ChangeWaves - Observations on the Future from Social Technologies

Entries in Ethnography (3)

Immersing Yourself in Emerging Markets

The Financial Times has an interesting article about how some companies are holding their board meetings abroad to immerse executives in a new and stimulating environment.

The article explains that it is an opportunity for companies to push executive thinking and get board members to see their organizational challenges "with fresh eyes."

Reuters is one company that has held board meeting overseas in important new markets. The article states that Reuters' execs felt that creating their Asia strategy after being together for a week in China "grounded" their strategic conversations in a way that wouldn't have been possible otherwise.

This reminds me of the kind of contextual awareness we and our clients picked up this past May on our Futures Expedition in Shanghai. We spent a week exploring Chinese consumer life through home visits, focus groups, shadow shopping, and meeting with experts from companies and NGOs operating there. We also got a lot out of our personal observations in the field, whether this meant hearing firsthand from young Chinese consumers what they like and dislike about their mobile phone (see image) -- or learning about people's views on the environment through our evening focus groups.

If you missed the Shanghai Expedition, but need to understand how consumers in emerging markets are living and how they're going to shape the future, consider coming on one of our upcoming BRIC Expeditions. First stop: Hyderabad, India in February 2008, with subsequent trips to Russia (September 2008), Brazil (March 2009), and back to China in October 2009.

For a sense of the experience and the output, check out some excerpts from the Shanghai post-expedition report.

Image: Social Technologies

Posted on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 by

Chris Carbone in China, Asia, Research, Ethnography, Futures Expeditions

The BRIC Expeditions: Where the Future Is Happening Now

322497758_449eca0be0%20Bombay%20Gate.jpg India's growth. Image: Social TechnologiesBy now, we’re all familiar with the 2003 Goldman Sachs report "Dreaming with BRICs: The Path to 2050," which laid out their view on the growth potential of Brazil, Russia, India, and China. An interesting new report from Ernst & Young found that there continues to be enormous enthusiasm among investment firms around the world for initiatives and investments in the BRIC markets, “but that only about 29% of deals are completed because executives are not visiting the countries and learning about the local cultures,” according to a recent article in the New Yorker.

We urge our clients to educate themselves about and immerse themselves in the markets they are trying to understand. To help with this, Social Technologies will host a series of Futures Expeditions to Brazil, Russia, India, and China over the next two years. We will give participants a firsthand view of how changes in demographics, consumer life, values, and technology use are shaping the future of these critical markets. If you’d like more information on what we’ll cover on these BRIC Expeditions, see this (PDF).

As in the past, a big part of the BRIC Expeditions will be immersing ourselves in the daily life of these markets so we get a better sense of how important issues like urbanization, environmental concerns, rising income and changing consumption patterns are actually playing out for consumers and businesses. This means in-depth interaction (e.g., home visits, shadow shopping, focus groups), and engaging with experts who truly understand where these countries are headed. For a sense of what I mean, check out this excerpt from our May 2007 Futures Expedition to Shanghai and consider joining us on these fascinating and unique futures experiences in 2008 and 2009.

Futures Expedition schedule:

India (Hyderabad) from Thursday, February 28 to Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Russia (Moscow) from Thursday, September 24 to Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Brazil (Curitiba) from Thursday, March 5 to Tuesday, March 10, 2009
China (Shanghai) from Thursday, October 15 to Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 by

Natalie Ambrose in China, Ethnography, India, Russia, Brazil, Futures Expeditions

Using Ethnography in Futures: EPIC Presentation

I am presenting next week on introducing ethnography to non-practitioners in a futures research context with Andrew Greenman of Nottingham University School of Business at EPIC 2006: Ethnographic Praxis in Industry in Portland, Oregon on Tuesday September 26. The paper, titled "Embed: Mapping the Future of Work and Play: A Case for 'Embedding' Non-Ethnographers in the Field," is based on a Futures Expedition Andrew and I developed for a Social Technologies' Futures Consortium meeting last summer in London. EPIC is the annual gathering of "people who are actively thinking about the theoretical and methodological development of ethnography in industry practice."

The aim of the London expedition was to take themes developed in our one-day meeting, which looked at the future of Europe through the lenses of work and play, and explore them in the field in a way that introduced professionals not familiar with the tools of ethnographic observation to ways of "looking anew" at their surroundings for indicators of change. Our half-day expedition (pictured here) took us from Canary Wharf through Brick Lane to Clerkenwell in London, a route that revealed how zones of work and play are changing, how cultures are intermingling to drive that change, and how messages derived from change are fed back to the "street."

If you are planning to attend EPIC, please drop me an e-mail or stop by our presentation on the 26th. For those interested in the Embed Futures Expedition, a PDF of the expedition "map" can be downloaded here (5MB).

(Image: Social Technologies)

Posted on Tuesday, September 19, 2006 by

Scott Smith in Events, Ethnography