Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Jennifer Studebaker on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 01:58:48 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Jennifer Studebaker speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation focuses on Jennifer’s journey from academia to applied anthropology, her experiences in various roles, including project management and market research, and her recent work on the Career Tools for Anthropology workbook. Jennifer shares insights on the value of anthropological skills in business settings, the importance of networking, and her passion for making anthropological knowledge accessible to students and practitioners alike. She also discusses her new consulting company, Studebaker Consulting LLC, and plans to offer training in practical business skills.

About Jennifer Studebaker

Jennifer is the owner and founder of Studebaker Consulting LLC. She is a business anthropologist and a PMP® certified project manager. She has over twelve years of research, operations, and communications experience. She has worked with nonprofits, foundations, startups, market research firms, and other consultants. She is based out of Kansas City, MO, but welcomes collaboration opportunities across the US and globally.

Jennifer is a Co-Chair of the Anthropology Career Readiness Network (ACRN). Serving in this role has allowed her to give back to her discipline and help anthropology graduates discover the potential of their education. She is a co-editor and co-author of Career Tools for Anthropology. Jennifer, along with her ACRN Co-Chairs Elizabeth Briody and Riall Nolan, consults with anthropology departments on how to improve the career readiness of their curriculum. She is also a member of the Society for Applied Anthropology’s Nominations & Elections Committee.

Key Moments

00:31:30 – Jennifer explains her initial interest in archaeology and the pivot to biocultural anthropology in college.
00:05:20 – She describes her exposure to applied anthropology during graduate school at Purdue University.
00:15:35 – Jennifer shares her experience at mySidewalk, where she first applied anthropological methods to solve business challenges.
00:20:00 – She discusses her transition to the Kauffman Foundation and the importance of networking in securing the position.
00:26:20 – Jennifer talks about her interest in project management and obtaining the PMP certification.
00:30:40 – She explains the origins and development of the Career Tools for Anthropology workbook.
00:34:04 – Jennifer provides information about her consulting work and future plans for offering Google Drive training.

Tim Malefyt on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz (Interview 2)

Matt Artz — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 13:17:12 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Timothy Malefyt speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation focuses on Tim's new book, Business Anthropology: The Basics. They explore how anthropology can be applied within business contexts, making it a powerful tool for understanding organizational culture, consumer behavior, user experience, and the ever-evolving digital landscape. Tim [...]

Jay Hasbrouck on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 21 May 2024 13:49:37 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Jay Hasbrouck speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. They also discuss the evolving role of anthropology and insights in business, the second edition of his book Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset, and how ethnographic thinking can help organizations navigate complexity and uncertainty in areas like [...]

Matthew J Hill on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 13:13:51 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Matthew J Hill speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. Matthew details his transition from the fields of chemistry and philosophy to anthropology and its application in the business context. He highlights his early experience with design anthropology and its influence on his subsequent focus on organizational development and design. Matthew discusses the approach of addressing complex organizational issues through a comprehensive perspective and outlines his process of organizational consulting.

About Matthew J Hill

Matthew J. Hill, an anthropologist specializing in organizational contexts, leads Matthew J. Hill Consulting. His current professional focus is on organizational development and design, serving mission-driven organizations, government agencies, and institutions of higher education. Matthew's professional path is marked by roles at eLab, Doblin Group, and CFAR. His academic journey encompasses a Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from the University of Colorado, a Master's degree in Philosophy from Boston College, and culminates in a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago.

Key Takeaways

Athropologists can apply their skills in organizational development and design by taking a holistic approach to problem-solving and understanding the complexities of organizations.
Organizational development and design require deep knowledge of the organizational context and collaboration with clients to collectively solve problems.
Anthropologists can contribute to organizational effectiveness by conducting organizational diagnosis, facilitating workshops, and helping organizations adapt to change.
Mission-driven organizations, government agencies, and higher education institutions are ideal sectors for anthropologists interested in organizational development and design.

Chapters

00:01:27 Matthew J Hill’s journey from studying chemistry to anthropology and his doctoral research in Cuba on the use of historic cities in heritage tourism.
00:06:58 Matthew’s experience at eLab and Doblin, where he applied ethnography to inform design and develop deeper insights into user needs.
00:10:00 The importance of taking a holistic approach to problem-solving and the alignment of anthropology with design thinking.
00:12:03 Challenges in the design anthropology field and the transition to working at CFAR.
00:15:33 Transition to organizational development and design work
00:19:00 Importance of contracting and defining the problem
00:20:00 Discovery work and organizational diagnosis
00:23:01 Partnership and collaboration with clients in organizational work
00:25:33 Importance of leadership and collaboration in organizations
00:26:41 Getting started in organizational work

Margret Jaeger on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 15:19:26 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Margret Jaeger speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. Margret discusses her journey into anthropology and her current role in the research department at the Social Fund Vienna Education Center. She explains the challenges of introducing qualitative research methods in a predominantly quantitative-focused organization. Margaret also shares her experience in building a research team and the value of interprofessional collaboration. She emphasizes the need for anthropologists to have a holistic view of the world and their ability to understand and adapt to different contexts quickly. She also discusses her advocacy work in promoting medical anthropology in healthcare education and the importance of training local trainers to ensure cultural sensitivity and relevance.

About Margret Jaeger

Margret Jaeger, an Austrian medical anthropologist, leads the research department at the Vienna Social Fund Education Centre. Her work focuses on the intersection of education and practice for care professionals, emphasizing the integration of anthropological insights into healthcare training. In addition to her primary role, Margret co-founded the Apply Club Health of the AAN-EASA, where she actively promotes the inclusion of medical anthropology in the education of health professionals. Her efforts in this area contribute to the broader understanding and application of cultural and social perspectives in healthcare training and practice.

Key Takeaways

Introducing qualitative research methods in a predominantly quantitative-focused organization requires explaining the value and benefits repeatedly.
Building a research team involves finding individuals with the necessary training and experience and providing them with opportunities for growth and development.
Anthropologists have a unique ability to quickly understand and adapt to different contexts, making them valuable in various business sectors.
Interprofessional collaboration is essential in healthcare and other fields to address complex problems and improve outcomes.
Training local trainers is crucial to ensure cultural sensitivity and relevance in healthcare education.

Chapters

00:02:00 Margaret's interest in anthropology and journey into medical anthropology
00:04:00 Challenges of finding a job in anthropology in Austria
00:05:00 Trends of anthropologists going into other business sectors
00:07:00 Importance of networking and support among anthropologists
00:08:00 Margaret's role as researcher number one in building a research team
00:10:00 Research focus on improving courses for non-academic nurses and care professionals
00:12:00 Challenges of getting buy-in and explaining the value of research
00:13:00 Supporting colleagues as a teacher and researcher
00:14:00 Challenges of building a qualitative research team and overcoming them

Kasper Tang Vangkilde on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 00:54:58 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Kasper Tang Vangkilde speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. Kasper discusses the challenges of bridging the gap between academic anthropology and applied anthropology and the importance of breaking down the distinction between the two. He shares the changes he has seen in the field of business anthropology over the past 15 years, including the integration of design and anthropology. Kasper expands on that and highlights the value of design anthropology in studying and changing organizations. Finally, he discusses his new role as the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Business Anthropology and his current research project, RE-ANIMATE, which explores visionary designs for life-enhancing economies.

About Kasper Tang Vangkilde

Kasper Tang Vangkilde is an Associate Professor and Head of Studies at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen and the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Business Anthropology. His research interests lie at the nexus of business, organizational, and design anthropology, with a focus on formulating theoretical frameworks for understanding social and cultural dimensions in corporate settings as well as enhancing the applicability of anthropological methods in societal and business contexts. His recent work delves into "life-enhancing design," examining its implications for human and non-human life and its integration into organizational sustainability and responsibility. Vangkilde's past scholarship covers an array of topics, including creativity, branding, and organizational structures, and he has also applied anthropological approaches in the private sector.

Key Takeaways

Anthropology can be applied to the study of business and organizations, and it is important to break down the distinction between academic anthropology and applied anthropology.
The field of business anthropology has evolved over the past 15 years, with more anthropologists actively working in organizations and making an impact through their research.
Design anthropology offers valuable perspectives on studying and changing organizations, as it bridges the gap between research and application.
The ReAnimate project explores new ways visions for the economy with a focus on regenerating human and non-human life and draws on the concept of animism to understand modern tendencies.

Chapters

00:01:19 - Kasper shares how he got interested in anthropology 00:03:00 - Coincidences led Kasper to study anthropology and fashion 00:05:00 - Kasper's interest in consumption and material culture studies 00:07:00 - Kasper's PhD focus on creativity and fashion 00:08:00 - Business anthropology was perceived as new and marginal in the discipline 00:10:00 - Kasper's mission to show business anthropology as a legitimate field 00:11:00 - Using classic anthropological notions to understand business organizations 00:13:00 - Changes in the field of business anthropology in the last 15 years 00:14:23 - The history of business anthropology and its presence in academia. 00:16:00 - The emergence of design anthropology and its value in bridging research and application. 00:19:00 - Breaking down the distinction between academic and applied anthropology. 00:24:00 - The role of the Journal of Business Anthropology in facilitating discussion and exchange of ideas. 00:27:39 - Encouraging non-standard research articles in the Journal of Business and Policy 00:28:58 - Introduction to the RE-ANIMATE project 00:29:15 - Crisis in the world and the need for a different economic system 00:32:00 - Four subprojects in the RE-ANIMATE project

Louise Vang Jensen on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 14:05:15 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Louise Vang Jensen speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. Louise discusses the evolution of applying anthropology in business within a Copenhagen context. She also shares her journey from studying anthropology to joining Is It a Bird and becoming the Co-CEO. She also discusses how the practice has matured over the years and emphasizes the importance of shifting from a focus on methodology to a mindset.

About Louise Vang Jensen

Louise Vang Jensen is a partner and co-CEO at Is It a Bird, a Copenhagen-based strategic innovation agency. With a background in anthropology and over a decade of consulting experience, she focuses on integrating anthropologically informed, human-centered approaches into business. Throughout her career, Louise has led projects and facilitated teams to build innovation capacity and enact organizational change. Her competencies extend to ethnographic research, co-creation, analysis, and project management. She has collaborated with a diverse range of organizations, including commercial companies like NIKE and public sector organizations such as the Municipality of Copenhagen.

Key Takeaways

Shifting from a focus on methodology to a mindset of curiosity and reflection is crucial in applying anthropology in business.
Combining anthropology and design thinking offers strategic potential by integrating slow, reflective approaches with fast, experimental ones.
Embracing friction and uncomfortable truths can lead to valuable insights and transformation in client interactions.

Chapters

00:01:28 - Louise discovers anthropology
00:03:08 - The focus of anthropology education in Copenhagen was not on business
00:05:07 - Louise reached out to agencies to apply anthropology in business
00:06:22 - Louise joined Is It a Bird after selling a project
00:10:11 - The name "Is It a Bird" is a reference to Superman
00:11:00 - The philosophy of Is It a Bird is to start with questions and curiosity
00:15:00 - Shifted focus from methodology to mindset and value of anthropology.
00:19:00 - Transitioned from data collector to trusted advisor.
00:21:00 - Anthropology is now recognized and acknowledged in business contexts.
00:24:23 - The combination of anthropology and design in strategy
00:25:44 - The potential of anthropology in strategy and problem-solving
00:27:13 - The importance of curiosity and looking around in strategy
00:28:20 - Exploring the role of anthropology as a trusted advisor
00:30:29 - Staying in the trouble and embracing friction
00:32:00 - Encouragement for those starting their own practice
00:32:53 - The value of holding on to uncomfortable truths

Melissa Cefkin on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 13:39:04 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Melissa Cefkin speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. Melissa discusses how her interest in anthropology began in high school and was further cultivated by her family's international background and experiences living abroad. She pursued her PhD at Rice University, focusing on the Middle East and questions around rethinking anthropology as a discipline. Melissa then transitioned into practicing anthropology, joining the Institute for Research on Learning and exploring the introduction of technology into work systems. This sparked her interest in studying automated systems, leading to roles at companies like IBM, Waymo, and Nissan, where she examined how people interact with and perceive autonomous vehicles. Throughout her career, Melissa has focused on the intersection of people and complex technologies, emphasizing the need for critical thinking and social theory in researching issues like automation and AI.

About Melissa Cefkin

Melissa Cefkin holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Rice University and has applied her anthropological training and multidisciplinary approach across a range of roles focused on social and behavioral research in organizational and technological settings. Most recently, she transitioned into consulting, focusing on organizational transformation and complex technology development. She previously led user experience research for autonomous vehicles at Waymo and initiated a global research team on vehicle-road user interactions at Nissan. Earlier in her career, she directed research teams at IBM and Sapient focused on data analytics, peer-to-peer work systems, and organizational learning and development. She is also the author of Ethnography and the Corporate Encounter.

Key Takeaways

Melissa's interest in anthropology began in high school and was influenced by her family's background.
Her work focuses on understanding how people interact with and make sense of automated systems.
She emphasizes the need for a social theory-informed approach to research and the importance of bridging the gap between academia and industry.
Melissa believes that anthropologists can and should play a crucial role in shaping the development and implementation of complex technologies.

Chapters

00:01:14 - Melissa's early interest in anthropology 00:03:57 - Melissa's academic journey and PhD at Rice University 00:06:00 - Transition from academia to practicing anthropology 00:08:00 - Joining the Institute for Research on Learning 00:11:00 - Transition into the high-tech industry 00:12:27 - Introduction to technology in workplaces and unintended consequences. 00:14:00 - Transition to digital environments and design anthropology. 00:17:00 - Focus on automated systems and autonomous vehicles. 00:25:00 - Learning from interactions with automated systems and trust issues. 00:25:11 - Automated systems and the need for guardrails. 00:28:00 - Importance of critical thinking and social theory in research. 00:29:00 - Concerns about reliance on automated tools and solutions. 00:32:00 - Communicating social theory without jargon and references. 00:35:00 - Consulting work at the intersection of people and complex technologies. 00:37:00 - Working with academics to open horizons and evolve disciplines. 00:38:48 - Bridging the gap between academia and industry

Nathalie Béchet on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 16 Aug 2023 18:24:33 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Nathalie Béchet speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. Nathalie discusses her journey into anthropology and data science. She explains how her interest in understanding social norms and the construction of society led her to anthropology. However, she felt disconnected from the academic focus on traditional topics and wanted to explore contemporary issues. This led her to pursue a master's degree in data science and digital sociology, where she learned about data collection, processing, and analysis. Nathalie emphasizes the importance of data visualization in understanding digital data and highlights the value of anthropology in questioning the obvious and uncovering biases. She also shares her insights on the metaverse and blockchain, challenging the negative perceptions and highlighting the opportunities they offer. Nathalie concludes by discussing her recent research on the intersection of technology and social mobility.

About Nathalie Béchet

Nathalie Béchet, a digital anthropology researcher at L'Atelier BNP Paribas in Paris, has crafted a distinguished career by intertwining cultural anthropology with data science. Since October 2019, her innovative approach has led to the development of hybrid research methods to study emerging technologies, their markets, and societal impacts. Her work encompasses areas such as the virtual economy, online radicalization, ethical algorithms, and the digital shift's socio-cultural changes. Béchet has also engaged in cutting-edge research, including participating in the Digital Methods Initiative Data Sprint 2020 and leading a three-month ethnographic field study in Taipei on the use of office fengshui in Chinese entrepreneurial architecture. Her multifaceted contributions to understanding the relationship between technology and society solidify her position as a prominent figure in the field of digital anthropology.

Key Takeaways

Anthropologists are like anti-bias machines, questioning the obvious and uncovering biases.
Data visualization is essential in analyzing digital data and uncovering patterns and insights.
The metaverse and blockchain offer opportunities for creativity, social mobility, and the disruption of traditional industries.
Technology should be seen as a tool that can be harnessed for positive change rather than feared.

Chapters

00:01:32 - Nathalie's interest in anthropology and data science 00:08:23 - Nathalie's experience with learning data science and coding 00:10:48 - The role of data visualization in digital anthropology 00:18:37 - The value of digital anthropology in organizations 00:20:00 - The importance of digital methods for all anthropologists 00:23:24 - Nathalie's perspective on the metaverse and blockchain 00:27:50 - Nathalie's article on NFTs and crypto art 00:31:41 - Other reports Nathalie has worked on

Kate Sieck on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 14:26:00 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Kate Sieck speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. Kate discusses her journey from academia to industry and the various roles she has held in marketing, business intelligence, and product development. She emphasizes the need for anthropologists to apply their skills in areas such as business strategy, risk analysis, and product design. Kate also highlights the importance of building bridges between academia and industry and the opportunities for anthropologists to make a positive impact in the private sector.

About Kate Sieck

Kate Sieck is an anthropologist and senior manager at Toyota Research Institute's Harmonious Communities team. With extensive experience in integrating social theory into business, her career spans leadership roles in RAND Corporation, OLSON, and ReD Associates and faculty positions at Emory and Stanford universities. Known for her ability to combine qualitative and quantitative research with social theory, Kate excels at leveraging anthropological insights to enhance organizational services, products, and communications, benefiting employees, clients, partners, and communities. Her dedication to creating a positive impact drives her success in projects involving internal stakeholders and external clients, seeking to harness anthropological insights for improved outcomes and societal transformations.

Key Moments

00:00:00 - Introduction to the podcast and guest, Kate Sieck 00:01:36 - Kate's interest in anthropology and how she got started 00:05:33 - Kate's transition from academia to marketing 00:10:53 - Exploring different career paths for anthropologists 00:11:58 - The value of anthropology in business intelligence and strategy 00:13:00 - Kate's role in business intelligence and risk analysis 00:20:00 - Kate's current role at Toyota Research Institute 00:21:58 - Opportunities for anthropologists in tech and product development 00:25:00 - The need for anthropology to bridge the gap between academia and industry 00:30:00 - Kate's involvement in EPIC's equity program and upcoming conferences

Dariusz Jemielniak on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 16:49:58 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Dariusz Jemielniak speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. Dariusz shares his journey from anthropology to becoming a Wikipedian and shares his perspective on the intersection of anthropology and data science. He emphasizes the value of programming skills, particularly Python, for ethnographers in effectively [...]

Mujtaba Hameed on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 11:58:33 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Mujtaba Hameed speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist.Mujtaba shares his journey from undergraduate studies in archaeology and anthropology to his current role as a senior research consultant at Stripe Partners. The discussion highlights the value of anthropological thinking in the business field and emphasizes the importance of bridging the gap between qualitative research and data science. Mujtaba also emphasizes effective communication of anthropological insights to clients and stakeholders, ensuring their integration into business strategies. Throughout the episode, listeners gain insights into the transformative potential of anthropology in business research and strategy, the integration of qualitative research with data science, and the relevance of anthropology in understanding the impact of technology on society.

About Mujtaba Hameed

Mujtaba Hameed is a Senior Research Consultant at Stripe Partners, specializing in research and strategy for technology-led businesses. With extensive experience in leading multi-country projects, he assists clients in understanding market dynamics and product development strategies. Mujtaba also serves as the overseer of the Stripe Partners newsletter, Frames, where he applies social science frameworks to address business and technology challenges. With a background in anthropology and a diverse range of roles in strategy and research, including at Canvas8, Sylvain Labs, Inc., and Bamboo Crowd, Mujtaba brings a wealth of expertise to his work. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Archaeology & Anthropology from the University of Oxford and a Master of Science degree in Social Anthropology from UCL, specializing in UX research.

Key Moments

00:01:21 Mujtaba's interest in anthropology and how he got started 00:06:27 Mujtaba's role at Stripe Partners and the type of work they do 00:08:53 The value of anthropological thinking in business 00:11:15 The importance of data science in anthropology 00:15:29 The concept of pathfinding in anthropology 00:20:38 The future of anthropology and its potential impact 00:26:00 Stripe Partners' thought leadership and resources 00:29:18 Mujtaba's vision for the future of anthropology 00:31:43 How to get in touch with Mujtaba and Stripe Partners

Carmen Bueno Castellanos on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 14:04:33 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Carmen Bueno Castellanos speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation delves into Carmen's journey, starting with the historical context of anthropology in Mexico and its Marxist influences. She discusses the challenges business anthropologists face in a country where Marxist theory dominates the field and explores the importance of analyzing business practices in Mexico, particularly in the context of globalization since the NAFTA agreement. Carmen also shares her research on the impact of innovation and technology, highlighting the need for inclusive and sustainable approaches and transformative innovation. The conversation then shifts to a recap of the 4th Global Business Anthropology Summit, which was held June 1 - 3, 2023, in Mexico City at the Universidad Iberoamericana. Carmen elaborates on why they selected the theme of Making Conscious Futures and the importance of awareness, connections, and uncertainty in shaping a better future. She also emphasizes the value of transdisciplinarity, collaboration, and having a clear purpose in contributing to a positive impact and offers some advice for future GBAS organizing teams.

About Carmen Bueno Castellanos

Carmen Bueno Castellanos is an anthropologist specializing in Social Anthropology. Holding degrees from Syracuse University and the Universidad Iberoamericana, she is recognized for her expertise and is a member of prestigious organizations such as the National System of Researchers and the Mexican Academy of Sciences. Currently serving as the Coordinator of the Master's and Doctorate programs in Social Anthropology at the Universidad Iberoamericana and a research professor, Carmen's research delves into the relationship between local expressions of the global and innovation processes in global companies. Her influential publications, including the book "Productive Configurations in Globalization: Mexican Trajectories," have been featured in renowned journals. Carmen's dedication to research and teaching highlights her significant contributions to the field of anthropology.

Key Moments

00:00:00 - Introduction to the podcast and guest Carmen Bueno Castanos 00:01:47 - Carmen's background and introduction to business anthropology in Mexico 00:03:00 - Importance of analyzing and understanding business in Mexico during the nineties 00:04:00 - Impact of the NAFTA agreement on Mexico's globalization process 00:06:00 - Carmen's focus on innovation and anthropology of organizations 00:07:00 - Overview of the Global Business Anthropology Summit 00:08:00 - Theme of the summit: Making Conscious Futures 00:09:00 - Importance of business anthropology in Mexico and its role in shaping the future 00:11:00 - Challenges and opportunities in sustainable and inclusive innovation 00:12:20 - Anthropology in Mexico, its history, and its role in shaping the future 00:17:00 - The fourth Global Business Anthropology Summit and the theme of making conscious futures 00:19:01 - Inspiration for the summit: awareness, connections, and uncertainty 00:20:04 - Importance of having a vision for the future and making connections with diverse communities 00:23:00 - Importance of engaging with ecosystems and learning from different cultures 00:25:17 - The summit's focus on inspiring new generations to change the economic system 00:25:52 - The importance of having a clear purpose and embracing transdisciplinarity 00:29:14 - Future collaborations and the possibility of Asia hosting the next summit 00:30:03 - Contact information for Carmen Bueno Castanos 00:30:35 Outro and information about the Anthropology and Business Podcast

Liz Lewis on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 24 May 2023 13:16:20 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Liz Lewis speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation delves into Liz's unconventional journey into content marketing, exploring its role in enhancing brand recognition. Using examples from her career, Liz illustrates how her anthropological research skills have been instrumental in creating compelling content that resonates with a broad audience. The conversation extends to explore strategies for top-of-funnel marketing, concerns surrounding the misrepresentation of survey data, and the advantages of diverse content mediums. Lastly, Liz imparts her knowledge on the importance of research-backed thought leadership in content marketing, underscoring its role in solidifying a company's position as a respected industry authority.

