About this blog
This blog contains anthropologically-flavored discussions on business, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and popular culture.
Why this blog? Because I believe that a social science perspective is valuable, and that businesses need more of it. Companies are looking for:
* deeper insights into their global customer base
* better ways to manage their diverse employees
* effective design approaches to create compelling products
All these issues can benefit from social science perspectives, models and tools.
I am not a Professional Card-Carrying Anthropologist. I’m a businessperson with a sideline interest in anthro.
Is this stuff really anthropology? No, it’s not Anthropology with a capital A. There are some great anthropology blogs devoted to Proper Anthropology. This blog is a bastardized hybrid of business and anthro.
“An*thro*po*lo*gy, noun: the scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social and cultural development of humans.” (American Heritage Dictionary, from dictionary.com).
My definition: Anthropology = the study of people in groups, i.e. group dynamics, behavioral patterns, belief systems, etc. I figure this blog is covered in there somewhere.
Oh, and for the people who say “Indiana Jones!” when I say “anthropology” — well, he was an archaeologist actually — but anthro and archeo are sister disciplines, so kind of yes — and hey, who wouldn’t want to be associated with Indiana Jones?
Characteristics of this blog
This blog is an informal, distant cousin of practicing anthropology. Academic anthropology has university tenure and writes peer-reviewed articles. Practicing anthropology (anthropology outside the academy) often fits under market research and does ethnographic studies. This blog worries about sales numbers and customer satisfaction, and does a lot of PowerPoint presentations.
This blog likes the business world. Traditional anthropology isn’t particularly focused on business. This blog likes business and thinks companies would have better products, serve customers better, and be better places to work if more businesspeople had social sciences skills.
This blog isn’t academically rigorous. This blog isn’t the place to learn the discipline of anthropology. There are other blogs and books for that. Better yet, take a class. Three cheers for university extension.
You reach me via email at anthrogoggles (courtesy of) gmail.com.
Blog linking is welcomed and I’m happy to reciprocate.
A bit about me: I’m Mary Walker. I’ve spent the last 10 years working for young tech companies in Silicon Valley. I’m multi-disciplinary — I’ve had various roles but they all orbit around the customer experience chain (that string of touchpoints by which a prospect learns about a product/service via marketing, becomes a customer via the sales cycle, and then gets cared for by customer service).
How I got interested in anthropology and social science:
In the 1980s I got a masters in anthropology with no intention of ever being an anthropologist. The only career path I knew for anthropologists was academia, and academia didn’t look attractive (the narrow research focus, slow pace and limited job market).
So I took an entry-level job in corporate banking. Learned a lot. Back to school for an MBA. Spent some years in management consulting. Then Silicon Valley. For more info, see my LinkedIn page.
Much to my surprise, through these various jobs, anthropology kept popping up, like Dicken’s Ghost of Anthropology Past. Why didn’t our customers love our new product? Well, Anthropology had something to say about that. Why is our department always fighting with that other department? Anthropology had a few ideas. I’d thought I’d left anthro behind, but it turned out to be useful in business after all.
A few years ago I started reconnecting with anthropologists, ethnographers and other social scientists, participating in online communities, attending conferences (AAA, EPIC, SfAA, etc.), and looking at all the ways that anthropology could benefit business: in areas like market research, product design, user experience design, organizational development, customer relationship management, corporate communications, etc. I’ll never be a professional anthropologist — I’m a businessperson — but I can adapt anthro tools and mindsets to business problems and help businesspeople see the value.
A Quick Tribute, from my time as a grad student at Cambridge: heartfelt thanks to the late Professor Ernst Gellner (my faculty adviser, a man of frightening intellect) and the fascinating and accomplished Dr. Stephen Hugh-Jones (at that time faculty sponsor of the graduate Social Anthropology program). I was an adequate but less than stellar anthropology student, and I appreciate the time they invested in me.
