One Size Does Not Fit All - Preliminary Findings

On November 13th, anthro everywhere! blogger Jennifer Long continued her One Size Does Not Fit All series where she provides readers with an overview of her new pedagogical research project in collaboration with Ms. Silvie Tanu Halim at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology. This research explores mature and non-traditional students' educational experiences where we seek to understand how these perspectives differ depending on our medium of instruction: online (synchronous, asynchronous), or face-to-face.

We left off on Nov 12th discussing how blogger Jennifer Long invited students to participate in their survey.

Although the survey is still open, the following is a line graph outlining when we received our 86 responses (thus far):

Figure 1. Responses according to date

As mentioned in previous posts, although we did use incentives to encourage participation, it appears that most participants decided to take part soon after the project was introduced by Blogger Jennifer Long.

Dr. Long attended Ms. Tanu Halim's classes on November 07th (online, yes, I made an appearance in the online course) and November 9th (in class). November 7th sees the greatest spike. This spike can perhaps be accounted for, if we consider that students were already in front of their computer when they were invited to participate in an online survey. The second spike appears to be on the Sunday or Monday following my visit to the classroom (after the weekend) on the 10th.

I also thought I'd share some of the aggregated information about those taking part in the survey. When speaking about mature students, it became apparent that the majority of our respondents were between the ages of 21 and 25.

Age Ranges of Participants thus far (Nov 16 2017)

It will be interesting to compare this information with that of other scholars and how individuals 25+ experience education at SEPT when compared to those in the 21-25 category.

What is also informative are their responses to preferences to learning:

Learning Preferences of Mature Students

It will be very interesting to delve into their comments to understand what we see here, that more respondents prefer to learn new course material in-class rather than online.

Check out future posts to learn how the researchers will collect and analyse their data -- or see all posts in the One Size Does Not Fit All research series on our updated page Special Series: Ethnography & ... (formerly "Ethnography & Tourism")

Want to use these findings for your own work? Please cite this source as follows:

• Long, J., & Tanu Halim, S. (2017, November 16). One Size Does Not Fit All - Preliminary Findings [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://anthrolens.blogspot.ca/2017/11/one-size-does-not-fit-all-preliminary.html

One Size Does Not Fit All - Encouraging Participation without Coercing Participation

We take up from where we left off on November 8th when anthro everywhere! blogger Jennifer Long continued her overview of her new pedagogical research project in collaboration with Ms. Silvie Tanu Halim at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology. All posts that begin with 'One Size Does Not Fit All' describe a project which explores mature and non-traditional students' educational experiences and seeks to understand how these perspectives differ depending on our medium of instruction: online (synchronous, asynchronous), or face-to-face.

We left off on Nov 8th providing a final overview of our survey questions about educational experiences and preferences. Today, we're going to discuss how blogger Jennifer Long invited students to participate in their survey.

As discussed in previous posts, the target population of our research are our own students. To be more specific, they are Ms. Tanu Halim's students. To conduct this research, Ms. Tanu Halim and Dr. Long had to submit an ethics proposal to our university's board of ethics for research projects involving human beings. This is standard practice for any researchers working with consenting individuals. Unsurprisingly, our research board wanted to understand how we'd be mitigating the pressure students might feel if their own instructor is asking them to take part in research.

First, as researchers, we had to outline how our research was voluntary, as in, our participants would not be negatively effected by choosing not to take part. Therefore, our letter of consent included the following text:

Your participation in this study is strictly voluntary. This study is not an assessment component for this course; therefore, your responses will not be evaluated in any way during this study. As such, your grade for your class will not be negatively impacted if you choose to withdraw or not participate in the study. 

We also outlined the potential risks facing students if students chose to take part. For this project, we identified the potential of both psychological and social risks. The following is the text describing how we will try to mitigate these risks:

Psychological risks:
Participants are informed in the online invitation and Letter of Information that this study is voluntary. If worried about the social risk, students are informed in the invitation text and Letter of Information that they can access the survey and choose not to participate while still contributing to the 70% participation threshold. 

Social Risks:
Further, if participants wish not to answer particular survey questions, they will have the option to skip any question they are not comfortable answering. 