About Liz Lewis

Liz Lewis is an accomplished tech anthropologist with a PhD in Anthropology, specializing in the nexus of research and content creation. She's a skillful qualitative researcher and a proficient writer with more than a decade of experience across various formats, from corporate blogs and white papers to podcasts and scholarly writings. Liz currently serves as the Corporate Content Lead at Miro, where she's been instrumental in refining the company's content strategy. Previously, as a Senior Content Marketing Manager at Indeed, she led the editorial strategy, managed a team of content creators, and produced high-profile thought leadership materials recognized by major news outlets. Alongside her corporate roles, Liz has maintained a prolific freelance writing career spanning nine years, contributing to diverse publications on topics such as science, culture, and health.

Michael Powell on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 03 May 2023 13:06:57 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Michael Powell speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation begins with a discussion of Michael's graduate school experience and how he combined his passion for art and anthropology. Michael shares how he adapted to a business environment and found creative research projects. Later in the episode, Michael and Matt discuss the benefits of remote ethnographic research and the challenges and opportunities of working as an independent consultant. Michael also discusses the art of ethnographic listening and shares his advice on starting a business.

About Michael Powell

Michael Powell is an anthropologist, design strategist, UX researcher, and writer with a passion for studying people and their behaviors. He transforms research into insights that help teams make smarter decisions. Michael's research design and methods employ a human science approach, enabling him to discover solutions efficiently and effectively. He believes that collaboration is critical and tailors his research for different audiences, budgets, timelines, and expectations. Michael works on various aspects of everyday life, from tech products to grocery stores, from voting habits to healthcare devices. He offers a wide range of services, including leading research projects, working with research partners, training others in research, and delivering customer sentiment based on interviews. Additionally, Michael engages in deeper projects that inform product or experience design cycles.

Gemma John on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 23:14:42 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Gemma John, founder and director of Human City, speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Gemma's journey from studying anthropology with a focus on the built environment to founding her consultancy, which specializes in socially responsible and commercially viable property development and asset management solutions. It also touches on the WWNA's Apply Club for Anthropology of the Built Environment.

About Gemma John

Gemma John is a highly accomplished applied anthropologist, sustainability advisor, and the Founder & Director of Human City. Her career has been dedicated to driving positive change within the built environment. Gemma's journey started in planning and architecture with leading firms such as AECOM and Foster + Partners in London. In 2017, she founded Human City, a consultancy that drives social value through real estate investment, development, management, and operation. Gemma's extensive experience and expertise have enabled her to work with various private, public, and nonprofit organizations across Europe and Africa, conducting rigorous research and providing strategic guidance on sustainable development. Her commitment to driving meaningful impact is reflected in her extensive education, which includes coursework in Real Estate Economics and Finance at the London School of Economics and Impact Investing in Africa at the University of Cape Town. Gemma's contributions to academia and sustainable development have earned her an Honorary Research Fellowship at University College London's Department of Anthropology and Adjunct Faculty status at the University of Cambridge's Institute for Sustainable Leadership. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce and a Winston Churchill Fellow.

About Human City

Human City is a spatial strategy consultancy that specializes in creating socially responsible and commercially viable property development and asset management solutions. They help clients create new spaces that benefit both the community and commercial aspects. They use their expertise in social science, business intelligence, and design thinking to carry out research, develop strategies, and measure the positive impact on society and the environment. Their work spans four areas of expertise: design futures and strategy, innovation and growth, social value and impact, and tools and techniques.

Tracy Johnson on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 02:48:38 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Tracy Johnson, senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Tracy's journey from studying psychology to becoming an internationally recognized design anthropologist in global health.

About Tracy Johnson

Tracy Johnson is a senior program officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she focuses on user experience and innovation by applying human-centered design across the foundation's grants. She has over 15 years of experience in anthropology and design for various social issues, such as education and human rights, and has held positions as director of ethnographic research for Nurun and research director for Context-Based Research Group. As an internationally recognized design anthropologist, she is also contributing to the merging of design and data science for a more effective synergy. Tracy's global perspective is informed by her living and working experiences in countries such as Bangladesh, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Laos, Nigeria, Tanzania, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

Lucia Laurent-Neva on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 13:00:12 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Lucia Laurent-Neva speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Lucia's journey from design and semiotics to anthropology and how she combines the three disciplines as the Founder of Visual Signo. It also covers Semiofest and the upcoming Global Business Anthropology Summit (GBAS 2023).

About Lucia Laurent-Neva

Lucia Laurent-Neva is a semiotician, designer, and anthropologist skilled in brand strategy, product and brand innovation. For almost 20 years, she has been helping British and global clients in a variety of sectors to understand and anticipate cultural changes across different continents. Lucia’s interest in the practical applications of cultural semiotics began while she was a lecturer at a Colombian university and evolved through senior roles at two London marketing-strategic consultancies. As the founder of Visual Signo and co-founder of Semiofest, she is committed in demonstrating the increasing relevance of semiotics in global brand strategy in commercial organizations.

Tracey Lovejoy on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 01:02:33 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Tracey Lovejoy speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Tracey's journey from discovering anthropology at the hairdresser to co-founding Catalyst Constellations. Along the way, we learn how Tracey, the catalyst studied at the University of Chicago and worked at E-lab and Microsoft.

About Trace Lovejoy

Tracey Lovejoy is an anthropologist, author of Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out.: The Catalyst’s Guide to Working Well, and the Co-Founder Catalyst Constellations. Tracey is known for her optimistic outlook, quick mind, freakish intuition, sassy attitude, and drive for results. She is a coach that supports Catalysts and their teams and is the researcher behind the Catalyst movement. Before she became a Coach, Tracey spent 12 years at Microsoft, where she worked at the intersection of technology, design, and innovation, leading teams of change-makers. She is also the co-founder of the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC), the premier international gathering on ethnography in business. When Tracey isn’t helping individuals and organizations transform, she’s hanging out with her kids, cleaning up after pets, or stealing moments to feed her reading addiction.

About Catalyst Constellations

Catalyst Constellations is a change accelerator that leverages research driven insights and executive experience to catalyze innate changemakers to build future proof companies that thrive. The company was founded by Tracey Lovejoy and Shannon Lucas in 2017.

January 2023 Catalyst Empowerment Summit

Catalyst Constellations hosts two Catalyst Empowerment Summits yearly. The summits are designed by and for Catalysts, offering short talks with actionable insights. The events are free, and curate an amazing selection of thought leaders – each with their own domain expertise on different facets of our lives as Catalysts! The next event is January 26, 2023 7 – 11am Pacific | 4 – 8pm CET. Register for the event on LinkedIn.

Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out.

Move Fast. Break Shit. Burn Out.: The Catalyst’s Guide to Working Well, isn’t your typical change-making book, because it’s not for your typical changemaker. It’s for the innovators who can’t stop taking in information, connecting dots, and changing the world—even when the world hasn’t asked for it. Even when the changemaker desperately needs a break.

Anders Kristian Munk on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 14:12:46 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Anders Kristian Munk speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Ander's journey from human geography to Techno-Anthropology. About Anders Kristian Munk Anders Kristian Munk is an anthropologist, associate professor, and the director of The Techno-Anthropology Lab at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. He holds degrees in ethnology and [...]

Lianne Potter on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 07 Dec 2022 03:42:45 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Lianne Potter speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Lianne's journey from studying anthropology to self-learning software engineering and working in cyber security as the Head of SecOps for Asda.

About Lianne Potter

Lianne Potter is an award-winning security transformation manager, change-maker, tech founder, digital anthropologist, and tech diversity and inclusion advocate. She is the Head of SecOps for Asda and also the founder of The AnthroSecurist. Lianne’s passion is to ensure that the tech we use is as secure as possible while, at the same time, removing barriers for those who create it and fostering environments for innovation and growth. Lianne evangelizes a cultural security transformation that begins with embedding values that never compromise or neglect the human experience. Her mantra is: When you follow the cables, behind every piece of tech is a person, consumer, and creator, and we should never lose sight of this.

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Keirsten Snover on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 16 Nov 2022 02:08:57 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Keirsten Snover speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Keirsten's journey from studying anthropology to founding Anthropology 4U, an online education company offering courses in anthropology. About Keirsten Snover Keirsten Snover is an Anthropologist with two Master's degrees in Anthropology. She is the founder of Anthropology 4U, which offers online courses in all four fields of Anthropology to the general public. Keirsten has multiple disabilities and uses a wheelchair to get around, a feeding tube to eat and drink, and a ventilator to breathe. All this does not stop her from teaching! About Anthropology 4U Anthropology 4U offers a unique educational experience for lifelong learners by providing online courses in all four fields of Anthropology! The academy offers 7 online courses and has trained 1700 students. Recommend Links

Yaya Ren on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 05 Sep 2022 22:00:34 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Yaya Ren speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Yaya's journey from her dissertation research in the NICU to founding a tech company. Her company, PreeMe+You, is a social benefit company that empowers parents by harmonizing NICU care and communication to produce your preemie’s best health outcomes. About Yaya Ren Yaya Ren is a medical and cultural anthropologist. She is passionate about bringing the science of human interactions to create mobile technology solutions that improve quality of life and health outcomes for preemies and their families. She has conducted extensive field work capturing the social-emotional and health disparity journeys of NICU families in the U.S and Taiwan, focusing on bridging communication gaps between medical teams and families. PreeMe+You combines her industry experience bridging online-offline social interactions with her social science expertise in NICU medicine and epidemiology. About PreeMe+You PreeMe+You is a social benefit health startup that improves premature infant health and developmental outcomes. PreeMe+You develops neonatal interaction and communication tools that shape parent-infant relationships and parent-medical team partnerships for improving long-term health and quality of life outcomes for preemies and their families. The seed for PreeMe+You began when Dr. Yaya Ren, a medical and cultural anthropologist and Dr. Bree Andrews, a professor of pediatrics and neonatologist, came together over many cups of cafeteria coffee to share stories about the inspired tenacity of families who juggle everyday life with the demands of caring for their preemies. Recommend Links

Grant McCracken on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 16 Aug 2022 22:45:49 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Grant McCracken speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Grant's journey from museums to being a consultant and author. It also touches on Grant's new book Return of the Artisan: How America Went from Industrial to Handmade. About Grant McCracken Grant McCracken is an anthropologist studying American culture for 25 years. He has worked for many organizations, including Timberland, New York Historical Society, IKEA, Google, Ford Foundation, Kanye West, Netflix, Sony, Coca-Cola, Sam Adams, Boston Book Festival, Delta, Oprah, Reddit, PBS, State Farm, NBC, Diageo, IBM, Nike, and the Obama White House. He is a long-time student of culture and commerce, publishing two books on the topic: Culture and Consumption I, and Culture and Consumption II. He argues that all corporations need to take culture more serious, publishing a book called Chief Culture Officer (Basic Books). This was named one of the best innovation books by BusinessWeek in 2009. His most recent book, Return of the Artisan, delves into the evolution of the artisanal movement from the fringes of the 1970s to the spike of domesticity—home-cooking, gardening, and DIY crafting—caused by COVID-19 and what it means for the future of work and American culture. He is the inventor of The Griff, an early warning system for social and cultural change (see www.mapping-the-future.com). He is credited with spotting the rise of Donald Trump, the fall of Second Life, and the disruption of CPG by Alice Waters and the artisanal movement. Recommend Links

Christine Miller on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 26 Jul 2022 12:40:14 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Christine Miller speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Christine's journey from studying the innovation practices of organizations to finding design anthropology and her current role as a professor of Design Management at SCAD. It also touches on Christine's 2018 book, Design + Anthropology, and a forthcoming book on design anthropology. About Christine Miller Christine Miller is a design educator, researcher, and practitioner working at the intersection of anthropology, design, and business. Her Ph.D. research integrated anthropology, management/organizational studies, and business in an ethnographic study of process formalization and the relationship between innovation and formalization at a Tier One automotive supplier. Her research interests focus on sociotechnical systems and the ways in which sociality and culture influence the design and diffusion, adoption, and adaptation of new products, processes, and technologies. She also studies technology-mediated communication, knowledge flows within pluridisciplinary groups and teams, and the emergence of co-located and technology-enabled collaborative innovation networks (COINs). She is currently a Co-PI on a NSF grant studying the ethics and cultures of STEM research groups. She is exploring how developing context-specific ethical guidelines co-designed by lab and research group members might help cultivate ethical culture. She currently teaches at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) in Savannah, Georgia. From the fall of 2014 until May 2018, she taught at IIT in Chicago for the Stuart School of Business and in the Institute of Design. Her most recent book, Design + Anthropology was published by Routledge in 2017. She is currently working on a follow up book on design anthropology. Recommend Links

Cathleen Crain on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 22:11:03 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Cathleen Crain speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Cathleen's tremendously successful career which includes being the co-founder and managing partner of LTG Associates and the current president of The National Association for the Practice of Anthropology. LTG Associates was the first business anthropology consulting agency in the US. It just had its 40th anniversary and has a new website to celebrate the milestone. About Cathleen Crain Cathleen Crain, M.A. is a Managing Partner of LTG Associates, the oldest anthropologically based consulting firm in the U.S. and a senior professional anthropologist. She has more than forty years of experience in health and human services research, program development, evaluation, policy analysis, and technical assistance. Cathleen has been engaged in scores of projects for international, federal, state, and local governmental organizations, and with for- and non-profit organizations and foundations. In addition to being an active social scientist working on projects, Cathleen is responsible for the development side of the firm. Cathleen is the current president of the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA), a past member of the SfAA Nominations and Elections Committee, a past chair of the NAPA committee responsible for the Careers Expo, a founder of the NAPA mentor program, a long-standing and proud member of WAPA, and a current member of the WAPA program committee. Recommended Links

Katie Hillier on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 30 May 2022 11:00:37 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Katie Hillier speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Katie's journey from her USC online communities graduate program to becoming a digital anthropologist, and now working at the Liiv Center to bring digital innovation to all of anthropology. About Katie Hillier Katie Hillier has worked as a Digital Anthropologist for over 10 years, running global digital anthropology labs in the Innovation consultancy space. She has a passion for bringing empathy to big data and believes in a future where digital anthropology becomes as essential as data science across all aspects of society. Today she is the Chief Digital Anthropologist at the LiiV Center, a non-profit organization committed to bringing digital innovation to anthropology. Recommended Links

Laura Korčulanin on Anthropology in Business

Matt Artz — Tue, 03 May 2022 12:55:59 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Laura Korčulanin speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Laura's journey from her early grassroots organizing to focusing on design anthropology , and founding Give a Shit. About Laura Korčulanin Laura Korčulanin is a pioneer design anthropologist, systems thinker, and environmental advocate. She is passionate about true world changes and working towards positive impact and regenerative solutions. What defines her the most is an ecosystemic vision and holistic approach to world challenges and their solutions, where nature is the main stakeholder. She is passionate about life and projects that make a difference to all living beings, co-creating her legacy through innovative research and educational frameworks with different stakeholders. She has over 12 years of experience in qualitative research, six years of experience in university-level positions teaching with holistic educational models, and a decade of immersed creation in the private and public sector, from design consultancy agencies, municipalities, decision-making bodies, NGOs, and academia. She is the founder of Give a Shit and is currently finishing her PhD focused on integrated sanitation solutions and urban water management with a case study of Lisbon. Recommended Links

Ainslee Hooper on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 21:32:00 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Ainslee Hooper speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Ainslee’s journey from her anthropology schooling to becoming a disability inclusion consultant and podcaster. About Ainslee Hooper Ainslee Hooper is an Anthropologist specializing in disability inclusion. For the past three years, she has worked on numerous projects utilizing her ethnographic & qualitative research skills with a focus on disability inclusion for councils, disability service providers, public venues and sustainability services firms. Ainslee combines her unique knowledge of disability with her professional skills, along with her evidence-backed research methods to empower businesses and organizations to remove invisible barriers and be more inclusive and accessible, reducing the risk of ableism. Ainslee has been recognized in her field, receiving the Employment Award in the Geelong Awards for People with Disability in 2020. This award recognizes someone who has achieved success or made a substantial contribution to empowering and developing others in the workplace or the community. Ainslee graduated from Deakin University in 2011 with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Anthropology. Ainslee is currently completing a PhD in Anthropology at Deakin University, researching the experiences of people with disabilities during the COVID19 pandemic and "COVID normal". Ainslee is currently a Community Representative on the Access & Inclusion Advisory Committee for the City of Greater Geelong and is an advisor on the 'Women and Body Mapping' Research Study Advisory Group and sits on the board of the Barwon Disability Resource Council & MuMEcations. Recommended Links

Angela VandenBroek on Anthropology in Business

Matt Artz — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 13:03:56 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Angela VandenBroek speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Angela's journey from consulting and studying innovation, to teaching applied anthropology at Texas State University. About Angela VandenBroek Angela VandenBroek is a sociocultural anthropologist with a PhD in anthropology from Binghamton University. She has additionally worked as an applied anthropologist in design, branding, and information technologies since 2008—both within organizations and as a freelancer. Broadly speaking, her work sits at the intersection of business and design anthropology and science and technology studies and focuses on how ambitions for better futures by states, citizens and entrepreneurs are coopted and reformed by innovation culture and its infrastructures. She's conducted research in Stockholm Sweden’s startup and innovation ecosystem (#SthlmTech) and will be starting research among entrepreneurs in Austin, Texas in 2021. She is also the web producer for the Committee for the Anthropology of Science Technology and Computing (CASTAC) in the General Anthropology Division of the American Anthropological Association and a leader for the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Apply Club in the Applied Anthropology Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists. Recommend Links

Lee Wilson on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 21 Feb 2022 13:04:27 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Lee Wilson speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Lee's journey from studying Indonesian martial arts to working in global development. About Less Wilson Lee Wilson specializes in working with organizations and their leaders to help them understand and drive sustainable change. He has pioneered innovative, participatory approaches to research and implementation grounded in applied ethnography and anthropological thinking. Key to the success of these approaches is detailed analysis of the cultural patterns that shape the ways we think about and act in the world. His approach is highly participatory and works to put people back into strategy. He works with clients to break down silos, to ensure all voices are heard (irrespective of seniority), and help people understand organizational challenges from standpoints other than their own. He creates secure environments for issues to be raised for collective resolution – putting problem-solving and consequent ownership for change into the hands of participants. His work has spanned three continents (UK/Europe, Asia, and Australia/Pacific) with a diverse array of partners and clients including government agencies, the United Nations, art organizations, corporate entities, law enforcement agencies, think tanks, and NGOs. Recommended Links

Lee Wilson on LinkedIn

Timothy Malefyt on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 01 Feb 2022 13:47:33 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Timothy Malefyt speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Tim's journey from studying flamenco performance and symbolism in Spain to working in advertising in New York, and on to his current role as a Clinical Professor at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University. About Timothy Malefyt Timothy de Waal Malefyt is a Clinical Professor at the Gabelli School of Business at Fordham University. Previously, he held senior positions in advertising agencies where, as a corporate anthropologist, he applied anthropological and cultural approaches to consumer research for developing brand and strategic insights. He has co-authored and co-edited five academic press books, Women, Consumption and Paradox (2020); Magical Capitalism (2018); Ethics in the Anthropology of Business (2017); Advertising and Anthropology (2012); and Advertising Cultures (2003). He often is quoted in popular media, including Bloomberg Businessweek, USA Today and The New York Times, and he has appeared on ABC News. He presents papers at The American Anthropological Association Meetings, Society for Applied Anthropology, EPIC and the Global Business Anthropology conferences. Recommended Links

Tom Maschio on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 17 Jan 2022 23:05:14 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Tom Maschio speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Tom’s journey from Papua New Guinea, the founding of his consulting firm Maschio Consulting, and his most recent book, Digital Cultures, Lived Stories and Virtual Reality.

About Tom Maschio

Thomas Maschio has been a business anthropologist for the past 22 years and head of his own consultancy, Maschio Consulting, since 2004. Prior to that he carried out academic ethnographic research in Papua New Guinea. He is the author of Digital Cultures, Lived Stories and Virtual Reality.

Elizabeth Briody on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 21 Dec 2021 01:53:55 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Elizabeth Briody speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Elizabeth's formative years at General Motors, the founding of her consulting firm Cultural Keys, and the new Anthropology Career Readiness Commission. About Elizabeth Briody Elizabeth K. Briody is the founder of Cultural Keys LLC. Prior to establishing Cultural Keys, she worked over two decades at General Motors R&D, most recently as Technical Fellow. She managed multiple cross-functional teams and led research and change-management projects on high-impact issues including GM’s relationships with strategic partners. Her projects ranged from the effects of downsizing and restructurings on employees to decision-making and governance issues on global vehicle programs to implementing the “ideal culture” in GM’s U.S. manufacturing plants. Elizabeth is co-author of three recent books including The Cultural Dimension of Global Business, written to make culture understandable, visible, and useful to business people; the 8th edition will be out early in 2017. Her work is documented in award-winning publications and videos. She has been featured in Fast Company, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Working Women, and other news media. She has held positions as Secretary on the Executive Board of the American Anthropological Association and is as Past President of the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology. Elizabeth also recently co-founded the Career Readiness Commission with Riall Nolan. The Career Readiness Commission is a new initiative helping to prepare the next generation of anthropologists to meet tomorrow’s challenges and opportunities. Check it out at anthrocareerready.net. Recommended Links

Adam Gamwell on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 13:34:42 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Adam Gamwell speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Adam's journey from studying cultural anthropology to working as a senior researcher with MotivBase. It also touches on Adam's interest in public anthropology and storytelling, which he has demonstrated with This Anthro Life (TAL) and Missing Link Studios. About Adam Gamwell Adam Gamwell is an anthropologist and culture expert, digital producer, innovation consultant & researcher, writer, speaker, and educator. But fundamentally he is a storyteller and driven to make our world a more friendly, humane, and sane place. Through and beyond podcasting, he helps businesses, organizations, and individuals understand the problems they face, create clarity and communication in the face of complexity, and make good things with good people to solve those problems. Because the right story changes hearts, creates community, and drives action. About This Anthro Life This Anthro Life is a podcast that brings you smart conversations with humanity’s top makers and minds on our creative potential through design, culture, business, and technology. Change your perspective. From Missing Link Studios in Boston, MA. Recommended Links

Min’enhle Ncube on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 09 Nov 2021 14:13:29 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Min’enhle Ncube speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Min’enhle's journey from anthropology to the HighTechXL accelerator where she became interested in AI and innovation. About Min’enhle Ncube Min’enhle Ncube is an anthropologist researching artificial intelligence in healthcare and its embedded ethics in central and southern Africa. Passionate about applied anthropology and UX research, she worked for technology startups at the HighTechXL, a venture builder on the Eindhoven HighTech Campus. There, she observed a major paucity of multidisciplinary approaches for innovative processes. While technologists envision the future as digital and autonomous, Min’enhle believes that this vision should be more human and socially responsible. She works with a cohort of fellows at the Institute for Humanities in Africa (HUMA), researching broadly on ‘Future Hospitals’, the Fourth Industrial Revolution, AI and the Ethics of Care in Africa. She shares how she is shaping her research work for applied innovation in the sub-Saharan African region. Recommended Links

Dawn Walter on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 28 Sep 2021 13:08:43 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Dawn Walter speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Dawn’s journey from working as a technical writer to becoming a social anthropologist and then starting the Response-ability Summit and Response-ability.Tech Podcast.

