‘that full complement of riches': the future role of anthropology in business and society

8/13/2019 That full complement of riches': The future role of anthropology in business and society

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That full complement of riches

The future role of anthropology in business

and society

Simon Roberts, Founding Partner

Amsterdam, 29thNovember 2013


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Hello and thank you for inviting me

@ideasbazaar & @stripepartners


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1A bright future

2The state were in

3What my past looks like

4Inventing your own future


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1A bright future

2The state were in




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Do not be afraid. I bring

you good news


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.but I cannot tell you what it looks like


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The best way to predict the

future is to invent it

Alan Kay


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1A bright future

2The state were in




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Fish dont know the existence of water until

theyre beached.


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The world wide web is7,037 days young


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Average lifespan (in years) of an S&P 500

companySource: McKinsey & Co

1930 1940 20202013

18

10

(Projected)

2010200019901980197019601950

90


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Kodak, Nokia, Blockbuster


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Music, movies, letters, advertising, identity, friendships,

conversations, therapy, medical records, educational

materials, games, money, reputation, dating, credit,

banking, knowledge, maps, languages, work, politics,

government, voting, journalism, photos, revolutions,

justice, parking spaces, hotel rooms

Excerpted from - Models in Motion: Ethnography Moves from Complicatedness to Complex Systemsken anderson, Tony

Salvador, Brandon Barnett. EPIC 2013 Proceedings


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FLUX

Flux


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Opportunity Challenge


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Environmental degradation


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Obesity


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2 views on why anthropologymay have something to offer this

sort of world


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Business schools tend to focus on inductive thinking

[based on directly observable facts] and deductive

thinking [analysis typically based on past evidence]

design schools emphasize abductivethinking -imagining what could be possible. This new thinking

approach helps us challenge assumed constraints and

add to ideas, versus discouraging them.

A G Lafely, CEO Procter &

Gamble


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Not understanding whatageing means to people


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1A bright future

2The state were in




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I did my PhD in north India on the media revolution of the mid 1990s

Krishna Lila Pic


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Academe

Applied


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Academe

Applied

Anthropology


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Ideas

BazaarIntel

ReD

Associates

Stripe

Partners

My career to date has looked something like this


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If you want to understand what a science is,

you should look in the first instance not at its

theories or its findings, and certainly not at

what its apologists say about it; you shouldlook at what the practitioners of it do

Clifford Geertz


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We analyse the data (usually in teams)


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Write

on walls

We analyse the data (usually in teams)

Make PowerPoint Slides


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Make PowerPoint Slides

Conduct baseline and multi country studies


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Conduct baseline and multi-country studies

And do more focused domain specific deep dives


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Intel Confidential 35

And do more focused, domain specific deep dives

Which can lead to more specific ideas being generated


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Which can lead to more specific ideas being generated

That can then be built out as prototypes


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That can then be built out as prototypes

For exploration with their intended users


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For exploration with their intended users

We try to sell our ideas


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Create booklets

to circulate our

work

We try to sell our ideas

In the past business anthropology was geared to reducing risk in


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UNCERT

AINTY

p p gy g g

situations of complexity and uncertainty

Time

CERTA

INTY

UserTechnology

Product

Business

But theres been a shift from product to system and service thinking


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p y g

Product

Thinking

System &

Service thinking

And a turn towards thinking about what might bedesign fictions


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g g g

And how to make things grow


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This requires us to be more like pigs and less like chickens


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1A bright future

2The state were in




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http://farm3 staticflickr com/2386/2232068772 1457


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http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2386/2232068772_1457

39e7da_b.jpg


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Do research, write

fieldnotes and take

photos

Develop additional

skillssketch,

ideation, software,

prototyping, film

making & ?

Join the

Anthrodesign Group

on Yahoo!

Read the business

pages and lots of

other stuff

Consider doing a

PhD

(Useful if you want to

work at

Intel/Microsoft/Googl

e etc..

Attend EPIC or read

the papersLearn to network

Read ethnographies


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Thank you. Do stay in touch.

@ideasbazaar & @stripepartners

‘that full complement of riches': the future role of anthropology in business and society

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