As described in the psychological risks, we're awarding everyone in the class a bonus mark once we've hit a 70% response rate threshold. To maintain anonymous responses, we've decide to dole out these bonus marks to everyone as we're not collecting their identifying information. This could however make some students feel forced to take part and therefore, we've included an option where students can click on the survey and then decide not to take part (selecting 'no' to the consent screen). In so doing, these click throughs to 'non consent' still count toward the 70% threshold.

There has been some debate regarding how much incentivizing participants will influence the responses researchers receive.  As becomes evident, Ms. Tanu Halim and I had to walk a fine line of trying to entice students to participate (online surveys suffer from low response rates) and overstepping our boundaries as instructors by influencing our students to take part.

Another step we're taking to encourage realistic responses and experiences is to collect this information anonymously.  In taking this approach, we're hoping that our students are able to willingly take part and provide us in-depth information about their learning experiences and preferences in ways that are meaningful to them. Further, if we don't know who took part, we can't give preferential treatment to anyone.

Finally, when inviting students to take part in our survey, Dr. Tanu Halim left the room while Dr. Long provided a brief explanation about the research and its project plan. This 'script' is outlined again in our ethics proposal, as a means to avoid undue coercive behaviour. This approach allows students to ask questions and speak to any concerns they may have away from the eyes and ears of their professor. Blogger Jennifer Long told the students about the study and where to find the link, but students have the choice to take part at a later point in time and not, for example, under Dr. Long's 'watchful eye'. This would present few options for some students.

Check out future posts to learn how the researchers will collect and analyse their data.

Want to use any ethics phrasing for your own work?
Please cite this source as follows:
Long, J., & Tanu Halim, S. (2017, November 13). One Size Does Not Fit All - Enouraging Participation without Coercive Participation [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://anthrolens.blogspot.ca/2017/11/one-size-does-not-fit-all-encouraging.html

One Size Does Not Fit All - Research on Mature Students' Educational Experiences

In a follow up from our post on November 2nd, anthro everywhere! blogger Jennifer Long continues to discuss her new pedagogical research project in collaboration with Ms. Silvie Tanu Halim at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology. 

Check out last week's posts to learn the context behind our study. In a nutshell, we seek to know more about mature and non-traditional students' educational experiences  and, to explore how these perspectives differ depending on our medium of instruction: online (synchronous, asynchronous), or face-to-face.

We left off on Nov 2nd by showcasing some of our questions about the demographic information of our participants. In today's post, we get down to the nitty-gritty of the learning experiences and preferences.

The rest of our questions deal with student experiences of online learning. Therefore, we have to narrow our participant group to those with online experiences. 

Question 8 follows: Have you ever taken an online course (including high school, college or university courses, training, or workshops) in the past? Yes/No

Here, we put a little logic into things, if a student answers 'no', they are thanked for their time. If they answer yes, students will continue on to the question set below.

If student participants select yes, they are asked to fill out a matrix  with answers between not very effective (all the way) to very effective for the following items:

1. How effective do you find time spent attending online lectures (in synchronous [defined in survey] format)?
2. How effective do you find time spent watching pre-recorded lecture videos (which you can watch at any time)?
3. How effective do you find time spent reading through course notes (for comprehension of material)?
4. How effective do you find time spent working through problems in the course textbook (through self-directed learning in complement to online resources)?
5. How effective do you find time spent discussing course content with student peers? 
6. How effective do you find time spent discussing course content with your instructors?

Then we ask them questions about their use of resource materials for online learning: 

1. Do you prefer synchronous or asynchronous learning for online courses? Why?
2. Do you use the accommodation/preference options on the pre-recorded videos (e.g. slow down, speed up videos)? 
3. Do you replay videos if you do not understand a concept? Why (or why not)? 
4. How important is it to have an online community with your student peers? Scale of not at all to very important.

As it happens, our survey opened up last night. Check out some of next week's posts to learn how blogger Jennifer Long invites her colleagues students to participate and how we work to avoid undue pressure on our student participants to take part in our survey.