About Dawn Walter

Dawn Walters holds a BA (Hons) in European History (UEA), a BA (Hons) in Social Anthropology (University of Canterbury, NZ), and an MA (Hons) in Social Anthropology (University of Auckland, NZ).

In 2018, Dawn founded the Response-ability Summit, formerly the Anthropology + Technology Conference. As a social anthropologist, Dawn believes that social scientists play a crucial role in the design and development of emerging technologies.

About the Response-ability Summit

The Response-ability Summit brings together technologists, who are working on emerging technology projects related to AI, and anthropologists to foster dialogue and collaboration across the disciplines.

The inaugural 2019 conference saw 150 delegates from around the UK and Europe meeting to discuss socially responsible AI at the Watershed, a leading arts and media space, on Bristol’s historic harbourside.

The 2020 event returned on Friday 9 and Monday 12 October, this time online, connecting speakers and delegates from across the globe, and two major sponsors, Microsoft UK and Spotify, with funding from UKRI (ESRC).

Max Matus on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 13 Sep 2021 20:34:50 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Max Matus speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Max's journey from studying social anthropology to semiotics to sociology. It also touches on the state of business anthropology in Mexico, the founding of his consulting firm Semiosfera, and the work he does as a research fellow for the College of the Northern Borderland (Colef) in Tijuana. About Max Matus Max Matus is an anthropologist and sociologist and a research fellow at the College of the Northern Borderland (Colef) in Tijuana. Max has extensive experience in consulting for the public and the private sector. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology at Wageningen University in Holland and an M.A in Semiotics at Tartu University in Estonia. Max Matus is the research director of Semiosfera consulting, an innovation consultancy firm established in Mexico City. Recommended Links

Natalia Usme Manrique on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 31 Aug 2021 01:35:11 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Natalia Usme Manrique speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Natalia’s journey from studying cultural analysis at Lund University in Sweden to co-founding Flipa Consultora in Colombia, where she started the first business anthropology summit and digital magazine for LATAM.

About Natalia Usme Manrique

Natalia Usme Manrique is a business anthropologist, service designer, and entrepreneur from Colombia. As the co-founder of Flipa Consultora, she started the first Digital Magazine in Business Anthropology for Latam and the first online Business Anthropology Summit for Latam. With Flipa she’s worked on projects that include developing products and services, marketing strategies, culture and communication plans, 360 change management strategies, UX research, cultural innovation strategies, and customer experience.

Natalia currently works as a service designer for EPAM Systems. She earned a Master’s Degree from Lund University in Applied Cultural Analysis.

About the Anthropology in Business Podcast

The Anthropology in Business podcast is for anthropologists and business leaders interested in learning more about the many ways anthropology is applied in business and why business anthropology is one of the most effective lenses for making sense of organizations and consumers. It is hosted by Matt Artz (https://mattartz.me), a business anthropologist specializing in design anthropology and working at the intersection of product management, user experience, and business strategy. To learn more about the Anthropology in Business podcast, please visit the website (https://www.mattartz.me/podcasts/anthropology-in-business-podcast/).

Lora Koycheva on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 17 Aug 2021 12:55:49 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Lora Koycheva speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Lora's journey from behind the Iron Curtain to studying innovation and entrepreneurship. It also touches on co-organizing new applied anthropology clubs for the EASA Applied Anthropology Network and co-founding a robotics startup. About Lora Koycheva Lora Koycheva is a Visiting Researcher at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, EPIC board member, and a Convenor for EASA Applied Anthropology Network. She is irresistibly drawn to complex problems, ambitious projects, and crazy people. An anthropologist by training, she is lucky to have as craft the kind of mindset and thinking which thrives in uncertainty, embraces failure as a necessary first step, and demands stepping and acting outside of any zone of comfort. With 15+ years of experience in qualitative research in a variety of contexts, from ethnographic interviews and participant observation to surveys and sociolinguistic analysis, she is adept at immersive and adaptive techniques in seeking to understand people, products, systems, and structures from otherwise hard-to-obtain angles and in unfamiliar terms. Recommended Links

Erin Taylor on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 01:50:56 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Erin Taylor speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Erin’s journey from studying economic anthropology to the founding of Finthropology, a consulting firm focused on the FinTech sector.

About Erin Taylor

Erin Taylor is an economic anthropologist who specializes in research in FinTech. She is the Founder and Principal Consultant at Finthropology, and previously Canela Consulting. Erin is the author of the book Materializing Poverty: How the Poor Transform Their Lives (2013, AltaMira), which deals with socioeconomic transformation in the Dominican Republic. She has published chapters (with Professor Heather Horst) on financial inclusion and financial literacy in Haiti and the Dominican Republic in Money at the Margins (2018, Berghan), Design Anthropology (2017, Springer) and Linguistic and Material Intimacies of Cell Phones (2018, Routledge).

Recommended Links

Ken Banks on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 02:00:02 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Ken Banks speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Ken's career as a social entrepreneur working in mobile technology, his current role as Head of Social Purpose at Yoti, and his upcoming bookThe Pursuit of Purpose. In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Ken Banks speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Ken's career as a social entrepreneur working in mobile technology, his current role as Head of Social Purpose at Yoti, and his upcoming bookThe Pursuit of Purpose. About Ken Banks Ken Banks is a British award-winning social entrepreneur, mobile technology and global development expert with an undergraduate major in Social Anthropology with Development Studies. He is best known for developing FrontlineSMS, a mobile messaging platform used today by non-profits in over 190 countries around the world. Ken is also a published author. His first edited book, The Rise of the Reluctant Innovator, was self-published in late 2013 and came with a Foreword from Archbishop Desmond Tutu. A follow-up, Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation, published by Kogan Page, was released in March 2016. The Pursuit of Purpose The Pursuit of Purpose is an honest, poignant, and emotionally powerful book. It’s a story about struggle, finding a purpose in life, striving to build a fairer society, and discovering who you are along the way. It's a book in three parts. Purpose Pursued begins on the beautiful island of Jersey, where a difficult early childhood shaped and influenced Ken. We learn how a global music event lead to an unexpected awakening, and the incredible lengths he went to try and find some sort of purpose and meaning in life. Later, in Purpose Lived, we’ll find out what happened when he eventually found it, and lived it, and the wider impact that finding purpose has had not just on him, but many others he met and worked with along the way. Then, to wrap things up, Purpose Explored looks at the meaning of purpose, how and why it matters in different cultures, the role our ancestors might play in our own drive for purpose, and any lessons we might learn from Ken's own fascinating journey. Recommended Links

Melissa Vogel on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 29 Jun 2021 01:47:16 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Melissa Vogel speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Melissa’s journey into business anthropology after training as an archeologist and working in academia for 15 years, and the challenges of switching mid-career.

About Melissa Vogel

As a Business Anthropologist and Director of Qualitative Research at Hanover Research, Melissa is committed to demonstrating anthropology‘s relevance to everyday life and using it to improve cross-cultural understanding.

During her academic career, she created Clemson University’s Business Anthropology program, which gives both industry professionals and students the global mindset and social science research skills needed in the modern job market. In her applied work, she has assessed workplace climate and diversity education needs, and gathered consumer insights data for such clients as Lego, Ann Taylor Loft, and FedEx Office. She has also conducted evaluation research with her team at UCLA’s CRESST Center.

For 18 years she directed field research on the development of urbanism in prehistoric Peru, which is published in her two books: The Casma Capital City of El Purgatorio and Frontier Life in Ancient Peru. She also published 18 articles in academic journals and books.

About the Anthropology in Business Podcast

GBAS 2021 on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 02:46:18 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Inga Treitler, Christine Avenarius, and Alberto Guglielmone speak with Matt Artz about the 2021 Global Business Anthropology Summit (GBAS). The summit runs June 14 - 18 and is a fully online event realized in collaboration with the prestigious Freie Universitat Berlin. The episode discusses the session themes, the challenges and opportunities of hosting a virtual global summit in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the many achievements of the entire volunteer team. About the Summit The program includes six sessions, anticipated by two exceptional keynote speakers:

Joanna Breidenbach, anthropologist, writer, TED speaker and founder of Betterplace.org one of the largest European crowdfunding companies on sustainability projects, and Das Dach (innovative co-working company)
Carlo Colpo, global manager of brand communication of Lavazza, with previous experience in marketing and communication in the automotive world (Jeep brand).

Two different interlocutors of business (start up and traditional business) and education (anthropology and business) who will dialogue with Claus- Bernhard Pakleppa, high management consultant (among others for the German government) and founder of the consulting company P4D (Partnership for Development). The main theme of the summit will focus on the future. Are we really ready for 2030? And what about 2080? To answer these questions the six sessions of the summit (formed through a co-creation process that took place remotely during the pandemic) will focus on different topics such as innovation, business sustainability also in relation to taxation, acceptance of change and organizational behavior, perception and marketing of anthropology in the future. In addition, special sections such as the Black Lives Initiative will be dedicated to racial diversity and inclusion, while networking will be promoted and organized with the support of the professional associations of anthropologists in Europe (EASA – European Applied Anthropology Association) and America (AAA – American Anthropology Association). Recommended Links

Simon Roberts on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 25 May 2021 02:29:05 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Simon Roberts speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Simon’s twenty-year career, which has included founding the UK’s first dedicated ethnographic research company, running an innovation lab at Intel, being ethnographer-in-residence at technology think tank iSociety, and co-founding Stripe Partners. The conversation also dives into the concept of embodied knowledge which Simon discusses in his recent book, The Power of Not Thinking: How Our Bodies Learn and Why We Should Trust Them.

About Simon Roberts

Simon Roberts is Co-founder and Partner at Stripe Partners and President of the EPIC Board. Simon’s work has been covered by Bloomberg, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC Radio 4 and Quartz. His book on embodied knowledge, The Power of Not Thinking: How Our Bodies Learn and Why We Should Trust Them, was published by Bonnier in 2020. Simon holds a PhD in anthropology from the University of Edinburgh.

The Power of Not Thinking

InThe Power of Not Thinking, Simon engages with the growing body of science to explain the concept of embodied knowledge. The book demonstrates the value it has for the ambitious organizations and leaders. Using case studies from Facebook, Procter & Gamble, Air Liquide and Intel, The Power of Not Thinking lifts the lid on how Stripe Partners do it and why it has worked to transform how its clients operate.

About Stripe Partners

The Stripe Partners team blends hands-on business know-how with rigorous, academic-led expertise in ethnography and the human sciences. We are a diverse group brought together by a shared passion for bridging the gap between business and what happens in the real world.

Verónica Reyero on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Mon, 03 May 2021 21:43:18 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Verónica Reyero speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Verónica's journey into business anthropology after studying the rational use of medicines, as well as the founding of Antropología 2.0 and the Umanyx School. About Verónica Reyero Verónica Reyero is a business anthropologist based in Valencia, Spain. She graduated in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Granada and holds a Master’s degree in Rational Use of Medicines from the University of Valencia. As a researcher, Veronica has worked both in public and private organizations in national and international projects for various sectors including health, food, technology, and Real Estate. Verónica is one of the founding partners of Antropología 2.0, a pioneering agency in applying an anthropological understanding to business challenges. Reyero is also a convener of the Applied Anthropology Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). Recommended Links

Autumn McDonald on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 20 Apr 2021 02:01:07 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Autumn McDonald speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Autumn’s journey into anthropology after two decades at Fortune 500s in corporate America, and the starting of ADM Insights & Strategy, LLC.

About Autumn McDonald

With over 2 decades of experience in Research, Insights, and Analytics spanning 6 continents, Autumn D. McDonald is the owner of ADM Insights & Strategy, LLC. She leverages her multifaceted expertise to aid the clients of ADM Insights & Strategy, LLC in designing research organizations, developing research plans, harnessing impactful learnings, and identifying actionable paths forward. With diverse angles of expertise ADM Insights & Strategy is uniquely equipped to greatly illuminate insights. ADM Insights & Strategy, LLC utilizes mixed methods approaches that integrate market research with an anthropologically inspired lens for greater human-centricity and depth of understanding.

Previously, she was the Senior Director Global Consumer Insights at The Hershey Company, leading the entire consumer research function worldwide. Autumn was responsible for spearheading the organization to provide consumer insights, tools, methodologies, models, and analyses needed in developing superior marketing, sales, and product strategies grounded in human understanding.

Prior to her role at The Hershey Company, she was responsible for providing competitive advantage by identifying consumer driven opportunities, uncovering consumer needs, and creating synergies in consumer research across geographies at Mattel. Before joining Mattel, Autumn led the entire Global Knowledge & Insights organization worldwide for the Revlon company. Her work in uncovering and bringing to life engaging consumer insight at Revlon resulted in earning a 2014 Ogilvy Advertising Award. Earlier in her career, Autumn spent 4.5 years at Kraft Foods where she was responsible for leading the Company’s In Market Testing for Growth organization. During that time, she oversaw Analytics in market testing that touched each of Kraft’s Business Units and more than 15 retailers. Before Kraft, Autumn spent roughly 2 years at Colgate Palmolive, leading Shopper Marketing across the company’s largest business. Her time at Colgate Palmolive was preceded by nearly a decade with Procter & Gamble, where she led research teams spanning multiple organizations, including the Multi-Cultural Business Development Organization focused on African American and Hispanic consumers.

In addition to her global research experience, Autumn has spearheaded over 500 research studies and secondary analyses focused on Black and Latinx constituents in the United States. These include, but are not limited to, the creation and validation of new research methods specifically designed for Latinx and Black consumers, quantitative habits and practices studies focused on multi-cultural populations, countless qualitative interviews with Black and Latinx constituents, in context participant observations with People of Color (POC), and new immigrant ethnographic studies.

Autumn’s expertise in research, race, and culture, and has resulted in invited speaking engagements with the Advertising Research Foundation, the Black Family Digest, the American Marketing Association, and the Hispanic 360 Conference, to name a few.

Autumn earned a Dual Degree in Mathematics and Spanish from the University of Texas at Austin and is currently developing her Master Thesis in Applied Anthropology at the University of North Texas. Her specialization is Socio-Cultural Anthropology, with an emphasis in intersections of race, ethnicity, and space.

Steven Garcia on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 06 Apr 2021 02:00:44 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Steven Garcia speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Steven's work at the intersection of luxury brands, affluence, and culture for Team One, where he built a new anthropology practice. About Steven Garcia cement-27" class="textannotation disambiguated wl-person" itemid="https://data.wordlift.io/wl76625/entity/steven_garcia">Steven Garcia is a cultural id="urn:enhancement-3" class="textannotation disambiguated wl-thing" itemid="https://data.wordlift.io/wl76625/entity/anthropologist">anthropologist who studies the intersection of luxury brands, affluence, and culture. His professional experience includes over a decade as a brand strategist at several advertising agencies, including Crispin Porter + Bogusky, David&Goliath, Venables Bell & Partners, and RPA. He has worked on a variety of brands, including PayPal, Braintree, Charles Schwab, La-Z-Boy, Kia Motors, Honda, Acura, Audi, and now, Lexus. In 2016, he joined Team One, where he built a new ft.io/wl76625/entity/anthropology">anthropology practice, and conducts ethnography, cultural analysis, and semiotics to dig into the cultural drivers and context that influence people and their behavior. With a passion for design, art, brands, and technology, he often draws inspiration from these sources for his work. His competencies include cultural anthropology, semiotics, consumer insights, creative briefs, brand strategy and positioning, personas, customer journeys, usability and user experience (UX) testing, ethnography, interviewing/moderating, focus groups, secondary data analysis, survey design, and trend watching. Recommended Links

Dan Podjed on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 23 Mar 2021 02:05:28 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Dan Podjed speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Dan's applied and academic work and his efforts to increase the visibility of anthropology through efforts such as the Why the World Needs Anthropologists conference. About Dan Podjed Dan Podjed, PhD, is an anthropologist dedicated to developing ethnography-based solutions and innovative research methods at the intersection of different scientific fields. He is a Research Fellow at the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Associate Professor at the University of Ljubljana's Faculty of Arts, and Senior Research Advisor at the Institute for Innovation and Development of the University of Ljubljana. He has led several applied, interdisciplinary and industry-oriented projects, and has contributed to the development of technological products and solutions in many EU projects. He acted as Convenor of EASA Applied Anthropology Network from its inception in 2010 until 2018 and continues his involvement as one of the Executive Advisors of the network. In 2013 he was the founder and from 2013 to 2018 the organizer of the international event Why the World Needs Anthropologists, which has become the most important meeting point for applied anthropologists in Europe and beyond. In 2019, he published the acclaimed book Seen (Videni in Slovenian, also published in Serbian in 2020), in which he explains why we are increasingly observed and exposed with the help of smartphones and other devices. In 2020, his book Indoor Anthropology was published, in which he presented to the public how he came to know society and himself during the Covid-19 pandemic. In his most recent book, Why the World Needs Anthropologists, he brought together the leading experts in the field (Thomas Hylland Eriksen, Sarah Pink, Riall W. Nolan and others) to highlight the value of anthropology in today's world. He makes regular media appearances to promote anthropology. Recommended Links

Amy Goldmacher on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 01:40:42 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Amy Goldmacher speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers her work as a consultant, book coach, and author. About Amy Goldmacher Amy Goldmacher, Ph.D., is an anthropologist, book coach, and author. She is a Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology and is the co-author of Designing An Anthropology Career (2nd ed.), among other publications. You can find her at www.amygoldmacher.com and on social media @solidgoldmacher. Recommended Links

Chris Diming on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 09 Mar 2021 01:35:43 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Chris Diming speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers his journey into anthropology through political science, his interest in design anthropology and UX, and his current work as a workplace anthropologist. About Chris Diming Chris Diming is a design anthropologist with a passion for the built environment. A Virginia native, his initial education and experience were in political science and activism. In 2017, he obtained a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Durham University in the United Kingdom. Focusing on public space and urban anthropology, his doctoral research explored how people form, negotiate and mobilize inter-personal relationships in Kosovo. After graduating, he held an applied research role with a property technology start-up aiming to build trust between neighbors in cities. Having recently returned to the United States, he applies anthropological methods to reimagining workplaces. Recommended Links

