~ a group blog on a variety of topics related to anthropology, sociology, and ordinary people ~
I had the opportunity to attend a youth summer camp that the company I work for (http://www.uaii.org) holds every year in Big Pine, CA. The camp is for American Indian children (ages 5 to 17 years) residing in the Los Angeles, Bakersfield, and Fresno areas and it is a week long. This is the second time I’ve attended, as I did attend last year’s camp as well, and just like last year I was so inspired about the overall
experience and specifically a couple different things.…
An experience I’ve been meaning to share since the end of December concerns the Human Terrain System (HTS). Dr. Henry Delcore at California State University, Fresno, invited me to act as a judge for a class debate. The question of debate was, “Should the American Anthropological Association (the main professional organization for anthropologists in the US) discourage anthropologists from working in the Human Terrain System program?”
The debate was part of their final requirements for passing the course, and I thought it was a new and interesting method of engaging the students.…
I had the opportunity to attend the 2008 EPIC conference in Copenhagen, Denmark last October. A hot topic there was the use of “Personas” in usability research, with the idea that it was an effective and quick way to communicate the results of the research to the client. Personas are fictional characters developed as a representative of the research subjects as a whole in order to identify the characteristics/patterns of the subjects and as a way to “get to know” the company’s “typical” customer on a more intimate level so that the company may make better operational decisions to fit the majority of their customer’s needs and wants.…
The end of the conference is nearing and it has been quite an interesting and educational experience for me. I even had photos to share of the workshop and venue but the free wireless access at the Copenhagen McDonald’s has an upload speed that is much too slow! I arrived in Copenhagen a couple of days prior to the conference and was able to see much of Copenhagen via the metro and train systems, walking, and in truly Danish spirit, I also rented a bicycle!…
The EPIC conference is fast approaching and thanks in part to Ethnography.com I’ll be on my way to Denmark at the end of next week to attend the EPIC conference at the University of Copenhagen. I am excited and nervous about the trip! It is my first time traveling to Europe and only my second international trip. I’m excited because this is the first conference of this kind that I will be attending, and I expect that I will learn a lot about new and different ways that ethnographic research is being used, how people are successfully presenting their ideas and research, and of course I hope to learn a thing or two about the Danish.…
It has been an interesting experience becoming involved with entrepreneurship, business, and learning the do’s and don’ts of this type of environment in contrast to the skills and information I have learned in the social sciences. It seems as if there really are two vastly different types of thinking in these two worlds. I’ve come to realize that it is possible to learn the traits valued within each discipline and to ‘wear’ them when the situation calls for it.…
As somebody who is going through same major transitions in life, I’ve been thinking about how important mentors are in one’s life. I would bet there are very few people in this world who truly believe that they got where they are in life completely alone. As in my case, there are many different people throughout our lives who could be considered “mentors” because they’ve taken some of their valuable time and donated it to someone else’s well-being.…
As I described in one of my previous blogs, I am part of an inter-disciplinary research team at Fresno State University. Our team is comprised of three computer engineering students, a business student, and myself, an anthropology student. As part of their senior project, the engineers are developing a proto-type piece of technology. Our team is developing a voice-activated remote control and part of our research efforts are focusing on how to differentiate our product to make it more desirable and user-friendly than those already on the market.…
I promise I won’t post youtube videos with every single post (haha). However, this time I will. One of my professors posted this video on our blackboard discussion board and I found it really interesting. There is also a wikispace that further discusses the statements made in the video. If all the statements made were statistically sound, then my generation and future generations are in for some really amazing changes. That statement might make you say “duh” but seeing it in numbers and within some sort of timeline makes the point really hit home.…
Today I had the random idea to search YouTube.com for the keyword “ethnography” to see what, if anything, it would come up with. The first two videos that were listed intrigued me. The videos are products of Kansas State University’s anthropology department. The students and faculty of that department have created an on-going project focusing specifically on digital ethnography.
I think this type of project is so exciting and can come up with really interesting results.…
This is the first semester of the Engineering for Peoples and Markets Program at Fresno State. The program consists of two teams. Each team consists of two or three engineer majors (computer and electrical), an entrepreneurship major, and an anthropology major. The purpose of our team is to work together on the creation, design, and marketability of a piece of technology created by the engineers for their senior projects. It has been interesting discovering each of our roles within this project, and the experience of working with people trained in different fields has been valuable. …