Want to use these questions for your own work? 
Please cite this source as follows:
Long, J., & Tanu Halim, S. (2017, November 02). One Size Does Not Fit All - Research on Mature Students' Educational Experiences [Web log post]. Retrieved from http://anthrolens.blogspot.ca/2017/11/one-size-does-not-fit-all-research-on.html

Quick Links:

• Simon Coleman and Bob Simpson, Unintended consequences?  Anthropology, pedagogy and person Anthropology Today (1999) http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678353
• One Size Does Not Fit All - Anthropological & Pedagogical Research on Mature Students Anthro Everywhere! (Nov 2 2017)
• One size does not fit all - Applying Anthropological Principals to Pedagogical Research Anthro Everywhere! (Oct 30 2017)
• What do Cultural Anthropologists do? "Decode" Human Behaviour, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 28 2017)
• Qualitative versus Quantitative Research - from a business perspective (Feb 23 2017)
• A New Home for Ethnography: The Use and Legacy of Ethnography by Anthropologists and Non-Anthropologists Anthro Everywhere! (June 9, 2016)

One Size Does Not Fit All - Anthropological & Pedagogical Research on Mature Students

In a follow up from our post on Monday, anthro everywhere! blogger Jennifer Long continues to discuss her new pedagogical research project in collaboration with Ms. Silvie Tanu Halim at the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology. 

Here, we as researchers are interested in exploring the educational experiences and learning preferences of mature and/or non-traditional students and, to explore how these perspectives differ depending on the instruction medium. We left off last day promising to further explain the types of questions would wanted to ask.

As mentioned in the previous post, our population would include students signed up to the Degree Completion Program. These students have completed (at least) an advanced diploma from a College. 

What assumptions do we make about this population? 

As mentioned in the last post, we assume that these students will have more or different competing responsibilities for their time. To expand on this point, we find that the majority of our students do not come straight from a college program but are returning to post-secondary education after having begun their career. Therefore, these students typically work a 40 hour work week, may have dependents to care for, and other commitments on their time.

In their exploration of the role of anthropological knowledge outside the classroom, Coleman and Simpson (1999) find that anthropological knowledge provides: (1) a unique opportunity to hold a mirror up to one's own life circumstances and (2) a chance to reflect on one's personal experiences. However, the cultural outcomes of participating in higher education may generate contrasting relationships outside of school and personal change that is not without a problematic middle-class undertone. Citing David James (1995), the authors warn  that post-secondary participation may very well reproduce a social distance between one's university and home life. Importantly, these authors - using Alison James' work - help us question how a return to university may be felt by some to be a world of new possibilities and for others, an alternative form of personal  displacement and dis-empowerment.

How then, are our DCP students experiencing their education here at SEPT? Are they experiencing a new world of possibilities or personal displacement and dis-empowerment. What is the role of the medium of pedagogy - and how does his affect how these students experience their post-secondary education? 

Below are a list of questions we included in our online survey to help understand the rounded picture of people's lives (borrowed from Coleman and Simpson). Next week, we'll follow up with an overview of the questions around the mediums (paths) of learning:

1. Your gender (multiple options available)
2. Your age (range)
3. Hours per week spent on family and household responsibilities (range)
4. Hours per week spent on work, work-related activities (e.g. travel), or other weekly tasks (e.g. volunteering, searching for work, etc. ) during a typical (or average) work week throughout the year (range)
5. How do you prefer to learn new course material? (Options include in class, online, or on your own through self-directed learning (i.e. using course materials to complete tasks at your own pace according to set deadlines)? Follow up question: Why? [Open text box]
6. How do you learn (new course material) most effectively? Options include in class, online, or self-directed learning (definitions integrated into survey). Why? [Open text box]
7. As a mature student, how will your educational experience differ from those traditional students entering university directly from high school? [Open text box]

Want to use these questions for your own work? 
Please cite this source as follows:
Long, J., & Tanu Halim, S. (2017, November 02). One Size Does Not Fit All - Anthropological & Pedagogical Research on Mature Students [Web log post]. Retrieved from https://anthrolens.blogspot.com/2017/11/one-size-does-not-fit-all.html

Quick Links:

• Simon Coleman and Bob Simpson, Unintended consequences?  Anthropology, pedagogy and person Anthropology Today (1999) http://www.jstor.org/stable/2678353
• One size does not fit all - Applying Anthropological Principals to Pedagogical Research Anthro Everywhere! (Oct 30 2017)
• What do Cultural Anthropologists do? "Decode" Human Behaviour, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 28 2017)
• Qualitative versus Quantitative Research - from a business perspective (Feb 23 2017)
• A New Home for Ethnography: The Use and Legacy of Ethnography by Anthropologists and Non-Anthropologists Anthro Everywhere! (June 9, 2016)

One size does not fit all - Applying Anthropological Principals to Pedagogical Research

Blogger Jennifer Long has begun a new research project which looks at the various ways in which students' unique context and identities influence their learning experiences. Where you ask? In her new field site: the post-secondary institution where she works.