Chris Diming on LinkedIn

Watch the Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyafBUdu3A8 Episode Transcript Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors. Matt Artz: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Anthropology in Business podcast where you'll learn about the many ways anthropology is applied in business and why business anthropology is one of the most effective lenses for making sense of organizations and consumers through conversations with leading anthropologists, working in advertising, marketing, consumer behavior. [00:00:22] Organizational culture, user experience, and many other roles you'll learn firsthand what it means to do business anthropology and how the work differs from academic edge apology. We will discuss issues like the pace and depth of research in business, our visibility and influence as practitioners in what we can do to build our brand. [00:00:44] We will also focus on the value impact of our research and business so that we can help businesses. As leaders understand why they should be hiring anthropologists. I'm your host, Matt. Artz a business anthropologist, specializing in design anthropology, and working at the intersection of product management, user experience and business strategy. [00:01:05] Let's get started. All right. Hi everyone. Welcome back. And, um, today I'm with Chris dimming, a design anthropologist and workplace strategists. So, uh, Chris, thanks for joining and, uh, to jump right into it, your mind, maybe telling us a little bit about, you know, your career or really your education through anthropology and into your current career and you know, what, what it means to be a workplace strategist. [00:01:28] Chris Diming: [00:01:28] Sure. So, um, I'm originally from the Richmond, Virginia area. Um, thanks a lot for your time, Matt. I really appreciate it. So I'll just go through, uh, where I started and then, uh, into anthropology and done what I'm. During right now. So I'm set I'm from the Richmond, Virginia area originally, but I actually ended up going to Durham university in the UK for a masters, then a, uh, a PhD, the PhD being an anthropology. [00:01:59] So when I started out, I'd say I was very interested in grassroots, um, social relationships and also just grassroots politics due to my, having been a community organizer. And. It's a little more organized here before I went to Durham. So after graduation from CNU and I did a degree in political science for about a year into 2012, I worked for a couple of political campaigns and done an environmental organization and the climate action area, um, that got me very interested in social relationships and how people form ties between each other within the communities. [00:02:37] Although I didn't really know what that meant. At the time, that's just what I was interested in. And so, um, when I went to Durham in the UK, I went for a master's in defense and development and diplomacy, and that was an extension I political science interest, because at that point I was clued into international relationship international relations and specifically conflict studies. [00:03:01] Um, I developed more of an interest in the bottom-up approach to conflict studies had developed more of an interest in how, uh, people within communities, uh, engaged in reconciliation. And as a result of that master's program, I became interested in anthropology, sorry, defected from political science as a result of that experience and what got me it, um, Really intrigued was culture, how culture emerges and how culture can be utilized and rhetoric performances to alter networks of interpersonal relationships. [00:03:38] And so social networks and rhetoric and performance, these exciting new concepts. Um, I just been encountering them at that time. So about 2012, uh, during my masters. And, uh, I did. A field study in Kosovo for the masters, for my, um, class there. Uh, it was on NGOs and it was on the government in Kosovo and how those interact with the international community and the United nations. [00:04:13] And, um, what got me very intrigued. There was. Looking more into actually, how does the community react to international do the international organizations and how on the grassroots level, how, um, what's actually happening, what's happening there versus the top-down, uh, narrative regarding the UN. And so with my PhD, I decided to go more depth into it. [00:04:40] So I was looking at public space, how people form relationships within public spaces, how those relationships can be mobilized through rhetoric and how cultural concepts, um, emerged and then are mobilized through rhetoric too. Um, Spark and drive the formation of networks. That was very interesting to me. [00:05:04] It, uh, I was there for a year in Kosovo from 2014 to 2015. And so I did a lot of my observations in, uh, public spaces like cafes and bars, but I also did observations in the streets and in squares. And so I ended up participating at, uh, joining a, a few protests as well as observing how people, um, Meet with in cafes. [00:05:28] And what I learned was that the coffee was a signifier, uh, for relationships, but also an exchange of coffee was a way to spark and maintain relationships with other people. And this whole thing, to me, it was fascinating because. It was within the context of the built environment and it was within the context of culture and how's culture emerge within the built environment. [00:05:50] And so this sort of process and me getting immersed within a city, uh, during the field work and during the writing up here, it, it led to me being. Less interested in political mobilization and more interested in sociality and how people form relationships within urban settings. And so, um, during my writing out process and after I, um, I got the PhD, I was looking okay, so what am I going to do now? [00:06:20] And being a former, um, activist, I was very clued into impact and wanted what I wanted, what I was going to do to actually have an effect on people's lives. And I realized that. Academia for all, its um, fall for all its greatness. It didn't really have that edge that I wanted to have. It didn't really have that urgency that I wanted to have. [00:06:44] And I wanted to be in more collaborative environments where instead of just you doing the. Research and publishing it and, and off it goes, you're actually working with other people to design something and it make something better. So as a result of that process, I took on the applied anthropology label. [00:07:03] This was in about 2018 and I started to explore two different routes. One hand I was looking at, uh, user experience research and design research because I was fascinated by how. Anthropologists are actually incorporated in the design process in collaborative relationships with designers and how applied anthropology is actually like a thing. [00:07:27] So that was, that was very intriguing to me. And so to this day, I'm still very interested in UX research and in tech. Um, the other route was also in. More to do with the built environment. And I started to have a couple of really formative conversations and, um, one person suggested that because I did my research in public space, but I don't, I look into the built environment. [00:07:51] Why don't I think about architecture? And I was like, Oh, well, well, that's an interesting idea. As a cause of the first area of applied anthropology, I'd really encountered, was user experience, research and texts. And that was thinking about a new area. And, uh, she, um, Got me in touch with a workplace strategist at a commercial real estate company. [00:08:14] And, um, that just blew my mind. I was just like, so why are these people in commercial real estate interested and in applied anthropology and what's the what's workplace strategy anyway. Um, and so I, uh, I started to dig into it more. And I found some formative papers on workplace strategy with workplace strategy, being the process where you're aligned paper people and practices and tools with space, which, I mean, that sounds arrogance. [00:08:42] Blogs is going away because if you're thinking about people and workplaces, you're thinking about the, um, offices that fit them. And you're thinking about the context in terms of how are these. Um, Lyman's happening and what kind of tools are people actually using and what can we do to make that better? [00:08:59] And, uh, that was, again, that was very fascinating to me. Um, I, at that point I ended up working with a startup called javelin and with a, uh, Prop tech platform within it called Alec Neo. So I was, um, my sort of food school vacations were changing in this way. I was still in the UK when I was looking at applied anthropology, but I ended up moving to Hungary in a, in Budapest. [00:09:23] So I was working remotely for javelin, which was a UK based startup, but, um, living in Budapest and collaborating with people in Russia and in the United States and, and, uh, And UK and sometimes in Dubai, various other places. And so I was kind of working remotely from Budapest at a point when I kind of, before I would say working from home was really a thing that most people knew. [00:09:49] And, um, that was, uh, I mean, I think you're talking about academia, which is a very, uh, By literally by the book sort of Orthodox interpretation of applied anthropology. Oh, sorry. Out of anthropology where you do ask sonography for at least a year, maybe two, and you spend about that time or more if you're some people writing it up. [00:10:10] Um, and then versus, uh, versus javelin where, what I was doing was I was leading the foundational research. And so Omneo. Was a platform that was designed to spark trust between neighbors and urban spaces, uh, residents. And, um, so. Our initial setting was London and you were looking at other places, but really, so Omnia was kind of a network to spark those relationships, but it was also, we're looking at ways to incentivize those relationships through means like perhaps gamification. [00:10:42] And so my role was really to do the. About the foundational research on trust, how people form trust, how, um, what interactions you go in sparking those relationships. And, um, how do people live in, how do people interact with each other within their neighborhoods? And so, in a way, I was looking at kind of drawing on this classic anthological, um, Explorations of neighborliness out of neighbor neighborhoods, but I was doing it in a startup context. [00:11:11] And so I wasn't able to spend like a year dereg background research or something. No, this was like, now you, um, you do some actual reader. Got it. Okay, good. Yep. But a couple of weeks there. Yeah. Good. Um, and then you immediately start to design and plan the, uh, research. And so at first, what we did was we did some, um, Street surveys in London. [00:11:36] And there may a company that is with the wave of semi-structured interviews with residents in London on, uh, on how they interact with each other and how they live within the neighborhoods. And then we were, uh, we did more user experience research things where we're thinking more about, um, the sort of a day in the life of people in the neighborhoods and really thinking more about, um, how can we actually design something that fits within their, within their lives. [00:12:04] And so, um, this was, this was exciting to me because the, it was all leading into the process of creating a prototype. And, um, I mean, I think a way that I've described this transition is that you're going from, um, I started this already going from academia into a, uh, Very flexible and very creative environment where the goal is not to do something to the most rigorous academic standard, but to do something where that actually has the end for designing a prototype. [00:12:37] So all the timelines are sped up and you're thinking about, okay, so how do we drive efficiency while not cutting corners in rigor? And I think what, um, what that did for me personally, was it opened up my eyes, um, to. The importance of, uh, not just impact, but, uh, delivering something in a way that's actually actionable. [00:13:01] And then, um, but doing it in a way where you're not sacrificing what anthropology can bring. And then, um, meanwhile, while you were doing all of this, you're. Trying to bring and take ownership of your approach as an anthropologist or your approach at that point, also easier as a user experience researcher, which is to, um, not just, uh, evaluate design hypotheses, but to actually explore and to make sure that the focus is on the person you're actually designing for it. [00:13:33] You're not just, um, going off of what people think should happen. And, um, That was, yeah, that was a very formative experience for me on those levels. I ended up, um, leaving a javelin and Neo and, uh, December of 2019, and I returned to the U S in January of 2020 at the end of January, which was at a very, uh, I guess, precipitous time to return. [00:14:01] So, um, I've been here in Virginia since, since January of, uh, of 2020. And, um, I would say it's been an exciting year. I mean, to say the least at first, what I did was I embarked on an Orthodox job search, which was to think, okay, so this is what I can do. I can do qualitative research and mixed methods research. [00:14:23] So this is how I can have, um, that ended up taking a day entirely new direction around the time of the, uh, the pandemic, because, um, With workplace, uh, strategy, user experience for your search, all of a sudden you had a bunch of people who can also do that. So the job market became absolutely glutted with a lot of really good qualitative researchers and, um, to think more about my niche and where I could actually fit, because I mean, there are a bunch of really good people are in the field, right? [00:14:55] Like, um, even though you come from, um, You, you have an academic degree, they're a bunch of people who are just as good as you, if not better. And so you have to really think about your niche and how you can fit in. And, um, what I gradually realized was it's not enough to just say, Oh yeah, you know, I can help you with your, your qualitative research. [00:15:15] No, you have to actually take ownership of your approach as an. Anthropologists and really what you bring and how in collaboration with others you work with, because it's not just you, I mean, you're taking ownership, but you're doing it in a way that you're bringing value to the teams that you work with. [00:15:29] And so, um, that was a gradual process for me, at least I, um, I focused more on workplace strategy because with the pandemic. Many so-called knowledge workers were rejected from the built environment back into the home. And so you had working from home, taking place at a scale that had never actually happened before. [00:15:55] And, uh, with working from home, you started to see these gradual shifts within the work. Play strategy, fill it in within, um, corporate real estate and design where you're going from this debate, which is kind of like is the open office good or is the open office bad tomorrow? Okay. So what's happening next because it's kind of redundant, sorry about the open office. [00:16:18] If everyone is working from home. Right. Um, and. Gradually this term emerged called hybrid working and hybrid working is still being defined. Now. No one really knows what it means yet, but we have very good idea of what it means and the way this kind of goes into my approach and what I'm doing now. So with hybrid working, you have this arrangement of spaces of, uh, physical spaces, a virtual spaces of tools. [00:16:51] And so. The exciting thing for an anthropologist is that this means that you can think about individual companies and how to arrange all of these things to fit the people who are working there. So all of a sudden, I mean, hybrid working itself as a context oriented term, and that's the exciting point right now. [00:17:11] And so I realized that, and I started to plug myself into workplace strategy more than I had been before. So, um, I joined an organization called workplace evolutionaries, which if you're a, an anthropologist and you're listening to this, and you're thinking about workplace strategy, definitely check out workplace evolutionaries. [00:17:30] It's an, um, a group of workplace strategists, mostly in the U S and UK and Europe, but also increasingly spread out across the world who are looking into new approaches. And right now what's happening is that people within the, uh, Commercial real estate and design fields. And overall within workplace strategy are starting to revisit some of their assumptions. [00:17:51] They're starting to think about how do, um, we designed the environment to fit needs a workers, because if people don't use those spaces, once they're able to return, if people don't use them, if they think, okay, so this doesn't adding any value. So I can just work from home. Then that means that, um, the space itself. [00:18:13] Won't be used and that would mean that it would be subject potentially to being sold off. And so, um, there's a lot of opportunity there right now for people to explore the future of work. And so what I'm doing right now is, um, I'm involved with an, um, a startup called a, not a startup, a software company called facility quest, which is. [00:18:35] Exploring how, um, it software can, uh, address the future of work and COVID-19, so that's what I'm, I'm helping them with. I'm also involved in some other conversations with some, um, Large reorganizations and it's, um, really like my focus right now is all going on. I'm taking ownership, but being what an anthropologist is and not just saying, Oh, I can help you with that photography and quality of research, but showing and explaining what NF logical approach would be and how that would add value. [00:19:07] So that's kind of. Where I'm at, um, where I'm at the moment. That's why I was excited to talk with you because I just think that, um, I've been involved in so workplace strategy conversations, but to actually talk with someone about applied anthropology is an absolute treasure. So thank you for adding me into this conversation. [00:19:23] Matt Artz: [00:19:23] Great. Yeah. Well, thanks for coming on. So thanks for that great intro. I, you know, there's a, there's a lot to unpack there. Maybe first kind of going back to javelin. No, I think it's maybe worth pointing out that you were you're you were interested in sort of the neighborliness or, you know, sort of the built environment, but also it's a platforms that there's the UX play. [00:19:41] Right. And so how, um, what was the challenges maybe in sort of navigating the online and offline life? [00:19:49] Chris Diming: [00:19:49] Oh, that was, um, there was an interesting debate that, um, We had, and, um, that was focused on to what extent do we have people interacting offline or online and what kind of role would javelin or what OD, you know, play? [00:20:07] And so, um, a challenge that we had was thinking about the, um, and designing for the interactions that. On one hand, would he have people continue to use the app, but not replace the in-person interaction that we were trying to spark? And so, I mean, that was one that was one of the big challenges. Um, and why in a way that we focused on that was. [00:20:40] Thinking not just about what interactions can do. We want to spark, but what things are people are already doing and how can we add to those? And so, um, that's where we utilized UX research. That's why we utilize qualitative research specifically to observe how people were interacting into, um, learn more about how they perceive those interactions. [00:21:06] And so that's where, um, Our challenge, I think was in focusing more on specific things that we could do, but the way that we addressed that was actually through focusing more on the person through using qualitative research. [00:21:23] Matt Artz: [00:21:23] So then that brings up an interesting point. Um, You know, sometimes we as business anthropologists, design, anthropologists, you know, whatever sort of identity you assume we oftentimes still are having to sort of sell, you know, our services and really kind of push for them in many ways. [00:21:41] Um, there's sort of like a quantitative bias over qualitative. And so when you were hired into that role, where are they hiring you to bring those. Skills or did you have to sell that internally? First? [00:21:54] Chris Diming: [00:21:54] I, it was a constant process of selling. I think it goes for, I think that's often how it goes. Um, I was originally hired as an anthropologist, but as more as someone who could lead all the different types of research we are doing from the more quantitative surveys on, um, that might be. [00:22:14] Measuring how people interact or more quantitative surveys, more based on market research and perceptions. So I was looking at that and I was working with the data scientists, but we were also doing qualitative research. And so what I was always trying to do was making sure that not just at the beginning, when we were all kind of on the same page, but throughout the process that, um, Oh, it was always sticking up for anthropology. [00:22:38] One thing I always learned was that you have to always keep selling yourself and not just, but not just selling yourself, but selling the value of anthropology and what you bring. Hmm. [00:22:49] Matt Artz: [00:22:49] Yeah, very true. I find the same. And so. Um, you also mentioned in there that, you know, the pace at which you had to conduct research was very different than academic research. [00:23:00] And so that, you know, that comes up often, it's that's by no means, uh, you know, most people going into it, I think at this point, realize that however, realizing it and still sort of adjusting to that and performing well in that environment are two different things. Right. And so how. Now, what did you do to compensate and deliver actionable results? [00:23:20] As you said that you wanted [00:23:22] Chris Diming: [00:23:22] to, uh, it was, uh, that was a process. So it, it involved a bunch of different things I had to even, I mean, Adjusting to timelines was something that I was comfortable doing because I knew that beforehand, um, I knew that going into an applied environment, the focus is on the project and its focus is on delivering results. [00:23:43] So I knew that and I was comfortable with it. Um, but I think the biggest thing for me was adjusting the language that I was using and, um, the language, but then also I think the mindset. And so with the language that I was using, I mean, I was coming from. Traditional UK academia, which is still very theoretical. [00:24:04] And I had to check my sentence structure. I had to check the format in which I was delivering information I had to, um, Make sure it was more visual because I was very focused on text, but when you're within a traditional academic environment, that's your existence. And so everyone is comfortable with it. [00:24:23] And that's your, what words do you refer to you? That's your habitus? And so I had to break all of that and that was, I think my, uh, my struggle and to an extent, I mean, that's something that I still have to do now is check to make sure I'm not going back into old, uh, academic mode and that I'm like monitoring myself to, um, And now the thing that I had to do was I had to go from the, uh, sort of being the individual researcher who does something and then distributes it to being the researcher. [00:24:55] Who's part of the team and, um, being an academia, it's all on you. And I mean, that's good because it forces you to put yourself out there. But on the other hand, um, It's not that collaborative. And so you have to learn to be able to give and take. And that's also something that I had to do and I had to learn as well. [00:25:19] Um, and all of these things, they, um, I think they have led to things turning out for the better, because, um, I find that collaboration is just much more fulfilling now, but it is something that I had to deal with as well. So I mean, a bunch of people go through a transition in different ways. So that's just. [00:25:39] Two things that I had to go through. [00:25:42] Matt Artz: [00:25:42] And so, you know, you mentioned collaborating and you mentioned selling, you're sort of selling, you know, everything that you're doing in a more visual way than texts, which is great because I oftentimes, you know, when people reach out for help, You know, transitioning to business anthropology or UX, whatever it may be. [00:26:01] I oftentimes speak about, you know, upskilling in terms of like design basic design skills to sell your ideas visually. And so aside from collaboration and that ability to, to convey things, did, uh, visually, is there anything else you did to upscale, you know, any like sort of particular like tech skills or business skills that you went out and tried to acquire to, you know, to be a better suited for the environment? [00:26:25] Chris Diming: [00:26:25] I think. Another way of upskilling that I've been, um, hearing, which isn't that formal, but I think it's very important too, is, um, learning through networking. And so, um, this has been also part of changing my mentality from being academic Chris, to applied Chris and, um, by networking, by reaching out to people on LinkedIn, through engaging in. [00:26:54] Um, workplace evolutionaries and also just interacting with people in a very sort of intense environment startup. You learn more about what other people need from you and where you can fit in. And as part of that, you do, you gain these business skills in terms of selling yourself and how to not just sell yourself, but also to engage in foreign value propositions and, um, for other products. [00:27:20] And so I think, um, for me at least like, uh, major, I haven't gone to webinars and workplace strategy to learn more about how the processes are actually done in the field. But I think it does is important for that though. Is. Having one-on-one conversations with people in the field to learn about what they do. [00:27:42] And so before you just launch into your spiel, you're learning more about what they did and where they came in and the types of skills that they do, and also their perspectives and priorities. And for me, that's as important as an ups at up-skilling tool as a science skills, because it's all about engaging the perspective of the other person. [00:28:05] Matt Artz: [00:28:05] Yeah, you a grade and you know, it, that I think is maybe a good jumping off point to talking about like, you know, sort of like the daily life of, you know, an anthropologist and business. And, um, one thing that, you know, may not be as clear to everybody who's trying to enter is, is that we're not just constantly doing research, right? [00:28:23] We are. Oftentimes planning, research and conducting research or analyzing whatever it may be, but we do many other things, you know, stakeholder interviews kind of like, you're just talking about project management type work. Right. There's all kinds of stuff. So what, um, yeah, I appreciate that. You know, you're sort of a. [00:28:42] You know, freelancing, you know, running like, you know, kind of consulting, but what is your typical day or week or month or whatever it may be look like because it's not all [00:28:51] Chris Diming: [00:28:51] research. Uh, um, this upcoming month is going to be very, uh, intense because I'm starting to actually get myself off the ground with freelancing consulting now. [00:29:02] And, um, so I can give you a picture of how last month looked, which was absolutely. Uh, crazy because traditionally the, uh, December is supposed to be a quiet month, right? At least that's what I thought December would be a quiet month, but didn't end up being very quiet. Um, I was doing, I was working on a couple of proposals and I was still meeting up with, um, Experts in the field. [00:29:31] I was, uh, pairing and participating in, uh, webinars and conference, not necessarily conferences, but webinars and, um, virtual meetings, both within November going into December. And I actually, I started then it's also planned the research that would happen in, um, that's going to happen coming up in January and onward. [00:29:56] So it was a very. I think what I would do is I would, um, sort of switch. And so over the previous week from, um, right before Christmas, I was there a combination of networking and stakeholder interviews, as we said, but also, um, working on. My own publication that I'm sort of creating on anthropology and how it can add to workplace strategy. [00:30:29] And on the other hand, I'm then doing proposals, I'm done, um, participating in workplace evolutionaries and this is a bunch of, I would say much of it. Is business development, much of it is networking. And then the bulk of it is going to be proposal. So the coming month is going to be more research, but I can tell you a lot of networking is going to be happening too. [00:30:56] And, um, yeah, it's, it's gotta be exciting, but I mean, there's, I would say. Even extending back into, um, back into Java. And I ended up doing, um, interviews with potential, um, with external parties who might partner with, uh, with javelin. I ended up, um, talking to, um, Advisors potential advisors. And that was more business development kind of stuff. [00:31:24] Uh, which, I mean, I was a researcher, so I got shoved into business development. Um, and it's really a lot of stuff that happens. And I think that might just be a nature of the work and being part of a startup as you ended up taking on many different hats. So that's just what I ended up doing. And that's kind of the way that I see this month playing out as well. [00:31:44] Matt Artz: [00:31:44] Yeah, thanks for sharing. You know, whether it's a startup or, you know, a startup you're working for your consultant freelance or whatever it may be. I, you know, one of the things that I think is true for probably many of us is that we are, again, kind of doing a lot of work that is not always research. I think it's good to call that out because, uh, for anybody who's interested in this line of work, you know, it's, I think they need to be aware of that. [00:32:06] But you mentioned in there, and you kind of mentioned a theme of this earlier, which is. No, like earlier with javelin, you were talking about sort of positioning and, you know, you didn't there, you were just sort of, I guess the concept comes up to me about like a little bit about business strategy and that there's, uh, whether that's you sort of, you know, sort of positioning your own business, right? [00:32:27] Whether that's, you're working with your clients. So aside from like research and what do you think your contribution to the projects is? And excluding, like maybe like project management type stuff, but more like what's the actionable, tangible takeaways. [00:32:44] Chris Diming: [00:32:44] I would say that I'm starting to focus more on this as well. [00:32:49] So I'll talk about where I view my contribution is, but then I'll go back to applied anthropology and something that I've been focusing in on is how. Within workplace environments. How can I, um, not just explore what people are doing now and what they've done and, um, delve into meeting and what constitutes a meeting and go into company culture and what constitutes that, but what does all this mean for environments going forward? [00:33:19] What opportunities are exposed through my research and, um, what. Sort of, uh, avenues, can we, uh, build upon to improve future environments? What, to me, the, um, what I'm starting to see my role as being more of an Explorer in the sense that I'm looking into a problem. And I'm trying to find, um, the ways that the business, whether it's the design team or whether it's, um, A tech company, ways that the business can add value. [00:33:56] And so the way that I see myself