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.

As part of my research for the project, I’ve done participant observation with three different research subjects, observing remote control use. When I first began the project, remote control use seemed like something that was so very basic and mundane. I did not know what to expect because this was my first time doing this type of research. All of my previous research was conducted in public spheres. I was nervous about entering these individual’s homes, and wondered whether my observations could produce any useful data that would benefit the team’s project. However, I decided that the best way to go about it was to just jump right into it with the goal of observing the activity and environment as if it were the first time I had witnessed anything like it.

Currently I’ve completed three of the five planned observations and I have been pleasantly surprised at the results. Since I went into the environment not knowing what to expect and deciding on just writing every detail I could observe, each observation session actually ended up resulting in data that inspired new ideas for our team to research regarding product design, capability, and service. During the initial observation session I left with the research subject a design activity in which they used various shapes put together with Velcro in order to represent their ideal remote control design. This activity ended up creating valuable discussion with each of the research subjects which also inspired ideas for our product design. For example, after each of the subjects created their remote control designs they proceeded to explain each part of their design and its function. All three research subjects described their designs as simple, despite the fact that all three varied greatly in the number of functions and in the technological complexity that would accompany a true proto-type of their design. Using these three research subjects as examples, we were able to get a small glimpse of the vast amount of differences that product users might have.

While the project is still on-going and there is much work to be done, I believe that the experience of doing this type of observation in a more intimate setting (an individual’s home) has given me more confidence in doing this type of research. It will be interesting to see what further research will inspire.

            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.  There have definitely been some learning hurdles for me, and things I’m still working on. Some things that I initially saw as hurdles, I’m beginning to realize might be more common than I thought.

            Our project is very dependent on the curriculum of the engineer majors because this is their senior project and they must create a working prototype by the end of the school year in order to graduate. I originally saw this as an obstacle that would only exist in a college program like this one. Due to the attachment of the project to their pending graduation, I felt like the engineers were very cautious, sometimes only focusing on simply getting a very basic working apparatus, rather than a prototype that was more representative of our team’s research and design recommendations. Everything seemed to be contingent on “if we end up commercializing it”, rather than “let’s give this a try”. Their apprehensions are certainly understandable!

Now, as I think about the situation in a different light, I’m thinking this may be a lot closer to what I may experience in the future when working in consultation with other people or companies. Time and resources are always a major concern. Rather than seeing this as an obstacle needing to be removed, I see it as a learning challenge on my part on how to create a good communicative environment with the team and try to represent my research and recommendations in ways that will also include possible solutions on how to address time sensitivity and limited resources. I certainly do not have an answer to this, but it is a constant learning experience for me.

I tried researching “inter-disciplinary teams” online to find out examples of how other teams are working together, at other colleges and within business and organizations. The only articles I could find were regarding inter-disciplinary teams working together within the medical field. I’m wondering if there are other resources where I can find articles relating to this, and examples of how similar programs are operating at other universities.

I’m a bit of a data fiend so I’m always seeking out websites that give access to statistics in immediately useful ways. I recently came across Swivel.com, which is billed as the YouTube for data. The website has tools that allow you to upload statistics from public domain sources, and then they are publicly displayed for other people to see, comment on, and compare against other data sets that have been uploaded to the site. An interesting feature is the ability to put data directly into Google spreadsheets, and then upload directly from Google spreadsheets to swivel.com. Of course since this is a community statistics effort, the quality of the data and the output relies on the density of people participating.

The other one is the poorly named NationMaster.com statistics site. The name is somewhat ironic when you realize that their initial and primary data set comes from the CIA world factbook. However, Dr. Evil overtones aside. It really is a wealth of statistics on a wide variety of topics, from agriculture to lifestyles. You can get raw data, you can create comparisons, and it will generate graphs to make the data a little easier to digest.

Ok, maybe not just anthropologists, but there should be something here for about everyone. The Social Science Statistics Blog is a collective blog from the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. They are described as a “series of hallway conversations on the site, and it is a pretty range of topics ranging from what makes a good peer reviewer to reviews of people coming to speak at the institute. Its on my weekly list.

A clown is a poet that is also an orangutan
- Attributed to various people.

One key to a good ethnographic interview is the ability to gain rapport with the person you are talking to. Rapport can be a mysterious thing, you are a stranger talking to another stranger asking questions and often taking a more intimate look into their lives than they might even share with friends or family.

One framework for thinking about interviews that I have comes from the physical theater theatrical clowning of the late Paris mine and teacher Jacques Lecoq. I learned this framework when I studied with Avner the Eccentric, a student of Lecoq’s. What Avner taught us one day was that according to Lecoq, there are several levels between apathy and enthusiasm that an audience experiences in a performance. If the performer can connect with the audience at that existing level of emotion, then the performer can move that audiences experience during the course of the performance between happiness and sadness. This means if the audience is in an apathetic mode and the performer starts overly enthusiastic, it is not infectious, it will actually push the audience’s emotions lower. A classic “trying too hard” scenario.

During an interview, an ethnographer’s job is actually the mirror image of that. Instead of us trying to control the emotions of the people we are talking to, we need to connect with them where ever they are on the empathy to enthusiasm scale, then let them move us up and down. Why is this important? There is a danger that in an effort to gain rapport, some people will give an enthusiastic reaction to many thing that the participant tells us. The intention of the interviewer in this case, is they want the person they are talking to to feel confident the interviewer is listening to them and to encourage them to go farther. The problem is, if you think of it in terms of Lecoq, that the interview can infuse the participant with a false enthusiasm for a topic. Essentially after gaining rapport, the interviewer can unwittingly lead the interview from any emotional standpoint.

So one way to build rapport is to connect with your participant at their level of enthusiasm for the task at hand and let them move you as the interview progresses and the rapport grows.

Warning, this entry may be somewhat apocryphal. I have tried to locate where I learned this in my various notebooks and diaries that I have kept over many years, and cannot.

Disclaimer: I frequently go back to previous entries to clarify points and edit the numerous typos I am sure you have found