What is the purpose of the research? Dr. Long and Tanu Halim seek to better understand the educational experiences and learning preferences of mature and/or non-traditional students and how these perspectives differ depending on the instruction medium. To make matters a little more complicated, these instruction mediums include: (1) asynchronistic online learning; (2) synchronistic online learning; and (3) face-to-face in-class learning.

One of the research team's presumptions when approaching this research was that: mature students have different work-life responsibilities than traditional students entering undergraduate education after high school. That is, we assumed that there were more competing responsibilities for their time.

Why is this research important? ... We wanted to follow the money.

Earlier this year, the Government of Ontario made an announcement (May 2017) that they will begin funding research projects that explore technology-enabled learning and highlight best practices in student engagement.

This announcement follows up on past Ontario funding (in 2012 -2013) for universities and colleges that focused on developing further online learning opportunities for undergraduate students (Council of Ontario Universities, 2017). As one of the funded schools under this mandate, the W. Booth School of Engineering Practice & Technology redeveloped many of their courses as online offerings - with a particular focus on Degree Completion courses. The Degree Completion Program (DCP) is a two-year program designed for students who wish to upgrade their advanced College diploma into a Bachelor of Technology university degree. As such, this degree appeals to non-traditional students (as opposed "traditional" younger students who enter university after high school) who may be juggling work and family obligations in addition to their academic responsibilities.

The argument behind moving courses online includes the supposed ease of access to educational options for non-traditional students, for example, greater uptake and attendance if the requirement to commute to class is alleviated.

So how is this anthropology? As an anthropologist, I was struck by the unique set of circumstances this group of students brought to their learning environment. Within the McMaster student body then, this population - although connected - used the campus differently (largely at night or on the weekends for in-class courses), had less access to resources since supports are made more available for daytime students, and typically came from different backgrounds and pathways to education than more traditional students. Our goal with this research then is to challenge assumptions (non-traditional students prefer online courses) and explore these individuals' unique experiences of post-secondary education. 

Here on anthroeverywhere! we'll keep you up to date on the outcome of this research as a means to explore conducting anthropological research, everywhere including inside and outside the discipline. 

Check out this Thursday's post to learn more about the types of questions we'll ask and concerns from the ethics review board.

Quick Links:

• What do Cultural Anthropologists do? "Decode" Human Behaviour, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 28 2017)
• Anthropologists visualizing data: The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge Part Three, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 03 2017)
• The Packaging Anthropological Knowledge Part Two, Anthro Everywhere! (July 31 2017)
• The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge and Its Merits According to Market Research Experts. Anthro Everywhere! (June 29 2017)
• Qualitative versus Quantitative Research - from a business perspective (Feb 23 2017)
• A New Home for Ethnography: The Use and Legacy of Ethnography by Anthropologists and Non-Anthropologists Anthro Everywhere! (June 9, 2016)

What do Cultural Anthropologists do? "Decode" Human Behaviour

According to a recent article (August 3, 2017) in the Financial Post, Martin Birt discusses the work of Johanna Faigelman, CEO and founding partner of Human Branding.

In answer to a few questions including how deep is your understanding of the needs and behaviours of your customers or employees? Faigelman responds that traditional market analysis is too superficial. It relies on 'consumers as experts' and simply reports on what 'consumers know they know.' This is a risky approach given the scope and potential exposure of many business investments.

In speaking of how to launch a new product successfully or 'innovate', Faigelman identifies three importance aspects, that is, understanding (1) human-centric insights, (2) business needs and realities, and (3) socio-cultural factors. To accomplish this, a business — with appropriate support — should do a deep dive into societal trends, gain an understanding of unmet human needs, and the dynamics of the business category. Layered onto this complexity are cultural and generational differences.

Birt goes on to write that [e]very business is under pressure to grow and to anticipate market and competing trends. Even before a new product is developed, for example, anthropological research and insight can help a business decode socio-cultural factors that set the context for what people are saying … and what they are not saying. This can help a business think in a way that is future forward. They’ll be able to identify latent (and therefore unmet) needs, define and harness unarticulated emotions and predict real life behaviour.