as kind of like, I'm going into somewhere, I'm doing. Reconnaissance, if you will. And I'm trying to find some nuggets to bring back to the people I'm working with to say, okay, so this is all the problem, and this is where we can fit in. So that's where I see most of my contributions. [00:34:14] And I'm thinking that, um, this kind of goes back to anthropology as well. Anthropology often focuses on how culture emerges, right? I mean, in the past, I would say. So, um, since the sixties and seventies, we're not just thinking more about the structures, but how does things emerge and how do you new forms of social life emerge from the context, as you're talking about emergence, you're talking about the future. [00:34:40] You're not just talking about the present or the past. We were talking about how the future is being created. And, um, this means that there is a. And opportunity for anthropologists to help people to envision ways ahead, especially in areas of crisis, like now to help them come up with new situations and new solutions and new solutions to, for creating a better products for helping a decision makers, make better decisions maybe, or helping them to at least see through the fog. [00:35:09] And so that's where I think, um, applied anthropology has real value too. [00:35:16] Matt Artz: [00:35:16] Yeah, that's interesting too, because, um, you know, there's a very, um, I think maybe one thing that we share is, is an interest in, is in producing something actionable. And so, you know, I think design anthropology is, is very much concerned with that. [00:35:32] And so how do you see design anthropology relating to your. To your goals and you know, why do you identify as a design anthropologist? And you know what, I guess, what is design anthropology to you? Um, [00:35:47] Chris Diming: [00:35:47] I think you'll start off broad and then I'll narrow a bit. So, um, My interests are always kind of in different ways. [00:35:55] I've always, I've been interested in tech and, and uh, virtual platforms, but I'm also interested in the built environment. And to me, a design approach that incorporates people, can it be done? Across all of that. Um, that to me, the central part is the mindset that the anthropologist brings. And so I identify as a designer anthropologists because I can, I see using that approach in multiple ways and I see the value of using it in different types of projects. [00:36:23] Um, so that's what a designer anthropology mindset means to me, it's a. Way forward, it's a set of tools, but it's also a, a mindset that's people centered and that, um, specifically acts a bit as a Pathfinder for figuring out ways forward for the people you're working with and also for the project. Um, it's a bit like a shepherd in the sense. [00:36:51] And, um, so that's kind of where I see myself. I, um, I sometimes go by user experience researcher, but I prefer design anthropologists because it's broader and it fits the idea that you're not just designing for the physical environment, but also the virtual environment. And [00:37:13] Matt Artz: [00:37:13] so, you know, you mentioned previous to that, you mentioned emergence and, um, how do you, you know, as a. [00:37:26] As a designing of apologists, how do you bring in theory into the work that you're doing? You know, say for javelin, um, you know, does it, does it show up in your work? Does it show up in the workplace? You know, is it something you talk about? Is it something that informs you there's? [00:37:41] Chris Diming: [00:37:41] I think it's, um, in the case of javelin, I mean, that was fascinating because I was looking, my background is as a Mediterranean anthropologist as I did my PhD research in Kosovo. [00:37:52] And so. Uh, Mediterranean anthropology draws on people like Michael Hertzfeld who were looking at, um, how neighbors in places like, um, Like Athens or in Hurtsville it's case in shepherds and Crete, um, how do they perform in front of other people? What sort of national discourses do their performances draw upon? [00:38:15] And what's produced what emerges from their performances. And so, um, I also have an interest in, uh, well, in rhetoric, going back to my PhD research specifically from, um, Michael critters in Durham. And, um, again, that's all about immersion since. So rhetoric is according to Hertz. According to Korea, there is rhetoric. [00:38:37] Is this a tool it's sort of this edge of culture? It's this force that creates social life. And so rhetoric. So culture being this combination concepts and practices, rhetoric is the force that brings those. Into existence. So your utterances, the concepts that you use when you speak, um, by doing all that, you ended up creating, creating new forms of discourses and new forms of social life, new forms of culture. [00:39:06] Sure. And, uh, when I was working with javelin, that, where that played out was me focusing more on the. Performances is grew all of neighbors within the environment within that interactions they had. But then what did their interactions signify? And then what systems, what structured is relationships were built from that. [00:39:31] And then I think if we're talking about workplace and talking about workplace strategy, the, I still ended up going back to career there. I still ended up going back to Hertzfeld and all. So it's a board to you because. We're thinking about the space. What role does the space have as being a setting for social interactions? [00:39:53] What, um, type different types of spaces are there? So what, um, what space within the office is more public? So we're talking about, say an office and less about working from home for a second. So if we're talking about a company in an office, there are some locations in this office, so it might be more public. [00:40:10] That might be more and some that might be more private. Those might be more public would be perhaps in an open office type of setting where people can see you and you can see them. So it's a bit more of a performance if you will. Um, your show, you're performing in a certain way, which is acceptable for other people within this space. [00:40:28] And then, um, wow. While you're also doing your work and then, uh, in a more private space, like a meeting room, or maybe in. A little a deuce. We might be able to call someone but not be heard. That is, um, that would be seen. Yeah. Maybe, perhaps being more of a backstage. If you go back to Goffman, sort of being aware, sort of. [00:40:51] You're not seeing. And so you're able to put in a whole bunch of work in order to prepare for the performances in public space. And so that's a perspective that I'd bring is more from spatial or anthropology or from Gosman and more on the symbols and how they're emerging. And if you're looking at working from home, um, you have. [00:41:14] An interesting dynamic where public and private are shifting, right? Like, so you're within the home, which at one point would have been more private. Um, but where you are, is a bit of a public display because the people you work with can see you. And so some people end up tooling around their backgrounds a bit to make sure that their image is one that's. [00:41:36] Acceptable and gives off the impression that they want to give. They may also be adapting parts of their, um, their background and their room, if you will, to make, come off a good impression. But that's an example of, um, the home transforming into a form of public space. And, um, I think it's very important to keep all of these things in mind because where the person thinks they are, it has an effect on, um, How they work. [00:42:05] It also has an effect on their wellbeing, because if you're, um, if you believe that you're in an area where you're being observed, then you're going to act in a certain way. And it. People may not those interactions towards you may not necessarily barely be favorable. And so all of these things have consequences and that's where I think having a theoretically informed perspective on space and what space means can be particularly valuable. [00:42:31] Um, and I think to segue back into, um, anthropology and theory and how that can be applied in applied anthropology. I think there's a strong argument to make that, um, Anthological ethnography is distinguished by being theoretically informed. Right. And, um, there is it. When you're doing ethnography as an applied anthropologist. [00:42:58] Yes. I mean, you, you can't go in with this in-depth literature review and because people aren't going to read it, but you should still take that perspective when you're doing your work is just what you do is you're translating that into the value. For the project, you're translating that into what it actually means. [00:43:19] And I think that if a plight anthropologists or leaves a theory behind, I think that they're losing a lot of what they bring. [00:43:26] Matt Artz: [00:43:26] Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. What we do and how we approach is different than what we have to tell everybody necessarily. Right. We don't have to share all of that, but we can use it to inform our work. [00:43:36] So, yeah, no, I think what you're talking about with sort of the, the private space, you know, our, our own home spaces, you're sort of becoming public is pretty interesting. And, um, And how does that relate maybe to something you said earlier, you know, you said these days, you had, well, you had to learn how to sort of collaborate in back then that might've been actually in the workplace, but learning how to collaborate now online. [00:43:57] Which you know, is typically happening via some screenshare or some tool, maybe like mirror where, or kind of in, and working together. But there's a lot of interesting things happening in that space. And maybe that relates to some of the work you're doing currently. Um, so yeah. Any thoughts on that? Uh, you know, in, in virtual collaboration, [00:44:15] Chris Diming: [00:44:15] I, um, That was interesting for me because with, um, Java knowledge, we were collaborating virtually right from the get go. [00:44:23] So I was, I'm kind of stuck. I got stuck into that. I'll almost immediately and, um, was I'm pretty sure this was right before mural. This was around 2018, 2019. And so, um, Yeah, I, I, uh, got used to having to get used to, um, constant zoom calls and, um, I would say screen share is, and all that. I think what's, um, important to keep in mind. [00:44:56] And just something that I've been noticing is that the tools haven't really been proliferating over the past two years. I mean, zoom has changed shape pretty drastically since when I started using it. And, uh, I think. That, so that there is an opportunity that's that the technology is there to improve collaboration. [00:45:17] Um, that's also the challenge. And so there was a, uh, a study that came out from, um, Kate Lister and she runs global workplace analytics. This was a very big study and it was focused on remote working and where the opportunities were and where the challenges were. And so this is a kind of a. I mean things in this field have been evolving pretty quickly. [00:45:41] And this was, I would say published in may. So it's a little bit dated, but I think the insights are still there. And the big finding was that people felt that they're able to do the work they needed to do, but they weren't sure about how they were actually collaborating. And there are doubts within that, um, study. [00:46:07] There were a science that collaboration itself suffers in the context of working from home. Um, and so the opportunity is there for us to create better tools and for us to refine the collaborative process virtually, um, I think that where a lot of this seems to be faltering and falling through. Is that we were essentially thrust into working from home and people were using what tools they had. [00:46:37] They were improvising, which I mean makes a lot of sense. Um, but I think that a way that you can, that anthropologists can, um, make. Uh, some headway right now would be to help teams figure out what actually, what tools actually work for them. Cause I think we have a bunch of tools out right now. It was just the challenge is that they're not necessarily being used effectively and that, um, maybe the right ones aren't being used at all. [00:47:05] And I think that's where a lot of the challenge for collaborative working is right now in general. I think that, um, Looking at it from a, I would say an employee perspective of what would actually help them would go a long way. And it would go to resolving some of those gaps in terms of collaborative work at home versus in the office. [00:47:28] Matt Artz: [00:47:28] And, you know, in the literature and forgive me, you know, I'm not falling like so much depth, the workplace literature, but is there, you know, from, well, from my perspective, I would see that, um, You know, the physical space would be great to get together occasionally for collaboration purposes. You know, like in my case, I've been working remote since 2016 and, um, for the vast majority of things, you know, I feel perfectly fine with that. [00:47:55] We get together occasionally really to work through complex problems. Yeah, complex software problems. And that always proves to be beneficial just to get a number of people, key stakeholders in the room where we can sort of get the whiteboard, whatever may be, you know, working through things. And so is there a discussions of the physical space becoming, you know, maybe just about collaboration? [00:48:16] Chris Diming: [00:48:16] Yeah. So, um, I think there is consensus now. Emerging that the workplace itself is going to be more of an ecosystem that would include virtual spaces, and that would include physical spaces. And within that physical space environment, you also might have a dispersed network. So you might have a central hub at the business would have its or the central hub that its job is to facilitate company culture. [00:48:43] Its job is to facilitate collaboration. Then you might have other offices, they may be coworking spaces. They may be smaller, sort of. Facilities, but offices that happen around the edge of the, the, uh, hub. So for example, in New York, you might have a central hub in New York that people occasionally go to, but then you might have offices in the suburbs where the employees live and they may want to work there instead of going into the office because this whole working from home sort of thing that we're in has really emphasized choice. [00:49:16] Um, I think there was a strong argument in general. I think whether it's a disperse network or not, is that there's going to be more focus and stress on the physical office as being a place that would foster collaboration and especially for, um, Companies where, I mean, innovation is absolutely essential. [00:49:40] Having an office that actually promotes collaboration would be essential because, I mean, if you can do most of your work from home and you go to an office that, I mean, it doesn't really help the immediate rooms aren't ranged in a useful way. The technology is not up to date then why would you be there? [00:49:58] So I think that going forward, you're going to see. Offices that have the tools and arrangements necessary to promote, um, the exchanges and collaborative interactions between people of different teams, but also between clients and, um, the company as well. So I think you're going to see that. And I think you're going to see within that more of a concern for employee wellbeing and health due to the stresses that we're having right now on, um, Because of the pandemic on, um, social distancing, the emphasis of maintaining your distance from other people, but also. [00:50:39] Increasing concern with mental health as well because of increased because, um, more literature has come out on that shows isolation among remote workers, it's causing some issues. It might be that the amount of room or working rehab right now, isn't going to be sustainable. And so future spaces would need to also promote inclusion, promote, um, connection. [00:51:03] And that's where I think. For many businesses, that's where this is going to go ad. It kind of goes, the other point would be that at the space doesn't promote it than because of her working from home. And because people can do their work anyway, it may not necessarily be needed anymore. And so they want to see some companies start to make decisions based on what they have, whether it's working for them or not. [00:51:31] So I think the real estate industry as a whole is going to be one to watch for, um, just for what's being sold. [00:51:39] Matt Artz: [00:51:39] Yeah, I great. And, um, so that's all really interesting I, from that I'd like to maybe pivot and, um, maybe just sort of get into some suggestions that you might have for, for others looking to get into this. [00:51:49] But one last thing before that, um, you know, do you, I'd like to hear about, you know, say when you were with javelin or what you're doing now, I appreciate that. Like in January I've been doing research and so this might apply more to after that, but what do you do. To not necessarily sell anthropology, like to get the job, but to sell the insights that come out of it. [00:52:12] Um, because they too need to be sold. Right. Some people hear them, you know, you present them, however you choose to present them, but then they may not be acted on. So what do you do to sell your findings? Uh, and do you find it to be effective? Like have you tried a few things? Is something more effective than others? [00:52:30] Chris Diming: [00:52:30] I would say. Um, just. In general. Um, and also based on my experiences with javelin, I think something that helps is to be more interactive. And, um, to me, I mean, I can do presentations, but. If it's just you or me speaking for about an hour, they won't necessarily fit in. I mean, I'm also, I'm one of those people that gets more from interactions to discussions then presentations, because I'll be like, okay, well, I can just read this. [00:53:07] Um, I think that's something that people need to keep in mind is that, um, To just present something in something in text form is not going to work because it had been Saudi princes have very finite amounts of time. Won't be able to read all of it. Also, even if you come up with an engaging visual presentation, um, even if you present it, that may not work either because. [00:53:33] Some vital piece of information can slip through the cracks probably around, I would say 10, 15 minutes, 20 minute, 30 minute, Mark things start to go. Right. And so, um, but something I've noticed, which is very helpful is. To have maybe less of a formal presentation and more of a fluid interaction where people can jump in and ask questions. [00:54:01] And on the discussion flows on from there, it's one where you're interacting freely with the design team, with the stakeholders. And then, um, from there emerges a consensus for moving forward. And I think that. I mean, this is kind of, is based on the experience I had with workplace evolutionaries back in December where another anthropologist and I presented what the value of anthropology could be for workplace strategy, but we did it within a discussion that, um, was very freeform. [00:54:35] It wasn't just. Presenting as if it was just presenting. I knew that I would be seen as being a lecturer or an academic and that just wouldn't go well. So, um, I think having a one way to try to do more in the future is having free form discussions that are, but are sort of designed in such a way where stakeholders and people who might be interested can actually engage with you because I think what's absolutely essential is when you're going through a project is. [00:55:05] That you're answering the questions that people actually have, that you're not providing answers to questions that people don't have. Um, and so that's kind of where I see it going. I see much, I see a lot of value in workshops and in being in interactive discussions where. You're providing insights, but where solutions are actually being generated through a group of people, rather than it being just you. [00:55:36] So that's kind of where I see my engagements moving forward. [00:55:44] Matt Artz: [00:55:44] Right. And how will you gauge, you know, the outcome of that, both like your own performance, if you will, and you know, the outcome of the project, [00:55:52] Chris Diming: [00:55:52] I think that's where constant engagement is important. And so, um, I see potential and anthropologists, of course, being able to jump in and parachute and leave. [00:56:03] I mean, that's the way that consultants ought to not create, but I think that it's essential to continue your engagement straight through. And so another thing that I do and that I imagine other people also do as a form of, I guess you call it relationship work. We are constantly checking in with people. [00:56:25] On the team you're working with to figure out what it is they need, but also what they think about it. And what other questions can you answer? And then from the previous findings and from how you're interpreting, interpreting the data, what can we do to build on it? So I think it's not enough just to do one presentation or one workshop. [00:56:47] You have to always keep engaging. [00:56:50] Matt Artz: [00:56:50] Sure. And so you mentioned the, you know, the sort of pitch you're putting together with a colleague. Um, so how would you position or sort of sell anthropology and the business space, you know, like what do you, for any hiring managers, potential clients, whatever. Maybe like, you know, what, what is the value that we bring? [00:57:07] Everything else summarized? [00:57:10] Chris Diming: [00:57:10] I liked the metaphor of culture being an iceberg. This is not a metaphor that I came up with. This is what my colleague Claire Raul came up with. So just, uh, before I, uh, I take, before I run with a metaphor, just to, just to clarify that, but, um, the. Idea of culture being an iceberg is that is very useful because it clarifies that culture itself is all encompassing and that it is beneath what you see. [00:57:38] But it's a very visual one because people get it. Okay. Yeah. So culture drives everything. It's not something that you actually see it's invisible, but it's really important. And I think that being able to. Understand and explore that iceberg and figure out where it actually is and what its dimensions are and what it's composed of. [00:58:01] I think that's a very vital strength for Mo for, well, my own work, because I'm thinking about culture within the context of the workplace, but you can also think about it within, um, Any type of setting, like if you're thinking about a group of gamers and you're coming up with a game, then you're thinking about gamer culture, and you're thinking about, um, specifically, what kind of culture do the people who play that game have, for example, um, and you're thinking about what drives it and you're thinking about what sorts of behaviors and concepts I can pose that culture, how they emerge, and then what effect do they have on the way that people play the game and, um, I think that being able to sell the, being able to focus on the iceberg and explore it as a key asset, logical strength. [00:58:51] And so I've been running with the iceberg metaphor ever since, and I've found it to be useful and resonant. I do think that it's not enough for anthropologists to be able to focus on what's happening now. And thanks for the culture what's happening now, you have to also be able to. Expose opportunities for making a better product. [00:59:15] You need to sell yourself as having insights into the future and be able to, you're not predicting the future, but to be able to imagine new possibilities that can then be built upon by you and the people you're working with. And I think that's a key archeological strength, and I think that's, um, one where. [00:59:39] We as anthropologists are well-suited because we have the perspective, that's already there for thinking about future opportunities and we just have to exercise it. [00:59:50] Matt Artz: [00:59:50] Great. So to use that, I like that. And to maybe use that to pivot. So thinking about the future, what would you recommend to, you know, whether it's a student who wants to move into, you know, the world of, you know, applying anthropology and business or. [01:00:05] No, like an early career who maybe, you know, wants to grow their career over time. Right. Or like, wait, you know, what, what w what recommendations would you give, whether that's skills or just maybe, you know, like knowledge, you know, how to position themselves, how to brand themselves, whatever it may be. [01:00:23] Chris Diming: [01:00:23] There's a lot there to, to go into. Um, so I think I would start with something that I've just learned for. Myself and then to maybe go into upskilling later. But, um, I think that to speak from my own experience, that someone who is still to an extent going through this would be. Maybe more helpful. So something that I've learned recently for myself is the importance of taking ownership and being an anthropologist, because I said earlier, it's not enough right now to see that you can help the quality of research because a lot of people do qualitative research and a lot of people say they do ethnography. [01:01:03] And whether they actually do ethnography or not is kind of beside the point because you have to justify yourself because, um, Well, that's, you're talking about certain industries and even in UX research and tech, to an extent you have to show where, what you can bring as an anthropologist, and you have to be able to take ownership of who you are as an anthropologist and what you bring as an anthropologist and what, um, benefits, uh, your approach has for the people you're working with. [01:01:34] And you have to be able to do all of this. Without trying to come in as some kind of savior or as someone who can do all the things, because, um, again, like there are people who are going to be working with regardless. And even if they have been doing us, not graffiti that they call ethnography or not, they think they can do it. [01:01:57] And what you need to do is you need to show through your actions and YouTube. Explain clearly what your value is and what you can do. And so that involves taking ownership of yourself as an anthropologist. You're not going in there just to say, Oh, I can help you as quality tailored research, please hire me. [01:02:16] No, you're going to say that you can do the qualitative research in this way. It will have this effect and you'll go through insights in collaboration. With other people on the team, that's something that I've started to do. And I think that, um, along with taking ownership, what that means is that you're not just looking, waiting for an opportunity to come. [01:02:36] You're also putting yourself out there and you're expanding to other people in certain forums where like LinkedIn, or maybe in podcasts or in publications, wherever you're clearly showing what you're clearly trying to explain what you can do because. Even if you don't really know at first you will refine that proposition and you will learn more every time. [01:02:59] But the important thing is that you're putting yourself out there. And I think, um, because I mean, applying to anthropology is still, it is a thing, but it's more present in some business spaces than others. And I think that there is an opportunity to bring it into maybe promotional real estate, or if I'm not talking about my own circumstances, maybe. [01:03:19] HR, uh, maybe in different types of urban planning, maybe, I don't know, um, counseling, maybe more in nonprofits or community organizing and it is already, I think there is a lot of space there, there isn't a lot of opportunity depending on what you're interested in. Um, but, or to get there, do you really need to get comfortable with taking ownership of being anthropologist? [01:03:44] Not just. You can't, um, it's not enough to go into applied anthropology because she wants to get a job. It's you have to be able to explain what an asphalt applied anthropology is applied anthropologist is, and you have to be able to articulate where it is clearly, what it can do. Um, so that would be one thing. [01:04:03] The, another thing that I've started to do well, that I've been doing for awhile is that. Um, this networking and getting to know professionals in the field that you're trying to. Enter because, I mean, if you suddenly start talking about the value of anthropology and a field that you haven't really been in, it is docking necessarily going to go well, and you need to learn how people within that field speak and you need to learn what's important to them. [01:04:31] So, I mean, this is going back to stakeholder interviews and the science, but it's also taking an astrological. Approach to learning the perspectives and the sort of the habits and the concepts behind the people you're going to be working with. And you charge the way you do that is through reading about the field, but it's also through, um, just engaging in conversations. [01:04:50] And so those are two important things to keep in mind. Um, I think if there are many of course job posts for. And that mentioned anthropology, but, um, I think if you only focus on them and if you're very job post focused and I think you're missing a lot of the opportunity and the danger is that you'll be putting a lot of effort into applications that may not come back and by relying on job applications, you're again, you're focusing more on, um, kind of waiting for something to come to you rather than putting yourself forward. [01:05:30] Matt Artz: [01:05:30] Yeah. Yeah. Great tips. All right, Chris. Um, well I think that was, that was really helpful for everybody. I learned, I enjoyed learning more about what you're doing and I would love to check back in and, uh, you know, in a year or so, and kind of hear how everything's evolving in the workplace. Hopefully post [01:05:45] Chris Diming: [01:05:45] COVID at that point. [01:05:46] Oh, it'll be an interesting time. I'm sure. I'd love to have the conversation done too. I think, uh, almost a good. Some are at before and after if you will. Yeah, [01:05:56] Matt Artz: [01:05:56] that'd be great. So, um, you know, to wrap up anything you want to plug anything, you know, any projects that you're working on that particularly interested you or, you know, where can people find you? [01:06:06] Chris Diming: [01:06:06] Well, um, the things I'm involved right now are emerging or in the very beginning stage. Um, so I think to learn more, the easiest thing to do would be to follow me on, um, on. My LinkedIn said, if anyone wants to reach out, feel free to find me. And, um, I've, I'm very, I'm always very open to conversations with people in the workplace strategy field, but also applied anthropologist of any Stripe and students to, um, my profile would be Chris dimming, comma, PhD. [01:06:43] Matt Artz: [01:06:43] Great. Well, thanks for, uh, extending that offer to everybody and, uh, I should add that's how we connected. So that's great. All right. Well, Chris, thanks very [01:06:52] Chris Diming: [01:06:52] much. Appreciate it. Well, thank you, Matt. I hope you have a great day and thanks again for reaching out to me. I enjoyed our conversation. [01:06:59] Matt Artz: [01:06:59] Thank you for listening to the Anthropology in business. [01:07:01] Guest to learn everything you need to break into business anthropology and why business anthropology is one of the best lenses for contributing to business success. Visit my website@mattarts.me, where I cover many topics related to business anthropology. And beyond there, you will find all the podcasts, episodes, blogs, and news, please like share. [01:07:26] And subscribe. See you next time. Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors.

