world of
conformers, each conformer thus acts differently. With each
striving to emulate the other, there will be a never-ending
chain of adoptions and adaptations that, as they move
throughout the network, change the substance.”

15

Ethnography

The Story of a Culture

16

Ethnography?

Ethnographic interviews
•
Video ethnography
•
Depth-interviews
•
Contextual research
•
Home visits
•
Experience modeling
•
Design research
•
User-centered design
•
Observational research
•
Camera studies
•
User safaris
•

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Ethnography?

Ethnographic interviews
•
Video ethnography
•
Depth-interviews
•

What-ever!
Contextual research
•
Home visits
•
Experience modeling
•
Design research
•
User-centered design
•
Observational research
•
Camera studies
•
User safaris
•

18

Ethnography

Examine users (consumers or other) in their own context
•
– What are they doing
– What does it mean

Infer (interpret/synthesize/etc.)
•
– Find the connections
– The ethnographer is the “apparatus”

Apply to business problems
•
– Use products, services, packaging, design to tell the right story

19

Benefits

Learning about yourself and your own culture by having an opportunity
•
to reflect it against things you didn't know
– Understand “social norms” – i.e., how messy your house is
– Your own reaction is data

Human beings are judging beings
•

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Techniques

Listening
•
Listening
•
Listening
•
– Listening
– Listening
Note: most people actually can’t do this without extensive training and
•
practice
Listening is more than simply not talking when the other person talks
•
– How is what you do next, after they finish talking, influenced by what they just said,
or have said previously?
– Looks and feels like ordinary conversation – but isn’t

Theater of interviewing – the video camera is an example of a quot;propquot;
•
(Goffman)

21

Connecting

What do you get?

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The Overlaps

Balancing a “plan” with being in the moment
•
– In ethnography, an interview guide is used to anticipate the flow of the discussion,
but it can go in new directions – that’s the surprise you are looking for – the
connections the user makes
– In improv, the basics of the game give structure, we have a beginning, and then we
“look for the ending”
“Yes, and”
•
– “I’m a crab” – “No, you’re a lobster with an attitude problem”
– TiVo interview
– No wrong answers – suspending judgment
Make your best contribution by not talking
•
– Giving space to others
– Multiple interviewers
– Allow learning to happen
– Let there be silence interviewing technique

23

Learning By Doing

Things have meaning
•
– Clichés and other cultural shorthand
– Populate a scene with “space props” – but everyone recognizes them!

Improv is a form of prototyping
•
– We don't know what it is until we play it out

New insights from being inside the experience
•
– Getting to another perspective requires being open and surrendering some of your
own perspective
– But also a process for getting there – these discoveries don’t happen without work

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A-ha

In interviews we experience “synthesis in place”
•
– Not data collection for it's own sake, but to create and
achieve new insights and see new patterns
– Experiential, flow-like moments
– Silence the inner critic (or “gatekeeper”) - get past the
“stacked” ideas
– By bringing in energy and spontaneity
– By slowing down and bringing in silence (!)
– “How do you know when it’s an important story”
– Spider-sense, camera zooming

In improv, we’re performers without a script
•
– “Look for the ending”
– Know when the scene has hit its high point

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So What?

For our purposes, consider improv and ethno as
•
similar flipsides of the same coin – tools that
drive and inform innovation
Without being preachy, our list includes
•
– Listening
– Participatory learning
– Open-ended exploration (balanced with an agenda)
– Acting out/prototyping
– Yes, and…
– Getting outside of your zone
– Understand the environment
– The learner facilitates the teacher (bottom-up vs. top-
down)
– Others?

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Resources

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Contact Information
Portigal Consulting
2311 Palmetto Ave., Suite D1
Pacifica, CA
USA
+1-415-385-4171

steve@portigal.com
http://www.portigal.com

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Connecting The Play of Improv with The Work of Ethnographic Research

Connecting The Play of Improv with The Work of Ethnographic Research

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