It's important to acknowledge how the write-up by a non-anthropologist (although this is not confirmed), the editing process, or the need to grab views might influence how the practice of anthropology is worded. However, describing anthropological methods as a means to define and harness unarticulated emotions and predict real life behaviour  would likely be seen as problematic. Earlier in the piece, Birt describes Faigelman's methods as involving “naturalistic unobtrusive observation” (being the fly on the wall), in-depth respondent-driven interviewing, and participation. 

This flies in the face of postmodern critiques of the method, that is:

1. What role does the ethnographer play as an 'expert' in describing the culture (behaviours? thoughts and perceptions?) of others?
2. Where does the role of the ethnographer (as a research tool) come into play in - in this case - market research?

Here on Anthro Everywhere!, we've written about the packaging of anthropological knowledge (see quick links) and asked a number of questions including: What language or terminology will reach which audiences? Why?

We also made a note in our first post about packing anthropological knowledge...a caveat

*Note, the authors of this article use somewhat problematic language as 'eavesdropping' which may spur an ethical conversation among anthropologists but the focus of this post is about the nature in which the work of anthropologists is described by non-anthropologists (who may or may not have anthropological training).

Are anthropologists everywhere okay with having their method described as:

1. Eavesdropping
2. Unobtrusive observer (from fly-on-the-wall)
3. The ability to predict behaviour

Let us know what you think on twitter @anthrolens

Quick Links:

• Why you should use cultural anthropology as a business tool, Martin Birt, Financial Post (August 3, 2017)
• Anthropologists visualizing data: The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge Part Three, Anthro Everywhere! (Aug 03 2017)
• The Packaging Anthropological Knowledge Part Two, Anthro Everywhere! (July 31 2017)
• The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge and Its Merits According to Market Research Experts. Anthro Everywhere! (June 29 2017)

The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge and Its Merits According to Market Research Experts

In a Harvard Business Review article To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist authors Susan Fournier, John Quelch, and Bob Rietveld (August 16, 2016) advocate that marketing managers must begin 'social listening'

There is something marketing managers seem to forget about the internet: it was made for people, not for companies and brands. As such, it offers managers a source of insight they never had — social listening. The authors go on to argue that social listening competency will be critical to competitive advantage in the digital age*.

In continuation of our posts about social media these past two weeks, it is interesting to explore the growing business of anthropological techniques in market research. As discussed in a past post from Anthro Everywhere! anthropologists are playing a bigger role in this applied market which is a growing alternative career for anthropology graduates (see for example, #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms).

Yet, how do non-anthropologists describe the anthropological approach and its merits?

The authors of To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist article argue that

Social media data is inherently qualitative and while it can and should be quantified for manageability, at some stage in the analysis it must be treated and represented as qualitative. In order to “appreciate the qualitative” and extract meaning from it, managers have to think like anthropologists and jettison many of the scientific principles that underlie traditional hard science research.

In this article, the authors ask those interested in analyzing public posts across various social media platforms as market research in order to critically reflect on 'issues' related to social media research (but qualitative research in general). These issues include:

1. Adequate sample size 
2. Finding so-called representative samples 

In response, Fournier, Quelch, and Rietveld argue that: "social listening in its purest form does not presuppose anything and this unsolicited quality creates an opportunity to answer questions that managers do not even know they should ask." They go on to advocate that "managers (need to) drill into the data to ask questions, not confirm or reject hypotheses." And by "moving beyond the science of data management to the art of interpretation," managers looking for consumer insights need to "embrace the context offered in qualitative commentaries."

The Packaging of Anthropological Knowledge is something blogger Jennifer Long is increasingly interested in. Questions for further study include: 

1. Who has the 'right' to speak about (with authority?) on the methods and practices of anthropologists? 
2. How can anthropologists 'package' our knowledge in consumable and accessible ways to have the most impact? 
3. What language or terminology will reach which audiences? Why?  

Your comments, as always, are welcomed on twitter @anthrolens or @JennLong3

*Note, the authors of this article use somewhat problematic language as 'eavesdropping' which may spur an ethical conversation among anthropologists but the focus of this post is about the nature in which the work of anthropologists is described by non-anthropologists (who may or may not have anthropological training).