Oscar Barrera on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 01:10:08 +0000

In this episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, Oscar Barrera speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Oscar's journey into anthropology through eco-tourism, his pivot to business anthropology, the founding of Antropología Corporativa Consulting, and how he positions the business within the context of the business landscape of Mexico. About Oscar Barrera Oscar Barrera, PhD is a Corporate Anthropologist and CEO of Antropología Corporativa Consulting. He is devoted to helping companies to innovate and grow by using techniques, methods and theories from anthropology. He is also a keynote speaker and entrepreneur leading other kinds of businesses. Oscar is based in the city of Veracruz in Eastern Mexico. He received his PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from the University of Washington. He has international experience by working and living in 21 countries in Europe, Africa and North and Central America. About Antropología Corporativa Consulting Antropología Corporativa Consulting helps companies achieve the transformations they require to grow their business. Whether it is a change in the culture of "how things are done" within the organization or to improve a product or service, Antropología Corporativa Consulting uses anthropological tools to influence human behavior. Recommended Links

Watch the Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Db7YHGk5IwI Episode Transcript Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors. Matt Artz: All right. Well, thanks everyone for joining today. I'm at arts and I'm with Oscar Barrera today. Oscar is a business anthropologist out of Mexico and the owner of you might have to help me here, but up of motto consulting. And so yeah, please. Oscar Barrera: Yeah, actually, I changed my brand now. It's, Antropología Corporativa anthropology. I changed that years ago and yeah, it has to be because it was such a difficult name for people to relate to. So that's what I changed it. Matt Artz: Got it. Okay. Well, thanks for correcting me. So I've got that. And so why don't you maybe use that as a jumping off point. Can you give us a little background on, you know, education, anthropology, education, your career, how you started your business? Oscar Barrera: Okay. Well, and it started how I became an anthropologist. I actually, when I graduated from college, I just, I majored in tourism studies in planning and development. So I went to the Highlands of Chiapas with the idea of creating a developing project for indigenous peoples in units, communities, and an indigenous village called chermoula subpoint Kamala. So they, the idea that, again, that I have the time, because I was young and naive, I wanted to change the world. I thought that by creating a project and developing projects where indigenous people who develop, create their own infrastructure to cater tourists, I don't know, from room and board or hotels or restaurants, or I don't know, just to great economic options and possibilities for indigenous people to benefit from tourism. I thought that was a very positive contribution that I could make with after finishing thirties in, in university. Oscar Barrera: So I came in touch with with anthropologists in the Highlands of Chiapas, and I met many of them who questioned the purpose of my, my endeavors. And actually there was one anthropologist that he said, Oscar, this sounds very, it sounds very very kind. I'm very, very altruistic that what you're doing for these people, but have you ever asked them, what do they think of tourists? Maybe they don't, if all these years for all these decades, that if they haven't developed a tourism industry on their own is because maybe they have certain beliefs and there are, they have certain world vision than that. Maybe they are not interested to relate to tourists. Maybe they are just happy by keeping them a distance and just being an object of tourism as opposed to such a tourism, because the tourists go there to snap pictures and buy. Oscar Barrera: Maybe it's a few textiles, but pretty much going there is like a visiting a human suit. So these anthropologists like really challenged me, it's like maybe you, you must pursue an explanation why these indigenous people they don't have, they don't seem to have this business kind of mentality what's behind that is not because they are dumb or stupid, but maybe they are not interested. You should find out about that. So with that, with that a framework, I, without any anthropological training I used, I began studying the indigenous perceptions on tourists. What, how they, how the, and actually the reciprocal views, how they help each other, they construct in their imagination. So that's how I I met Peter Vandenberg professor of anthropology at diversity of Washington and sociology. So we met and he wrote the book, the course of the other, a very famous book in the nineties. Oscar Barrera: And he he was actually one of the pioneers in anthropology in, based in tourism anthropology or yeah, tourism anthropology. So after I finished my, my, the, my thesis, I sent him a copy, a copy, and he was very ex happy and excited. So he invited me to, to join the, the PhD program or the university of Washington's. So that's how I, I ended up studying anthropology because of these, these altruistic kind of desires. But then I, I found myself in very naive, no understanding people's agendas and people's or views, and other police changed my life. And after I finished my PhD I decided to work for international organizations to do developing work in Africa, on at, in America because I speak English, French, and German. So I, I thought I wouldn't have any problems finding a job, but that year that I was pursuing that the these international organizations have no budgets. So I couldn't find any positions, they were interested in my qualifications and credentials. However, there was no job for me. So I decided thanks to the advice of a friend of mine. I decided to create a job of my dreams. So I used to have my own business anthropology consulting script. That's, Matt Artz: That's a great story. And so you know, what is business anthropology to you? W how do you, how would you define it Oscar Barrera: Business anthropology? I think you use the anthropological techniques, theories and methods in order to, to help entrepreneurs in order to help society communities to better off through economic means. I mean, I, in my practice as a corporate anthropologist, I help not only interpreters to make money, but I help entrepreneurs to grow, to create an impact, an impact for their employees. I am planning for the community and infant for the environment and for the client. For me, that's, that's a business anthropology, how we use the techniques, theories and methods in order to create an impact for the, for the wellbeing of humans and the planet, Matt Artz: The PhD program. Yeah. Did you ever come across any of the literature, business, anthropology, literature during the course of that? Or did you find all that on your own? Oscar Barrera: No, actually I must confess, I had a very interesting experience in business when I was in graduate school, I was finishing my doctoral dissertation and I have no, I was never exposed to, to business other than the typical anthropological studies of a student labor unions or studying eh, customer consumption, things like that, but no, really no business only studying the, the actors that are involved in business, but now studying business themselves from the anthropological perspective. So when I was finishing my my doctoral dissertation, my chair of my doctoral committee said, Oh, you should talk to this girl. That is that, that way, that last year, and she's working for a corporation, maybe she will have some insights about you after finishing your PhD. So I went to talk to her and she was working for, she was in the dark zone. Oscar Barrera: She was working for these major corporations that, that work at for, for McDonald's and all these big corporations that were making bunch of money. And I found it troublesome how the, an anthropologist was working for corporations to Quinn Quinn, all my anthropological formation and ambition was against capitalism to empower the powerless, to give voice to the voiceless. So I had this kind of like a, an epistemological, an ethical kind of conflict when I was listening to listening to her story. And I said, why aren't you doing that? Where are you working for, for these corporations? I, she said, Oscar, let me tell you a story. He said, first of all we are, we are working with McDonald's to expand all over Latin America and me as another police, I have the insights of how to create better menus for, for the, for the hell of the people, how to use materials and sources that are from that are produced locally, as opposed to be important. Oscar Barrera: So, as an anthropologist, we can we can help these companies work more with a more ethical kind of approach with a more socially and culturally, eh sensitivity, so to speak. And then she, she, she, she said something to me that I found it very, very like the, it was a crossroad for me in my anthropological kind of way of seeing anthropology in business. She said, Oscar, I must confess that. I when I was working on my dissertation, because she did her dissertation on business or starting a company, she said these business show up to do this research, but I felt on capable. I may, I felt like I was not entirely qualified. So I asked my advisors of my doctoral committee, if they, if they want to join in and, and do their research, it was good money. Oscar Barrera: It was very good, but my advisor said, okay, we're going to do this, but please keep it quiet. The one is spread the word, because it was not well seen. And I said, really, and after years later, I to deal myself with these conflict ethical conflict. Okay. Like, because my formation was to help to the powerless, he voice to the voiceless, but also how am I supposed to help these companies to make money, even at the expense of people? So I have to really it took me a few years to really adjust all these paradigms in my brain. And then I said, I came to the realization that, yes, it's, it's like fire. You can use fire and fire using fire as a metaphor of anthropology. You can use fire to heat what you are to great warm when you're called to cook or to create something wonderful. Or you can use fire to burn the house and destroy something. So it it's, it matters your agenda. It matters. What, what your purpose, your intention, your motivation, what's, what's behind your intention of using entrepreneurial tools for any situation, company or circumstance. Matt Artz: So, you know, how do you choose to use that fire today? What's, what's your main sort of driver, you know, what are you trying to do with your practice? Oscar Barrera: Well, I after bouncing from different different kinds of ways because I started actually as an anthropologist, you just listen, listen to this. I started business anthropology. I was starting my consulting in a very naive way because I said, well, I'm anthropologist, I'm at the goal. I, so what's the best thing I could do is sustainability. I will help companies to be sustainable, but that thing doesn't sell nothing doesn't sell. So I spent almost a year trying to make a business out of nothing, because no matter what, it's interesting, I am less in Mexico. And even less in this small city that I live in everybody is just after the money. Nobody cares about the impact of workers about the environment. Well, Matt Artz: I I'm, I'm very, I'm, I'm, I'm, Oscar Barrera: I am accelerated. Right. But but the point is like years ago, well, seven years ago, you cannot make a living with that perspective, with that paradigm. So I I had some very tiny projects here and there, but I was, I was I was broke. There was no they didn't give me any business to survive, so I had to change. So I, I decided to focus on something that I really passionate about, which is creativity and innovation. So I felt companies to, to innovate whether to study better the, their, their customer's minds, their customers' behaviors to how they develop better products, better services to, for the wellbeing of their other customers, how they can transform their, their culture of their own companies to better cater and do better resolve their customer's problems and to offer solutions. So I, I became a problem solver for, for companies and I have I have focused on two things. One is, eh, cultural change in companies and the other one is innovation or creativity on products. How companies can create more powerful products, how they can create an irresistible offer and how can they provide better solutions. Matt Artz: Okay. So, you know, in there, you talked about some of the challenges you had when you started the business, particularly around sustainability, but as you, as you pivoted to the new sort of value proposition, what did you do to help sell that to, you know, in your case, you know, your clients that, you know, how did you convince them that anthropology would bring value to, to the projects? Oscar Barrera: Well, I, it was a learning curve at the beginning. I, I was selling anthropology and then I'd realized that it doesn't work. And then I'd realize, then I was selling your sustainable sustainability solutions. And that thing didn't sell either. So I, when I began focusing on companies' problems, company solutions of customers, challenges, then people start to listen to me for the solutions that I offered. I, and later people found out that I wasn't apologies later. People learned that what I was doing, and I was introducing these pieces of, Oh, this is anthropology. I am an anthropologist. I'm another, just a normal and ordinary consultant. I am an anthropologist, and this is the insights that I bring to you. So at the beginning I had to I had to just hide so to speak the the term anthropology, because even I lost clients using that term, it's like, is it like a wire? Oscar Barrera: What is that anthropology? I remember there was, I, I, these, this proposal for a, a very compelling proposal for these company that they rent buses and cars to companies. So I said, well, let's use the apology to understand your customer's experience. Let's create an extraordinary, a wow experience for your customers. And we want to use tools are, so I gave him my speech. I gave him my presentation, my value grow a value proposition. And he said, Oh, he said, Oh yeah. Now you understand what anthropology is about. Oh, but that's okay. At the beginning I was kind of confused what it was, what the cake was that said, but, you know, I am, I have two more business partners and I have to show your proposal to your, to my business partners. So after two weeks, he came back to me. Oscar Barrera: I said, Oscar, my business partners don't understand what anthropology's they said that it sounds too weird. So I think we're going to skip it for right now, maybe later on, I said to myself, well, don't, don't call it anthropology. I'm using, I'm not selling you anthropology. I'm selling you a solution to create a certainly in experiences for your clients, but they didn't see it. So I had then I have to, well, I had to do, I had to, to be very sensitive, to, to see with whom I was dealing with or who I was dealing with because some people were okay. They were ready to listen to listen more above anthropology for others. It was just better not to not to speak about it. I had to learn how to be very sensitive and to understand better my clients and to provide my clients with information that was needed in order to, to overcome the solution that he or she needed, as opposed to me selling my wonderful business anthropological product. You see what I mean? Matt Artz: And so how do you, how do you size up that situation? How do you determine if your identity in some way should be, you know, anthropology led or if you should maybe lead with something else? Oscar Barrera: Well I have two, two ways to answer that question. One is the way I use my marketing and the other one is when I am I am sitting in front of a client when I am sitting in front of a client. I'm reading my customer's behaviors volume movements his voice. I listen to everything. I read everything. I, I almost sidekick. I, I literally, I study my client who I am sitting with very, very carefully. And I do it in a very ethical way. I wouldn't have a very professional way. I'm not a, my business is not about cheating or about coercing people by business about offering and transform people's and their companies to, for the wellbeing of, of everyone, all the stakeholders, literally, that's, that's my goal. That's my mission. So I, I, I become very, very aware of, of their, of everything that is happening. And I always have my cell, my mobile off, I don't I get no distractions. I am in there with all my five senses with my client, and I just I just provide them the information that they need instead of, instead of focusing on, I am a I'm selling anthropology, I'm selling, I just focus like what, what they need. Oscar Barrera: So on the other fan with my marketing, I do both. I talk a little bit about anthro. I, I offer anthropological solutions. But most of the time, I would say maybe 60, 60% of my marketing is about the solutions that I offer. And I don't use the, the, the name of the label anthropology because the market is not ready yet. I may make it Mexico on international stage, but people still don't know what on the apology. So I, I'm very careful when I use it, how I use it with my clients and with, in my marketing, I focus more on solutions as opposed to, to sell in anthropology. Matt Artz: And so, you know, since you are very much focused on delivering value to all stakeholders, what do you think you contribute as a business anthropologist that's beyond just research. What else to the business to you provide or to the stakeholders? Oscar Barrera: You know, I, one of the things that I I came to the realization, this is very interesting. I became, I came to realize that that anthropology provides an amazing insights, these amazing insights to a business due to the systematic or this to due to the systemic approach. And let me give you an example. I was, I was working with a company that is which sell which sell medical equipment. They import medical equipment from China, and they sell it to hospitals, clinics and doctors in Mexico. So for years, this company was growing in the market, but their strategy was sales as sales for price is price. The strategy, they compete in the market by price, and it was very exhausting. They were growing, but every time they had to just release promote a promotion, a sale, or these towns. Oscar Barrera: And it was very, very exhausting. Even the the Salesforce, when I talk to the salespeople, they said that they needed a discount or they needed a sale in order to create, to make business otherwise they couldn't sell anything. So that was their paradigm. So my, my project on my mission was to create a new business model for this company. How could they sell their equipment within a different logic that goes beyond the price? What can they offer to, to their customers, to doctors and hospitals to S to say, okay, I will buy this equipment because, because fill up the blank. So I w I created this project and this company really trust me, and I have done previous work with them. And so they they they had not problems giving myself a shot. I say, okay, we're going to invest with this guy because he says, he seems to be smart. Oscar Barrera: So they paid all my expenses and I traveled to five different cities in Mexico. And I conducted research in hospitals, interviewing doctors, nurses, and healthcare professionals in five cities about their problems, these problems they experienced with their equipment, with the medical equipment. And interestingly enough I discovered that the these, these, these hospitals and these people have no problems with the equipment, the equipment just works fine. The problems or the challenges they face is with the people that manage the equipment. They are the problem. They are the source of the problem. So for instance is several hospitals. They rent their surgery rooms to doctors. So outside doctors who want to perform a surgery with, for their own patients. So they rent the surgery rooms and they mistreat the equipment. They break it, they pulled the cord, they, they destroy it. They they're, they don't care. Oscar Barrera: And also another issue that I, I discovered was that nurses there is a huge role of what's, what's the word that I forgot the word in English. These it's called the rotation. Like at the nurses, they are, they get higher and they get fired, or they quit all the time, turn my turnover, right? There's a tremendous turnover in nurses. So, eh, that's a problem. The, the retention, the retention level in hospitals is very low in with regards to nurses. So they, every time they have to take her a new nurse they need to train the nurse. You have to manage, you have to handle the equipment. So they lose time. And after three months of the training and everybody that, where the nurse has a, a good command of the, of the equipment, Speaker 3: She leaves the hospital. I know we're going to get higher. So you, Oscar Barrera: I discovered all these, all these subtleties, all these challenges that the medical equipment is, the company could provide some value, some, some some solutions. So when I returned after my research, and I gave them a presentation of all my findings, and I said, your business model should shift from selling, from selling equipment to offering solutions. You must, you must focus on the pain points of your clients, of the hospitals, like the nurses don't over, like at the carelessness of the doctors in the surgery room, you must offer them with solutions. So at here comes the entrepreneur the anthropological insights, and also Oscars on crazy ideas and creativity, because I said, you know, you forget about the business that you are in right now, forget about that. You're selling equipment. Now your business is going to be, I say, okay, now your business is going to be we offer solutions for the turnover of nurses. We offer you training 24 hours, three 65 days, days of the year, 24 seven, and the, the owner of it Speaker 3: [Inaudible] companies, how the hell are they going to do that? And I said, well, no problem. We'll live in a beautiful Oscar Barrera: Full world. This offer let's create tutorials, and let's put them on the web and your clients will have this password. And with these passport, they will have access to these database of bigger tutorials with trainings or how to use the equipment. So because also one of the things that I observed during my research was that the healthcare professionals have no time. They are always running. So we offer them in C2. Training is going to be very hard because they are so busy. So let's offer them something on the web that they can use on demand. So that's, that's that's how, that's what a medical equipment company did. They graded these videos, they put it on the web, and now they sell solutions for their, for their hospitals on, on the different problems that the nurses and the doctors in general, all day, the healthcare professionals experience when dealing with equipment, you agree. Oscar Barrera: And so sometimes even in an interview that I had with this engineer that fixes all the, all the equipment in a hospital this was in in Monterrey, Mexico, and this, the, the, he said, you know, the nurses and the doctors are so mad that these equipment do not work. This equipment doesn't work. So when I go there and I say, Hey guys, did you plug it? It wasn't locked. Well, they were pretty. They were because there was a piece of. So I said, really? I was saying, yeah, it happens all the time are scary topics all the time. So I said, okay. So I this idea of offering solutions through video tutorials was very powerful. And nowadays, eh, the, the company has shifted their business model to not to sell a price. They sell solutions and they have been very successful. And with epidemia, they are selling more Meredith, I think this was there this year was better than the last year. They may, they, they sold way more than last year purposing the proper thing on this, Matt Artz: On these illusions. So in there, you know, you made the comment about, you know, have you, did you research tracking back and, you know, you sort of, you gave him some crazy ideas from yourself, but really like, you know, there's a process of, of course, of getting from insights to, you know, recommendations. And so what does that look like for you, or use it using social theory to help sort of inform that, you know, all the time, some of the times, none of the time? Oscar Barrera: Well, it depends on the depends on the client for, but usually I don't I mean, as I said, I'm very sensitive about the when I about I'm very sick about when I should open my mouth when I should not, because I know also by self experience that is not good to two over peoples to over clients with solutions is better to guide your client to come up to or to a right, to have his own solutions. But also by my experience, I have noticed that sometimes they, my clients and the people that I work with they, they are the, they have this vision in which they don't know other than their business and their problem is that they know too much, they know too much of their business. So in that case, I have to push them and I have to brainstorm on offering my own brilliant ideas because they, they don't see, they cannot see anything else. Oscar Barrera: I like for this, for instance, the talking to this sales personnel in, for the medical equipment company, they, they couldn't see themselves selling any, any other way than just giving discounts to hospitals and doctors. When I asked them to do those, I conduct a workshop to come up with ideas. They have not, no ideas because they, they were not exposed to other ways of being other ways of seeing other ways of thinking. So they, then they either know better. So then, so I, I, I had to, I had to expose them with with empirical data, with some ideas, to get some momentum going and, and create something new create a new business problem. Matt Artz: So that maybe the data relates to what I was just going to ask there, which is, you know, how do you go about really selling that? You know, so oftentimes we do come up with recommendations and sometimes those recommendations are obviously not adopted. You know, do you have any strategies for really selling your recommendations that, and you know, if you've tried many, have any worked better than the others? Oscar Barrera: Yeah. I, sometimes you sell sometimes you, you do recommendations. So sometimes I do recommendations and I think my ideas are great, but my, my, my clients, sometimes they also agree with me that they are great, but they are so complicated to, to pursue because they don't have the capacity. They don't have, the personnel implies more work than what they are currently doing, and they are too busy to, to do more. So I, in that, in that, that respect, then I have to, I have to just be very realistic about helping my clients to do what they realistically can do and push them a little bit further and push them a little bit to the stretch where, where they can grow. Otherwise they wouldn't hire me again, because everything needs to show them results. Right. So I I can give you, I can give you an another example of a, of a case that I gave him some ideas and they were so excited, but at the end, he then follow like a company that they sell. Oscar Barrera: They sell lab tests is this a laboratory company that sells lab tests like blood tests during this all kinds of tests. So they have to have this problem with a competition. They, some corporations move into the city and year after year, they were losing market share. So they say, Oscar, how, how can we do, how can we compete with these corporations? Because they are offering very low low price services. And we cannot we cannot afford that. I mean, we cannot compete. We buy all these chemicals and all these products, we have to import them because of these materials and resources that we use for the, for the tests for the lab tests are important. And the, the, we buy them in dollar sometime the dollar is not, is more expensive. So we cannot compete with, have to we cannot afford to, to offer discounts or, or less, or reduce our prices. Oscar Barrera: So I came up with idea because also they, they, again, they, they, they knew too much about their ex about their business. So I give him some ideas. And one of the ideas was let's this offer a service to certain doctors, doctors that you are, you are familiar and let's offer them with with a business, a business offer. This let's offer them that you are going to be there. Their lab company, you're going to be an extension of their, of their practice. So by, by, by, by being an extension, you're going to create a system in which you are going to deliver. You're going to provide all these, the results for your, for the patients directly to the doctor and to the patients via WhatsApp, via email. And you're going to offer a percentage of the, of the revenues to the doctor, and you're going to want to create a tracking system so that doctors can know what, how many referrals are sent to the, to the left company. Oscar Barrera: So they really like the idea because they thought that the best way, well, we, we, we came to the realization that the best way to compete with these corporations is to be very specific and to narrow down a market niche, unless working with some doctors with certain specialties with some expertise and let's just offer them a business for the referrals. They, they really liked the idea, but it was too much work. Apparently they didn't follow through. They had to do all these of these visits and all these all these work with a year with the doctors. And at the end, they didn't, it didn't work out because the idea was great. They really like it, but they, when they went back to just competing with price. Matt Artz: So, you know, you've given two examples there and thanks for those, appreciate the real world examples. They always help. And, but in their eight, a one project obviously has performed very well in terms of the outcomes for the organization, do the other, you know, they didn't accept the recommendations maybe, and maybe they're just sort of doing the same that they were always doing and it's status quo. So how do you know, in those situations, how do you gauge your own value, your own impact, and how do you think those clients gauge it? Oscar Barrera: Well, like what, like like a human being there's so much I can do for somebody else in the same way as an anthropologist, there's only so much I can do for a company. Some sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't work. I do always my best. I give them my content and 20% to a client. Sometimes there's is the chemistry sometimes is because failed on explaining myself or, or creating a case of what by do it and helping, or guiding my customers to do good, better for everybody. Sometimes it doesn't work that way. So in the case of this medical equipment company, it turned out very well because there were certain causes and causes and conditions. They, there was, as I said, there was previous work with them. They was they, they stressed them. They trusted me. Oscar Barrera: They knew that I was an intelligent guy that could give provide them with some value. So I did everything I could in order to, to reaffirm what they believe about me and also, and of course on primarily on the most important thing to deliver results. So that was, that was, that was key. But in the other case, in case of the left the left company taste, they didn't know me very well. And I also didn't know them very well. I tried to to pursue them, to try to help them, but they were not entirely I would say open to, to the call to further pursue the, the, for the pursuit, the the consulting, because the they probably thought that they they could, they knew better, or they could do it in a better way. Not always ready to change. Yeah, exactly. So even though yeah, there isn't like a religious conversion, right. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don't. Right. Matt Artz: But, you know you know, so in there, there's, there's a little bit of a topic that comes up oftentimes here in the New York area where we are sort of talking about Oscar Barrera: What, Matt Artz: How we kind of sell this, what our value is, how know, what we would want, maybe hiring managers to know our clients to know. So, you know, given your experiences some positive, you know, some that maybe didn't have their results that you would like to see and that they probably could have. How would, you know, if you had to summarize, you know, what anthropology can contribute to an organization and what do you think that is? You know, what would, if there's any non anthropologists listening, like how would you sell them on it right now, Oscar Barrera: Anthropology can help you to see things that as an entrepreneur, you cannot see, you were able to find opportunities in the market. You will want to understand better your on personnel and you, you will have clarity on, on what's going on to provide value whether to your clients or whether to your, whether to your to your own company. I think value creation, I think, is the mole is, is is one of the most precious things that anthropologists do is value creation, how we create value. But, but sometimes it's, it's hard to convey, right? Because, because they can, they, they, eh, sometimes people are hesitant or skeptical that what you are, what you are helping them to see can be true, because they're like, Oh, that's sounds too beautiful to be true. Matt Artz: I agree again, I appreciate that. It is oftentimes hard to convey. And I think that relates also to younger anthropologists who maybe are students still, or, you know, early kind of mid career who maybe are potentially anthropologists that are not in business yet, but maybe looking to break in, or maybe they're looking to improve their career. So I appreciate you're at a consulting company, but for anybody, you know, for any other anthropologists, who's sort of looking to grow their career in this. And do you think there are certain things that they should be doing or thinking about any skills they should be acquiring? You know, like anything, any recommendations that you would give to people looking to get into the consulting space or even just to work, you know, for a larger organization. Oscar Barrera: Yeah. I think if you're going to go for the consulting rail, I would suggest first started your own business. They started your business before you can solve before you guy, another company or somebody else's to do things better, doing your own with a company, sell yourself, lemonade, soldiers, sell products, socks, food hardware, sell something, create your own business, selling something on and apply the anthropological tools you're on, you're on your own business and yourself and get insights, insights from that. And then you will have a knowledge base experience, another space, knowledge base information. So when, when you are so that when you're with a client, a consulting client, you, you have, you have some value to provide, like, because I, in the past I have done this myself, it worked. So I think huge you as a client of mine might be worth to consider these based on my own experience with my own company. Matt Artz: No, that's great. Great advice. And so you know, considering you have your, your consulting company, and I know, you know, as we were just chatting before we started recording, you mentioned you've started a new venture recently to sell some products. So what do you think? And I suppose this would be my last question for you, but like, what do you think in anthropology having the anthropology background actually brings to starting business? How do you, how do you bring that toolkit to make the business successful? Oscar Barrera: Ah, I, I think it, because you are able to see, to read between the lines, you're able to read between the lines you're able to listen, let's say in terms of marketing, you're able to listen the customers and transform your customer's opinions, customers, perceptions to enrich your marketing strategy. Let me give you an example. I I, I I was telling you, I am selling some a dish, a traditional dish for these, for these holidays, Christmas holidays and new years some of the customers, so some of the customers mentioned like, Oh, the dish was just delicious. And I was amazed that he was very kind and gentle with my stomach. It didn't burn, he didn't burn because we use this more, the sauce. And usually this sauce is very spicy and he's very, he's very tough for the stomach. Oscar Barrera: So when I release it to that, I may have a greater campaign. And in my social media, like, Oh, well, this, this dish with a sauce is very kind of gentle. It's very kind of gentle. So you use all this information from their customers and you just throw it back at them to, to generate more traffic, to generate and more traction. So I think that technology can help you to see and read because I have this information, I have seen it with other, with with clients, with consulting clients. And they use say, Oh, this is a customer is just complaining. Yeah. But listen to the complaint, you can create some value out of this complaint and not just throw it away because it's a complaint and this customer is just stupid. They don't understand that our product or our service. So I think as an anthropologist, you are able to, to use that data, turn it into information and create value for your customers, for you on business, on your own. Matt Artz: Great. Nice. So Oscar, is there anywhere or anything you're involved in right now that you would like to sort of mention or call out? Oscar Barrera: I think we are we're living an amazing moments right now with all the [inaudible]. I think anthropologists have amazing tools, amazing tools based on our theories, based on our methods. And we are just made to succeed. We're just made to succeed because you're there was, there was a movement of why anthropologists, why the world needs anthropologists and because of the value they provide. So I think we, as an anthropologist, you are not, how can I say this? You're not allowed to fail because you have all the tools you, you just have to be creative. You just have to don't be afraid to fail. You just have to be brave and, and, and do things with that. We know expectation to succeed. You must do it because, because it's fine because it will lead you to some, somewhere else. As on the police. I think you, you can start your own venture, whether it's a consultant, whether it's an entrepreneur or whether it's a whatever, because you have the tools, you just have to go and do it be breakable. Matt Artz: Great. Appreciate that. And you have somebody who's in a similar space to you, you know, I I can really appreciate that comment. And I think that that's a great way to end it. So is there any place that people should look you up? Anything, any, any social media or anything that you'd like to mention? Oscar Barrera: Yes, I am in LinkedIn, Oscar Beretta, PhD. I am also in Facebook with my own fan page, Oscar Beretta. And I put my website, AntropologíaCorporativat.MX and I have also my YouTube channel, which is Antropología Corporativa. And you can just contact me through my social media, of course. Matt Artz: Well, Oscar, thanks very much appreciate coming on. I know you're passionate about sort of getting the word out about business anthropology as well with your LinkedIn articles. So I would suggest everybody look you up and following follow your work and thanks again for coming on. Oscar Barrera: No, thank you so much for the invitation. I, it was very fun and nice chatting, chatting with you and your audience. Thank you. Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors.