Quick Links:

• Anthro Everywhere! #AltAc Anthropology Careers - The draw of experiential design firms (June 5, 2017)
• Susan Fournier, John Quelch, and Bob Rietveld To Get More Out of Social Media, Think Like an Anthropologist (August 16, 2016)

Anthropology and Public Health Policy

Medical anthropologist (and medical student) Dave Campbell outlines "Anthropology's Contribution to Public Health Policy Development" (2011) in this accessible (and open access) piece published in the McGill Journal of Medicine.

The article is written for non-anthropologists, and therefore provides a useful brief overview of the history of medical anthropology, what it has contributed to public health policy to date, and importantly, areas where "anthropology can influence public health policy in ways that epidemiology or other methods cannot." In this relatively short paper, Campbell discusses the value of an anthropological perspective for public health and policy creation in terms of:

"(A) The ability to see culture in its proper context in the social world and how culture affects all research. (B) The ability to pick up on minute and seemingly irrelevant details. (C) Independence from biomedical goals and hegemony allows medical anthropologists to add a critical voice to the public health discourse. (D) Provision of objective, qualitative data in an otherwise quantitative field."

For more on the role of anthropology/ anthropologists in healthcare, check out the links on our Applying an anthropological perspective outside of university page.

A New Home for Ethnography: The Use and Legacy of Ethnography by Anthropologists and Non-Anthropologists

Rhiannon and I are currently completing an article that looks at ethnography at this moment in time. One thread in this discussion is the way in which ethnography is used by non-anthropologists or anthropologists working outside academia.

One of my recent favorites has been Dr. Linda Hill's work on Creativity and Management.

In Dr. Hill's talk about How to Manage for Collective Creativity, she states:
I'm an ethnographer. I use the methods of anthropology to understand the questions in which I'm interested. So along with three co-conspirators, I spent nearly a decade observing up close and personal exceptional leaders of innovation. We studied 16 men and women, located in seven countries across the globe, working in 12 different industries. In total, we spent hundreds of hours on the ground, on-site, watching these leaders in action. We ended up with pages and pages and pages of field notes that we analyzed and looked for patterns in what our leaders did. The bottom line? If we want to build organizations that can innovate time and again, we must unlearn our conventional notions of leadership.

By looking at the various ways ethnographic methods are used by anthropological practitioners and non-anthropologists alike, it is instructive to revisit the question of what defines 'ethnographic methods' apart from other qualitative and quantitative research methods?

We'll check back in to this question once our article is closer to its release date.

Correlation (and causation...)

Just as every year I make a point of telling students that Africa is not a country, many instructors often find themselves lecturing students about how correlation is not causation. 

Here are some fun graphics (drawn from US statistics) that may help you make that point about the dangers of such Spurious Correlations. These charts include interesting, but completely unrelated correlations between things like number of Japanese passenger cars sold in the US and the number of suicides by crashing motor vehicles, the Age of Miss America and Murders by steam, hot vapours and hot objects, and my personal favourite...

Spurious Correlations

What is "sensemaking"? Anthropology in marketing

Quantitative research -- which has long been the market research standard -- can provide insights into broad patterns and customer metrics. While this 'big data' can tell a company a lot about their customers' habits and needs, there are some questions that this approach simply cannot answer. This is where "sensemaking" comes in.

In short, "sensemaking" is how anthropologists approach problem-solving. Applying the kinds of qualitative methods and critically culturally-relative perspective that anthropologists are trained to these questions provides insights into the everyday life experiences and meanings that people use to understand their worlds.

In "An Anthropologist Walks into a Bar…" (Harvard Business Review, 2014) Christian Madsbjerg and Mikkel B. Rasmussen explain how "sensemaking," or approaching a problem from an anthropological perspective, works and can provide companies with market-research solutions. "A growing number of organizations globally have begun to apply sense­making, having recognized that it can help solve some of the toughest business problems, such as finding new growth, winning in new markets, and capitalizing on cultural change." The authors recount how "sensemaking" solved key marketing problems for a major European brewing company, Lego Group, and Coloplast (a Danish medical technology firm). Coloplast found that despite their sophisicated R&D, their "biggest division, the ostomy division, was stagnating, even though the company was investing heavily in innovation and sales." This is when Coloplast decided to take a different approach.

Coloplast recast the question “How do we capture new sources of growth?” as “What is the experience of living with ostomy?” Its managers knew a lot about customer metrics—who bought how much of which products when, and so forth. But they realized they knew less about their customers’ worlds. What was it like to be an ostomy patient? How did it affect your self-image? Your social life? What was a good day, or a bad day?

In a classroom, this article might be useful for talking about the differences between qualitative and quantitative research, for illustrating cultural relativism in action, or for talking about the kinds of things that an anthropological perspective can bring to a workplace.

How Understanding Fans is Changing Television

Susan Kresnicka is a cultural anthropologist who works in the entertainment industry. (Yes, we can do that too!)

Working with Troika ("Hollywood’s leading integrated branding and marketing agency" according to Forbes) as a creative executive in television marketing, Kresnicka says her job is to "encourage our clients to focus less on trend-chasing and more on understanding the broader cultural forces." Like all anthropologists, she does this by bringing a sense of the 'bigger picture' to her work by looking at cultural forces at play -- that is, looking at who audiences or fans of a television show or sports event are, how they watch, and how and why they connect to it.

Understanding how entertainment content is valued by consumers can have "real implications for our businesses, from programming to marketing to corporate social responsibility." Kresnicka's work and the insights of her team into things like 'fandom' are increasingly important in businesses like entertainment, which are rapidly changing through things like online streaming and social media (see our post on Who makes the news?).

Links:

• Why Understanding Fans is the New Superpower (Variety, 2 April 2016)
• Cultural Anthropologist Susan Kresnicka Reveals How Her Core Passions Help Hollywood Thrive (Forbes, 20 January 2016)
• Examining Marketers' Challenges with an Anthropologist's Eye (Brief, 14 August 2014)
• Troika’s Susan Kresnicka: Entertaining Change Through Media Anthropology (Brief, 8 June 2015)
• Who makes the news? (Anthro Everywhere! 8 March 2016)

Anthropologists are good for business

At the end of the academic year, I usually take some time with my first-year anthropology students to discuss what the 'take home' points are from the course, and the value of applying an anthropological lens in their lives after the class ends. While a handful of students might become anthro majors or minors, some will perhaps take another anthropology class during their degree, most will simply be happy to have completed their social science credit. In any case it's important to think about what anthropology teaches us about how we (and those around us) think about and act in our social worlds, and how culture matters!

What has surprised me most -- though should really come as no surprise -- is that in the past few years I have been seeing more and more articles about how anthropologists and our ethnographic approach to social research is good for business, including in market research.

In The new buzzword in marketing: Ethnography (2011) and its follow up Lessons for marketing to millennials, Mark Healy surveys the three lessons his firm learned about the power of ethnography to provide meaningful insights in marketing. Similarly, Why companies are desperate to hire anthropologists (2015) explains that

While most execs are masters of analysing spreadsheets, creating processes, and pitching products, anthropologists — and other practitioners of applied social science — can arrive at customer insights that big data tends to gloss over, especially around the role that products play in people's lives.
That information is more valuable than you might think. What customers want from a product and what companies think they want can be totally different, but it can take an anthropological lens to learn why.

This is because anthropologists know that culture matters. Being critically attuned to how culture matters, and individuals' social positions within their cultural context influences people to act, think and feel in certain ways is a valuable skill.

How people use social media

The Economist reviews of some of the key findings of the anthropological, multi-sited “Why We Post” project. This project was conducted by nine anthropologists led by Daniel Miller of University College, London.

Ethnographic research was conducted over the course of

15 months at locations in Brazil, Britain, Chile, China (one rural and one industrial site), India, Italy, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turkey. They embedded themselves within families and their surrounding communities. That, the team believes, let them form a nuanced view of the roles of social media in their study sites which could not be gained by analysing participants’ public postings.

For those of us turning an anthropological lens on the (study of ) media (like Michael Wesch), it comes as no surprise that new technologies, including social media, shape and reshape human relationships, and that cultural context matters. This study "challenges the idea that the adoption of social media follows a single and predictable trajectory."

Qualitative versus Quantitative Research - from a business perspective

What can qualitative research offer that quantitative can't? "How Not to Talk to Customers: The Secret to Meaningful Customer Relationships" (24 March 2010)

In this piece for the Harvard Business Review, Roger L. Martin (Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto) makes a compelling argument in favour of qualitative research, underscoring how even rigorous quantitative data is also subject to the biases many associate with qualitative research.