Brooke Gibbs on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 09 Feb 2021 00:57:05 +0000

In this episode of Anthropology in Business, Brooke Gibbs speaks with Matt Artz about her career as a business anthropologist. The conversation covers Brooke's early work in market research, her decision to go back to UNT to get an applied anthropology graduate degree, and the work she is doing with her company ARTYFACT. About Brooke Gibbs As an Anthropologist with over 10 years of experience working with Fortune 50 companies, Brooke combines the analytical rigor of her background in social science with an innate curiosity and intuition about people. Brooke has extensive experience building brand purpose, driving organizational change, and uncovering insight on both the product and retail side. Brooke believes brands, organizations, and retailers have a responsibility to positively impact people and society. Her goal is to help organizations find their voice and identity within their communities, so they can better address the real issues impacting people. About ARTYFACT ARTYFACT is a research, strategy, and innovation consultancy bringing clarity to business problems through human understanding. The name comes from the words ART and FACT, which represent the art and science of anthropology. Recommended Links

Watch the Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1200m0Fhyc Episode Transcript Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors. Matt Artz: All right. Well, hi everyone. And welcome back. I'm Matt Artz and I'm today with Brooke Gibbs. Brooke is an applied anthropologist from UNT, same place I went and the co-founder of ARTYFACT previously at Proctor and Gamble for I believe, 11 years and a journalism background. So, I mean, I know I just covered a little bit of that, but maybe you want to give us like maybe tell us a little bit about why actually like me, why do you choose to go back for an anthropology degree when you started somewhere else and you know, what may maybe made you do that and how has that led to say ARTYFACT? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. Thank you. First of all, for having me one of the things that has really guided my life, even from, you know, being in school has been a real interest for other people, other people that don't look, act, whatever, like me and people who, I don't know, I was always one of those people where it's like the person in the corner by themselves. I want to go over there and talk to that person and make sure they're okay. And then bring them into the fold. That's always been who I am. And so when I, from a journalism standpoint, you know, like, as you said, it was like, that was like where my, my bachelor's degree was in. And that was because I also like to be a storyteller. I want to hear people's stories, but then also share their stories. And so that's where that came from. Brooke Gibbs: But once I was in school getting my bachelor's, I started to get into some anthropology anthropology classes and it was like, Oh, this is an even better fit with who I am, what I like all those things. So I continued on the path that I was on, which was, I was getting my degree in journalism, but at the same time I had an internship with, at P and G doing market research, which was also a whole third thing. Right. But decided to go that route because Angie was a stable company. It had good benefits. I was fresh out of out of college. So I decided to go that route, but I, anthropology was always in the back of my mind, always like even the first year I was going to quit PNG and go back to school full-time to get my PhD in anthropology. Brooke Gibbs: I it's not that I decided not to do that. Actually the world God decided that was not the right timing for me. So I kept staying at P and G at that time, and then decided in 2014. So I had already been at P and G about seven years. Well, actually I decided in 2012, so I had been at P and G for five years that I wanted to go back and really pursue this anthropology thing. I had heard that there was a program, which is the UNC program that enabled you to do a master's within anthropology, as opposed to just a PAC. And therefore I was able to do both work and that at the same time. And then I graduated in 2014 and started it started ARTYFACT, which I can talk more about if you want. Matt Artz: Yeah. Cool. So you, you know, in a previous conversation we had about probably 14 months ago in New York, you were talking about how you were at P and G you were involved in some of the market research. And so, you know, what role did that maybe play and also sort of lighting this interest? Brooke Gibbs: Exactly. So it was interesting because I started, there's a, there's a strong intersection, you know, between market research and anthropology, it's qualitative and quantitative research just anthropology or Margaret resource can house anthropology or anthropological thinking and, or it can house other things too. And so I was already just in that, that was the function I was in at PNG, but it just kind of does this really a coincidence, like it kind of worked, I already had this interest in anthropology and then I ended up going into market this market research function. Cause I was just interested in people and learning about people. And so when I would decide to go to UNT in and get this master's it made just all the sense, because I was able to directly, like in the moment you remember, like, even, probably from like some of my case studies and stuff I was doing for our homework assignments, like I was able to in the moment apply what we were learning to my job, which was really, really cool. Brooke Gibbs: And it instantly gave me credibility. So where, you know, I was there and it was like, Oh, she's, she's getting her master's in anthropology. Okay, great. Like internally at P and G I was elevated even though I was still like a student in school. So there was definitely like, I don't know, they kind of like worked together. Margaret resource helped anthropology, anthropology help the market research in terms of where I'm at today and how, you know, how I got into each one of them. But yeah, it was something that definitely worked. Those two things worked well together. Matt Artz: And so, you know, when you entered the program at UNT at university of North Texas, you entered the business track. Ultimately. I mean, we don't really diff we don't pick the track per se, but we pick the classes and, you know, in a sense, the classes aligned with that track. So we both picked business. And were you thinking you would stay at P and G longterm and you would just use the skills there? Or were you already thinking about starting your own business? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah, I was already thinking about it. So I, it was a little bit of both, and I knew that I wanted to apply the anthropological thinking to my day-to-day work. I knew what was going to show up as a value add in that current situation at P and G. However, one of the things that even sparked me to go back and you can go, go back to school at that time was I felt this calling to start my own business. And so this was like a prerequisite, if you will, to that. Cause I felt like I needed some credibility and P don't get it twisted. PNG is in some worlds, enough credit credibility in and of itself. Obviously it comes with everyone, my 97 year old grandmother, like knows P and G as well as like a ten-year-old sometimes, Matt Artz: But probably not anthropology as much faculty Brooke Gibbs: That's exactly right. So that came with his own credibility, but in certain areas that I can talk about this a little bit later, you know, anthropology gave me a little extra credibility in, when I say credibly, almost like it differentiated me versus all the other traditional market researchers out there. For sure. And so that was a big going into the business anthropology or the applied anthropology route for sure. The longterm use for it was to start my own company. Matt Artz: Great. And so they're, you know, you threw out the term business anthropology and you know, obviously that's sort of the focus as I'm framing out this podcast, but can you tell me what is business anthropology to you? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah, so it's applying anthropological thinking in corporate America for me. So, you know, there's all kinds of businesses and maybe, you know, it could be things outside of maybe it's nonprofits or what have you, but in the most kind of rudimentary, like pragmatic sense, it's saying there are these principles or this way of thinking, and I want to apply those in the business or the corporate world in order to, as a different way to help that business grow. So everything is about dollars and cents. All companies want to grow. I don't care what they can have all this great, Oh, I want to help out society. But the ultimate thing is to make more money. And so how do you position anthropology on what you can bring to the table? What that thinking can bring to the table as a new way, a differentiated way to drive growth, to help them understand their consumers, to help, you know guide maybe their, their mission or their vision. Like there could be a few ways that this is applied product innovation kind of things. Matt Artz: And so maybe that's a good jumping off point. Why don't you tell us what you do at ARTYFACT and how you're? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah, so ARTYFACT is the name of my company and it's first of all, let me talk about the, how we came up with that name. Cause it's important. It really has two meetings. So we really are obviously playing off. We spell ARTYFACT with a Y so that the eyes, so it's a R T Y F act. We wanted to play off the word ARTYFACT because an ARTYFACT is obviously any object that has meaning in a society is so ARTYFACTs that word or that concept comes up a lot in our field and what we do a E there's, the two words, art and fact in there. And so there's, that's when you hear people say the art and the science of things, that is the kind of the through line in everything we do as well. So from designing our studies to the actual research, to the analysis on the back end and the deliverable, we are making sure the art is there. Brooke Gibbs: So it could be like literal art, like the design of things, right. Or design thinking or intuition is in it, but also the science. So there's rigor and analytical thinking behind every single thing we do as well. So that's kind of the basis behind anthropology, but we, we call ourselves an anthropology based market research consultancy. All that means is that we prioritize two things. One, we prioritize human understanding is what we call it. So we want to make sure the voice of the consumer or your user or your customer is loud and prevalent from beginning to end. Okay. So their first number one, the product is in first, the consumers first, the second way that that comes through is how we do research. We like to do it in context, right? So everything about anthropology is, is saying that the cultural environment around you dictates your behavior. Brooke Gibbs: Okay. So the fact that you and I, and I'm just more so saying that, I know, you know this, but I'm saying this for your audience. Sure. You and I are sitting, you know, virtually talking to each other, we're going to behave slightly differently than if the same conversation was happening. When we saw each other 14 months ago over coffee, being able to like really see each other, like, you know what I'm saying? Like face to face all those things. So we try to set up those in context. Well, pre COVID we try to set up those in context environment so that, you know, most people think of things like in-homes right. That's in context. We want to make sure we're doing all of our qualitatives and the place that makes sense for whatever the business question is or what are we trying to learn? Brooke Gibbs: You know, making sure it's in context and making sense that way. So those are two ways that like how that shows up in our business. And I will say this, I'm going to give a sneak peek to something I'm going to say later wishes. I've gotten nothing but positive reactions and positive sentiments with the back that we are anthropology based market research firm that has never, ever once been a negative or like, wait, what exactly is that? Even if people don't know the ins and outs of it, they act like they do. And so it's still seen as seen as fresh it's seen as differentiated it's seen as value added. Matt Artz: Yeah. That's interesting. And one of the things that I think, you know, that in the recent meetup that we were both attending, you know, right. It came up there and something we talk about here in New York pretty frequently. So I want to dig into that in just a second, but just to go back, you know, the name is really interesting. I mean, I really love the way you framed that out and put it all together. Of course, you know, when we come up with creative names like that, and I experienced this in my own with my own name and conventions, sometimes people don't quite grasp it. All right. I mean, I didn't necessarily pick up on all of that until you told me. So when it comes to, you know, everything from the naming of ARTYFACT to how you position your services, do you and I, and I know you just said that, you know, people are interested in the anthropological sense of it, but do you find that there are any challenges in selling it or is it just, yeah, this is cool. We want, we want some of that. Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. Good question. So the most simplest of challenges is that people call it already fact. So, so that's just one very simple thing, but you know, after the first meeting we, we call it what it, how we pronounce it, how it should be pronounced. And then people pick up pretty quickly. So that's like a small, small thing. The other thing is with the name and everything, I just spelled out to you, we don't leave that up to guesswork. So if you go to our website, we, the whole thing I was saying about art and fact, and what we spell that out as a way to like to tell people that there is intention behind the name, but also that the name tells people who we are and what we do a bit. Right. So, you know, we don't leave that to chance. I think any challenge has been, I mean, we have all kind of business challenges, but challenges with, from an anthropology standpoint are just, Hey, so sometimes we like to, and I'm going to get into the methodologies a little bit, but we will talk about like participant observation or something, I don't know if I think I took this, this might be an anthropology thing, or I morphed it from that. Brooke Gibbs: Sometimes I get confused because it's been some years since we were in school mat, but we call analogous learning. So learning from other learning about your business problem and solution by other industries and categories that have already solved that problem. Okay. What I have found is that some companies, some clients, they are more than happy to, Oh yeah. Some, some calls, some in homes like they get in homes, they get in store immersions, they get quantitative surveys. When we start to get into some of the, Oh, let's do participant observation, even though participant observation is like pretty much a glorified in home with some other things in it. Like sometimes when we use these other words and names that they're not as familiar with, they kind of, their eyes glaze over a bit and they focus more on the things that they're used to. Brooke Gibbs: And not necessarily the things that, you know, they're not as familiar with. Right. And so things that we want to say are differentiated or things that are like, Oh, let's do this cool thing. That's not, sometimes that's not the selling point to them. And I think we have to be okay with that. It's like in its simplest form, just the word anthropology is enough. And I know that sounds crazy. And you know, sometimes I can be a purist but that's not always necessary or valued. You, you can bring the thinking in behind the scenes, but they don't always need to know what the name of the methodology is called. If it's something that's very, very specific to RP. Matt Artz: Sure. Yeah. Yeah. We can certainly just end up talking past each, each other at that point and, you know, learning the language of, of our clients, our stakeholders, that's kind of part of our job. So it makes sense to me, is there one thing that particularly that stands out that helps you, you know, sort of sell the value besides just the word anthropology, is there anything that you found, you know, within the market research space, that's really important. Brooke Gibbs: So we have this slide where we talk about what we do when it's four big buckets. And so we, I have found that when we two things, one, if we talk about ourselves at the, at a higher level, what we can do, people are energized by the fact that we can answer these bigger questions. So it's not just like evaluative in nature, like Bay are excited about the we can help you come up with a new business model if, if within a changing landscape, right. They want to, they want to hear those those kinds of things like that is that looks like value. Add, it looks like help. Another one is we help you with white space opportunities for your for a target, you know, for your target consumer, right? It's like, Oh no, I need, I need those kinds of things. Brooke Gibbs: So, so those are ways that we, besides this using the word anthropology, these are, you know, bigger questions that we can answer that that they found find valuable. I think the second thing is maybe counter to what some people think we don't try to be everything to everybody. So yes, we are a full service market research agency and we can do it all, but we are very clear to talk about our buckets. And so if you think about research, it's discovery and evaluation at its core, right? It's like some type of exploration and discovery, and that's usually upstream in the front, on the, on the beginning of things. Or I already, now I have my product, I have my message. I have my concept and I want to evaluate it. Well, we say from a high level is, Hey, we work best in the, in our, our skills are best and how we think work best within the discovery. Exploratory realm. That's one thing that we are like very, very clear on. The second thing is that we say we want to help with in general, those bigger questions and not necessarily like smaller minute things. Like, I don't know that that's as great of a use of our time in your money. Matt Artz: Yeah. That's interesting. And so when you're that, I'm sort of upfront about that. How, how does everybody respond to that? Because I'm sure some just want to hire you for everything, Brooke Gibbs: Right. And so here's where I give you a real moment. Everyone here already for the realness that I'm about to give you, I am a business owner. I am not enough. I'm not bill Gates. I'm not in a position to turn down work. Right. And so it is a balance. It really is a balance of saying, okay, here's my warehouse. Here's where we work best in. But also if you have, if you want to do a quantitative survey on something, we can still do that for you, but how we do it as we still try to bring the thinking into the way we think into their into what their request is, right? So we try to marry up, marry up the two things. So it's like, Hey, I want you to, you know, I only want you to do quant, kill me now. Cause we would rather do qualitative or if I'm going to do quant, I'd rather do the whole mixed method approach, right. Brooke Gibbs: Where I'm doing client and call for this project. It was like, Oh, I only want you to do quantum. Okay. So the way I get around that is, and this is like an internal thing. I say what type of quantum, what are you, what is your end goal? Oh, you're doing quantity better understand and find your target consumer and do more like a segmentation. Okay. Well, I can get the best back to people. I can get behind you trying to find your target audience. And so then I'm still bringing in my thinking in the survey design how some of the pre like stakeholder interviews I'm doing with clients, right. I'm still bringing that in. And that helps me feel better. And also, you know, they still feel like they're getting some value out of going with someone like an ARTYFACT versus a more super traditional market research firm. Matt Artz: Yeah. It makes sense. I mean, it can certainly help, you know, guide the survey instrument design. So, you know, in there you made the comment about being a business owner and wherever any of us who have been in that position, know what it's like to not only want to pay ourselves, but also have to pay other people and, and all the expenses. So I'd be curious maybe to hear, you know, what does your day just look like? You know, some people who might be listening, this might be thinking of starting their own business. Some others might be thinking, going to work for somebody, but you know, as somebody who owns their own business, you have a lot of unique challenges that is not simply just doing research, planning, research, and analyzing, right. But obviously, you know, building your business, building your brand, marketing yourself, you know, finance, right. There's holes through Fred, all the sort of business functions are up to you and presumably your co-founder or some team that you delegate them to. So just what does that look like for you? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah, great question. And also very relevant because I was dealing with that slash struggling with that earlier today, because there are almost two different paths and two different things that my brain has to toggle between throughout a day, throughout a week, throughout a month. Right. And what those two things are, is yes. Owning and operating a business. Right. So that is all the things you just mentioned, the finances, the operations NDAs new strategy pipeline, hiring people, all of that, right then separately. There's the actual work that my business does. Right. So the actual day to day, like I have, I have a client, they have a project and I have to moderate these focus groups or these one-on-ones, or I have to do those, whatever I have found that it's why I say I'm toggling is because you have to do both. Right. Brooke Gibbs: So you, with the being a business owner is really about is now I'm trying to grow my own business. Right. So I, I, all the things about marketing, whatever that is to grow my business, then the other part of what I do is to help someone else grow their business in a way. Right. and so the projects, the client based things, sometimes those take priority because they though they have more urgency behind them, right. They have due dates and such, but if you don't work on the first thing, right. The business, then all of a sudden that project is over and you don't have anything else in the pipeline. So what, what I challenge people to do is really take a step back and evaluate, first of all, evaluate what do you like? So the thing, and I just have to be real. Cause you know what I mean? Brooke Gibbs: At this point, Matt, like, I am a very transparent and real person. I go back and forth on which one do I like more honestly. Do I, sometimes I don't like don't, don't tell sometimes I really like the business owner side of things, the strategy, the thinking, building out the pipeline. And I don't really feel like moderating some groups in, in a, in a potential client telling me what the heck to do today. That's why I got out of someone working for somebody. Right. Sometimes I don't like that. And then other times I'm super energized and jazzed by the research side of things. And I'm like, Oh gosh, I gotta do whatever on the business side. So the first thing is like really taking a step back and seeing what elements and parts I call it, give you energy. Right? So when you think about doing this thing or you're actually doing it, where are you getting your energy from? Brooke Gibbs: The second thing I challenge people to do is making make sure that they a lot the appropriate time and there is balance in their day or balance in their week. However they best want to do it. So it could be okay. There's five days in a work week on Mondays and Thursdays, I'm going to really focus on the business ownership side of things on these other days, I want to do the projects or it could be within, I know some people do it by the day. So I'm going to get up early and from seven to 10, that is my time to focus on the business stuff. And then after that 10 to whatever the end of the day, I'm going to work on the research, the actual thing that my company does. Right? So there definitely is like, it's a lot, but those are the two things I would do think about what gives you energy. And the second thing is a lot the appropriate time to do, to do both. Cause you really that's the name of the game you can want. They both have to be done. Yeah. I have to Matt Artz: Get done. Especially when you have payroll Brooke Gibbs: Exempt, people gotta be paid yes. Matt Artz: And an on and on time, if you can't, then that's not a deadline that you can push. So in there you mentioned, you know, the pipeline, so obviously that's an ongoing need for you, but it's for anybody who wants to start a business, like the first customer is also, you know, getting that first customer in the pipeline is oftentimes very challenging. Keeping it going is maybe equally challenging. But at least getting that first one is sometimes a big hurdle. And so, you know, obviously you've done that and you've kept it going. So any, any thoughts there on what others should maybe consider if they're thinking of starting their own business? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. So mine is kind of a hundred percent based on my experience. So I'm not saying that this is what's going to be the, you know, the, whatever they call it, the bullet, there's a saying whatever the silver bullet. So thank you. I'm like, there's a sign for this, just bullet for everyone. But most of our clients come from referrals slash word of mouth. And so number one, one thing I would say to do is when you either quit your full-time job or transition into your your new, your business, send an email out, send a text out to your friends and family. Cause even if they don't know, it's like my friends, family don't really know about research. They're not going to need me. It's not about them needing you is that they will have a conversation with somebody else. And that person will say, Oh yes, I have been like, I really don't know who my consumer is or I really need to, you know, I'm a start up and I'm trying to find seed money and I need to do a market assessment, right. Brooke Gibbs: Something like, you know, things like that, that come up. Now, that person can be like, Oh actually my niece or my friend or my old colleague. Right. So be intentional. First of all, be intentional about creating a small email or a text that has, that describes what you do and what your business does. And simple language, everyday people language don't use all the jargon everyday people language so that you are you're, you're broadening, broadening your reach. Okay. That's the best. The first thing that helped us, because we had definitely are on a, we've gotten a lot of referrals from our business. The second thing is we also subcontract. And so some of our earlier projects were sub contracting projects from us, partnering with other we'll call it friends in the business, other research agencies, what have you right now? It's about, there's a lot of these like smaller, what we call boutique firms in, in, in people doing things like this is the era of entrepreneurs. Brooke Gibbs: So there's, there's people out there doing it. There's no reason why we all have to be in silos doing it separately. And what have you all ships rise if we can kind of come together. And so the other thing is just think about subcontracting opportunities where it's like, Oh, I know this person is, they have their own research agency or own whatever, you know, business you're trying to get into. I know they have this. I want to just tell them about what I, you know, what I can provide him. And ma if they have work that comes up and they need a certain expertise or they need resource from a, they need, you know, another man, another man or a woman on the job they know about me. And now I can kind of get in the door that way because subcontracting wild, sometimes not as you don't have as much control a and sometimes not get paid as much. You also don't have to do all the like client management. You don't have to do all the work of having to find that client. Right. Like some of that stuff has done for you. And so that's the other piece. Matt Artz: Yeah. Yeah. Good point. You know, now in there you mentioned sort of at the outset of that answer, you mentioned plain language, which is more or less, the second time you brought that up, you brought it up also earlier sort of when, like sort of pitching yourself to customers. And so, you know, related to that might be a topic that frequently comes up is, you know, using theory, you know, to sort of guide our recommendations and to help frame out our insights and whether or not, you know, that theory is sort of made visible to anybody else. So, you know, obviously there's varying arguments maybe around this and there are I would assume that it's very much dependent or at least an experience it's very dependent on who you're talking to. Right. So do you kind of take the same approach, you know plain language when you think maybe the that's all the customer wants or, you know, are you also in the sense of ARTYFACT of trying to bring in the rigor? Are you also trying to sort of demonstrate the theory you're using to frame out your insights? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah, very good question. Because we've morphed over time. So at the bare beginning, when we were forming ARTYFACT, creating our proposition, trying to get our first client or two, right. Trying to get those first one in and doing proposals, I, as an afterthought, as the anthropologist, right on, on as part of ARTYFACT, I was trying to bring in the theory, at least in the, behind the scenes thinking, and also kind of, I was even putting it on a couple of slides, like using that to help justify certain things we were recommending as part of the proposal. Right. And my co-founder was, you know, high-fiving Matt and wanted me to do that. We were both kind of on that page. I will say, practically the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. So I don't know if you've heard that saying before, but like the return on that investment just wasn't there because when you are, they just, some of these businesses in corporate America just transparently, they just don't care. Brooke Gibbs: And it wasn't helping to get, get a client or not get a client. Now some of my academic advisors and teachers would be like, just do it anyway. And you know, but I, this is where it comes back back to business anthropology and applying the parts that work and the things that don't work, or maybe go over people's heads or whatever, you have to really take a step back and evaluate for yourself. Okay. Where do I really need to be a purist here? And where can I just make sure I feel good about what we're doing? But also make sure I'm not putting all this work into, okay, this is the, this is the theoretical perspective we're using hair in helping to just buy this. And they're just, that's going over people's heads. It's not helping me get up, make more money and get a project. Right. So we have definitely morphed over time. So until the point where now I think we're using more high level concepts around within this field and not as much very specific theoretical perspectives, like when I was writing my thesis, you know, and I'm like, okay, this is on organizational behavior. And I'm going to do using these methodologies because it is connected to this theoretical perspective. We're not, I'm not doing that, just transfer, Matt Artz: You know? And I mean, most people, I agree, most people don't care. I mean, I am thinking through those, you know, those lenses to help me sort of make sense of stuff on the backend, but I am rarely making it present to anybody else. You know, if it's a close customer or some of the internal projects, you know, when like we're building our own products at our company I find that there's more opportunity to have those kinds of conversations just cause we, you know, we have a relationship we've known each other for years, you know, we're just sort of talking, it's not like I'm in a, I'm not presenting the deck in, you know, in a very short period of time in front of people who have a short attention span cause they have other things to do. And so so yeah, I mean, I think it all comes down to the who, you know, what the relationship is and even the situation that you're in, but generally no. Matt Artz: You know, and, and related to that, one of the other things that frequently comes up is, you know, the pace of research, right? And so, you know, I think you're you and I are in a position that many anthropologists are like many have gone straight through with an anthropology degree that are then figuring out, well, how can I apply this? They go into business, we were working in business in various fields and decided to go back. And so, you know, where I'm going with this is, is for me to move fast was not shocking at all. Right. It was that wasn't my normal pace. Academia was too long as it was, you know, in many, many ways. Right. And and I assume, you know, given your market research experience at P and G, and maybe you, maybe you felt the same way, but do you you know, for those people who maybe are shocked by the pace at which we move, you know, do you have any thoughts on that of like, why it's worth moving at this pace? Or if you were shocked by that, you know, after doing an academic thesis, like if, if now back at an ARTYFACT you're now sort of shocked that we're doing it so much quicker. He has any observations. There are any thoughts. Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. So with, so yes, first of all, we were, I was also, yes, very used to the pace of things going fast. We're not trying, we can't do end up, I can't stay with a certain group of people in a village for months in and really do in-depth research. That's actually what I want to do. Long-Term like, I actually want to be more of a pure anthropologists longterm. So after the ARTYFACT days go in and kind of almost be like a freelance researcher where I had these passion projects and I'm able to like focus on them for a couple of months on end. Right. But I do think there's a lot. I wanna, yeah. I wanna like give a nod to the fact that there is a lot of value in that. There's a need all of those things. However, the way that I think about it and what I can tell other people is if in any way you can get people to do, to do better research or to be a better researcher or to value and understand the, the lived experience of somebody else a little bit more. Brooke Gibbs: Yes. Okay. May not be all pure and whatever, and we may not be able to spend, but if you can help a client be a better researcher, do better research or better understand the lived experience of somebody else even a little bit, then that's, then that's all worth it. So, okay. Yes. I might be doing all this research. I'm doing, you know, five focus groups in a week. And literally the research period of this project is within these five days versus five weeks or for five months or five years. Right. Okay. Yes. But I gave this client, you know, thinking like we started with a, Hey here's a little bit about how you want to approach this research. We always start there, by the way, we start with what we call a pre-brief. So instead of the opposite of a debrief, a pre-brief before we go into any research, we, we do like a mini training and it's a little bit of like, here's how we want to approach things here, how here's, how we want to talk to people. Here's how we want to show up all those things that like I leveraged from our field anthropology. So I definitely it's like, I'm doing my part, even though it may not be as, as pure. And so that's what I encourage other people to think about it in that way of like making small changes here and there. Matt Artz: Yeah. I hear you. I actually, I say almost the same thing, but I, you know, I'm obviously working in tech, I'm often kind of saying something along the lines of, you know, if we can find, identify like sort of 80% of the problems and improve it, you know, in the next iteration we'll work on sort of the remaining percentage, you know what I mean? Like the projects rarely end after one research engagement. So so yeah, but I also like your idea of, to sort of in the future long-term that is a nice you know, definitely a nice goal to have, because I would agree with you that, you know, it's, that kind of research is great, you know, if you're afforded the ability to do it, but for many of us having to just live the life, we live in business and then, you know, put food on the table, pay other people and that kind of stuff. It's, you know, it doesn't always work out that way, unfortunately, but Brooke Gibbs: I want to say one more quick thing on that. Cause you missed, maybe there is though some there's an instant gratification, a bit that comes with having these shorter, more iterative research spurts and getting to some type of, you know, result or solution that they wouldn't have otherwise have gotten to. So we're getting to a deeper place or a new place than they would have gotten to if maybe they were doing a little bit more traditional research or using traditional thinking. Like I do think that there is something to that as well, where it's like, wow, we, we got to these new product ideas and I don't know that we would have, we would have gotten there otherwise. So there's like this a little bit more of an instant gratification Matt Artz: And what we do. Yeah. And really for both parties. Right. If, I mean, if you like solving problems, it's great as a researcher, but also they get the value of, of getting those sort of insights drift along the way. Think really great. So you know, you, as a business owner, you have a lot of you know, as somebody who studied business anthropology, you have a lot of opportunity to apply what you learned to your own organization. Right. You took I think you were in the design course, right. At UNT. Did you take that one with Christina? Brooke Gibbs: Yes, I did. Sorry. Matt Artz: There's there's all this sort of, so you've touched a couple of different areas just through the academic process and obviously in your work experience covers a number, but so how has all of that also helped you start the business? You know, there's things right. We can apply to not just our customers, but ourselves. So anything interesting that you've learned from that process? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. That's actually, that's a really, that's a really good question. I mean, I think at first of all, just as a researcher, so forget anthropologists, but just as a researcher in general, you end up doing, you use research for your own self. So it's like, yeah, what is, what is, who is my target audience or what is my, who is my customer? Right. I'm asking the same questions. I asked my clients. I do go inward and ask myself, my thesis was on organizational behavior, right? So all about helping organizations make, almost do like a culture shift. So they are operating as one way. And how do we help drive a shift to be operating in this new way and then please, or solidify those new, those new behaviors. I will say that one of the things that while I haven't been able to use it as directly, because we don't have, we, we work with independent contractors right now. Brooke Gibbs: We're not working with like full-time like hires like everyday that I'm interacting with. But one of the things that I am excited about, and I think that one of the things that can be used is what are the types? How do I, how do I want to show up as a company? How do I want my contractors or, or eventually employees to show up? So what culture and environment are me and my founder creating and facilitating and showing right through our actions, behaviors, our language, what are we showing? And then how can we help bring other people into that environment? You know, we're trying to create and show and set that tone. I think that's really important for small businesses. Because at the bare beginning, your company and you are almost synonymous, so it's like, I'm hiring Brooke for this really well you're hiring ARTYFACTs. Right. But as we bring more people on, it's important that they really do feel like they're hiring ARTYFACT, but they're getting the same qualities that they love from Brooke or from my co-founder Melanie. And so that's how we use it or an anticipate using it, which is helping to like hone that cultural environment then from behavior organizational behavior. Cool. Matt Artz: And you know, I heard somebody once say, and sadly, I don't remember who it was at the moment, but like in your case, but ARTYFACT, right. So two co-founders, so you're each sort of like 50% of the culture, but with your first hire and now you're sort of 33%, right. And with each hire, you sort of in Silva sense, right. Each person, I think what they're trying to say with each person, like they are changing it, they're shifting it. And of course, you know, it's helpful to sort of have some values and guiding principles that, that may help keep it on the rails. But you know, also to that end, each hire is really important because they change the culture. And so, you know, even keeping that in mind and how we bring sort of, you know, the understanding of organizational to the hiring practices is interesting. Brooke Gibbs: Absolutely. You know, I don't want to throw anyone under the bus, so hopefully this person won't see this, but I want this to get out broadly back Matt Artz: It's your, your platform go for it. Brooke Gibbs: So even just today, we were, we were talking slash we were interviewing someone essentially a informal interview as to be another independent contractor that we bring on. And I will say that is exactly what you're saying. The, when we got off the phone with this person, me and Melanie, my co-founder, we had a discussion around, wow, this person has, is extremely competent on paper. They have all the things that we would need and maybe even overqualified, maybe in some areas, but we were like those soft skills and those soft things, the personality, the life that really think about me and my personality, right? Like that is, that translates through ARTYFACT and what we, and what we do, we're me and Melanie are personal bull and we, we need to be personable because there's a direct correlation between, Hey, we want to talk to consumers and, and all of that, we, we need to be what we're gonna do in the field. Brooke Gibbs: Right? Like that's how we need to show up. And this person that we talked to just, we just didn't think it would be a good fit from a, from a cultural standpoint, right. A good fit from those soft skills. How are they showing up? Like, this person didn't laugh at all this whole, the whole time we were talking to them. And it was just like, eh, there was a, this a little bit, it was just, this person was very rigid and not kind of free. And that's just not how we work. And so, absolutely. And almost when I think about the ideal in these situations, how does those, how did that, how does that thing work? Well, I always think about Chick-fil-A and people could say what they want to say. I know Chick-fil-A from a political standpoint, there's all kinds of things, but Chick-fil-A no matter where you're at those people are nice. You know what I'm saying? Like he's a little from the 15 year olds that are working there all the way up to the whoever in every single part, in every single geography, they show up the same. So somehow they have found a way that as they bring new people in, they've been able to kind of like indoctrinate them, not in a cult kind of way more than like a, these are guiding principles and they gotten people to drink the Kool-Aid. But once again, not Nicola. Matt Artz: And that's a good example though. And so, you know, to maybe pivot from that a little bit one of the things I want to do here is always, and you've already done this a little bit, but it's sort of help others maybe figure out how to get to this point. And obviously you've provided a lot of great examples, already, very practical examples of about starting a business. But one of the last, you know, you mentioned one of the key things that always comes up here in New York and our meetups and everywhere, every everybody's always asking, this is like, how do you sell your findings? Like, what do you do? And so, you know, the more practical you can be, or the more tangible, more concrete go for it, but I'd love to hear just like how you're doing. And maybe first as a precursor to that, you mentioned like the pre-brief. So are you setting up any of that, you know, in this sort of quote unquote training of the pre-brief of what they should expect? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. Okay. So two questions in one the, the, the pre-brief part was the second part. The first part was, how do we sell Matt Artz: Yeah. Your findings, ultimately your insights even recommendations Brooke Gibbs: Our findings. And when you say sell, I just a clarifying question before I answer you, do you mean how do I ensure that they're received in the right way? Or do you literally mean how do I package this and sell this? Matt Artz: Yeah. So probably certainly how do you communicate it? Right. How, and ideally have learned anything through that process, you know, like, have you tried to do it one way, maybe in the beginning and it wasn't working so well and have you pivoted, and now you're doing something else and what, I guess, what resonates the most with your stakeholders so that they see the value of what you've learned and hopefully then embody that to make a change. Brooke Gibbs: Yep, exactly. So I'll talk about the pre-brief first, and then I'll talk about the other, getting to the findings. Cause the pre-brief happens in the beginning and then the findings are at the end. So I'll do it like in sequential order. So one of the things I mentioned yes, is that we do a what we call a pre-brief. I don't know that other people do that or not, but we, we, that's almost part of the initial. So once we do our, our pitch, our proposal and they say, Hey, yes, we're doing this project. That's in the timeline of like, you know, it could be some people would just simplify that to say a kickoff meeting. But no, when, when we are doing field work, the day before build work starts, we are having a, it could be anywhere from two to four hour mini training, we're talking to them about we're, we're getting them, we're, we're reminding them of who we're going to be talking to and how long or whatever. Brooke Gibbs: Right. There's some logistics, but there's literally like a training portion. And I think that has come, you know, there might be hesitation when they're like, pre-brief, I don't really know what that is. Is there a need for that or whatever, but universally, once it's done, people are laughing and joking. They're having a great time. Like it also serves to create a rapport with you and the client before you're going into the field, making sure we're all on the same page, making sure you don't have a crazy person, the marketing person, ain't going to go rogue and start talking about whatever. Like it gets everybody on the same page. We all, we always have, like, we'll make it sometimes a happy hour. Right? We want to, we want to set the tone so we can have beer and wine there, a charcuterie board, right? Like we're really setting the stage and we're making this appetizing, right. Brooke Gibbs: That's part of it, but it differentiates us. So we give them little goody bags of the, for the field work. So it's like, here's some tools that you're going to need for the field. Right? All those things are creating some differentiation for ARTYFACT, but at the same time it's needed. And so we need to we're packaging up something that's needed in a way that's fun and entertaining, et cetera, fast forward, the things that have been helpful on the backend, like, okay, sharing our results or people find value, or what have you. We have started to do two things that we weren't necessarily always doing. We sometimes were stopping our project in terms of the proposal we were stopping it at, we've done the field work. We've gotten the we synthesize the data, figured out what the meaning is. We've gotten to themes. And then we are going to share that back out, right with the team and that sort of thing. Brooke Gibbs: Sometimes things stopped at that presentation where we've noticed clients find value. Additional value is in having a workshop after that, that workshop enables them. We'll share, we'll share the findings as the kickoff to that workshop. So the findings from the field work, but then we also been literally start creating. So we are immediately actioning what we learned from the field. And now we are really coming across as partners, right. To these clients. And like, Hey, we're not letting you, we're not just throwing you off to the wind. We're going to help guide you through this almost creation process for whatever they're trying to, whatever they're trying to get to the second thing. We have, I was going to talk about three things. Actually. I forget the second one, right. This moment it'll come back to me. But the other thing we're trying to do in general, and don't still, people do not steal our idea. Speaker 3: Yeah. Brooke Gibbs: But projects are very big and detailed, right? There's a lot of different aspects of one project. So I am mining existing data. I'm creating the discussion guide. I'm actually doing the field work. I'm doing the analysis I'm creating. Oh, I just thought about my second thing. That's good. I'm creating I'm doing the analysis. I'm creating a deck and then I'm sharing that out and then maybe I'm doing a workshop. Right. Well, we've started to think about is how do we sell individual pieces instead of selling the whole for certain clients? So for the bigger ones, yeah. They need the whole project. And they have that. We've noticed that from other clients, this is the part I'm not going to share because it's proprietary. I don't want people still on my idea, but there's a certain target audience that would benefit from just the pieces Speaker 3: Being sold to them. So they just need Brooke Gibbs: A discussion guide. Right. They can talk to the people themselves. They just don't know what questions to ask and how to ask them. Or they just need someone to actually tell them how to find people. Like there's, there's, there's easy ways. There's backdoor, ways of recruiting that isn't like formally recruiting. Like you can talk to people around you and in your network that bit, some criteria. Right? So those are the, we're trying to break down into brittle pieces. The third thing that we sell, sorry. Cause I remember, I, I, I remembered it was people call it like storytelling or bringing insights to life. Right? You hear all this like business darken, but essentially we have found a lot of success with we, you know, we always video record our, and so package we'll use, literally use I movie and start to splice together snippets from, you know, the, the field work together to select the consumer, tell the story. So almost we don't have to talk at all the, you know, well, if we find the themes ahead of time, and then we find these clips and we put them together and then it happens, it's almost like a video reel. The consumers are telling that story for us. And we have found that that has created a lot about you now. Caveat, that's a lot of work sometimes. So maybe, maybe that's outsourced, but it's value added for sure. Matt Artz: Yeah. No, very cool idea to hear it in their own words is that I'm sure. Very powerful for your, for your stakeholders. Yeah. Great. And so, yeah, that was real practical. Thanks. And then I guess, you know, some, maybe the last questions I have along the same theme of sort of sharing with everybody else now, do you have maybe any thoughts because we kind of went the opposite way, right? We were in business, went back. So do you have any thoughts on whether people should go straight through to get maybe an anthropology degree or any thoughts on your experience of having worked first and then going back, you know, anything you learned there? Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. I'm very biased. And so I'm just putting it out that, and I tell people, not just people who are aspiring to be, you know, anthropologists are getting their masters in that RPAC. I say that for any field in any industry, I think there is something to pausing, getting real world work experience and then going back and getting whatever it is, your MBA or, you know, your master's in anthropology, your master's in whatever it might be. Here's why once again, I'm biased. So I just have the caveat that, but I will say that in my program and you probably feel the same way, Matt, like all these, this, you got to do discussion boards, you have to like write these papers. You have to do all this stuff. And I had so much more to draw from because I had real world work professional experiences. Brooke Gibbs: And so therefore it made my educational journey. I could, I could hone it in more and fine tune it more. Cause it's like, okay, what gaps do I have? What do I already know? And so it's like I could morph it in that way. The second thing is the reason why is I believe that when you have real-world work experience, when you decide to go get your masters, it's more it's or master's or PhD, whatever, it doesn't matter. You, you you have a better sense of what you're going for. And you know, you usually, you're more intentional about saying this is exactly what I'm trying to get, the kind of degree I'm getting and why and how I'm going to use it. Sometimes when you go straight through you think your 22 year old self thinks they know what they want to do, but it's not until you sometimes get that work experience. And you're like, dang, I don't even like this. I like to do it. And you may not. And so now I'm starting, I'm got my master's in this thing. And I went through and I'm like, I don't even want to do this anymore. So that's the other thing that having, getting work experience enables. Matt Artz: Yeah. And I can, yeah, I can actually share two two real-world examples that backup your two points. So my case, I got my MBA, right. I went straight through and there wasn't much I could contribute to the program. There wasn't much I could bring in, in terms of outside examples. When I went back to the anthropology program, I felt that I had many more to bring, but also I got my MBA in finance and I realized I didn't want to work in finance. I mean, I kind of did it cause you like, you know, you need to understand basic finance, but I definitely realized that in the process of that MBA, that I did not want to work full time in finance. Right. And so, yeah, I I'm on your side of the argument. Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. But just cause, you know, we gotta be well-rounded for people who have not have to, but choose to do that first. There's some practical reasons why people choose to do that. Like, Oh, I can tack it on. And it's a three-year instead of four years, or I don't know, do you can save some time and, or save money, do what you do. It's just that if, if those things aren't a factor, you know, really think about taking a moment pausing and going to work. Matt Artz: Yeah. That's great feedback. And so maybe the last question on that theme here is, you know, I, you know, in tech we oftentimes we will want, you would recommend to somebody that they show up with a portfolio because we're, you know, we're doing research building products and it sort of naturally lends itself. And it's kind of sort of expected, not, not saying every company expects a portfolio, but it's common. I'm not sure if it's common in the market research world. Like if somebody was going to work in a corporation. And so maybe this is relevant, maybe it's not, but I guess what would you recommend people to do to sort of position themselves, to apply for jobs? Even if, if they're not saying they're going to start their own company, but if they want to apply for a role you know, we had at UNT, we had our applied projects, which can kind of lend themselves to that. If you pick the right project, you know, if you pick something that aligns with your goals, but for maybe people who aren't don't have that opportunity to have an applied project, any thoughts on like what somebody could do if they're in school now, or even recently graduated sort of stuck to align themselves to apply to some kind of market research role. Brooke Gibbs: Yeah. So there are people everywhere looking for help. And so if you're currently in the, in a program, right, and you want to position your S you you're you're not yet about to graduate, but you're trying to, you're thinking ahead and you're trying to position yourself. Well, I say like put yourself out there on LinkedIn, like any networking site, what have you put that at the top? Like, I've seen people very specifically put up like seeking some type of position and you could say internship, what have you like something where it's implied that you're not looking for anything full-time or whatever, but you're just trying to get experienced, like the more experience, the better, the other thing, I don't know, I was like really a lot of what's that word called? I got a lot of knowledge from reading and from going to like conferences and just being known. Brooke Gibbs: Right. So it's like, would they say, when you're trying to find a job, like it's not about it's as much who, you know, was whatever they say. I'm like forgetting all these cliches and sayings today, but if you, but definitely I encourage people to, to re literature, get to know the authors. These are regular people, like email authors, right? Like get, expand your network. Like maybe they have advice, but then also go to conferences, make your name and face known in this world. Because what I always want to talk about these, I was, I had some advice for people, some additional advice I haven't said, but what I've learned is that all this stuff, this is a small world like this anthropology feel. And especially if you're an applied anthropologist, it is a very small world and things definitely come full circle. And so connections now, you don't know like how they may show up later. So the more that you can just be a familiar face and or name it for sure will help you. I have numerous examples of that, that it makes no sense. Like I was like, I just got, so can I, can I give to my own horn for a second? Okay. I just got an award last Friday. Brooke Gibbs: Thank you. I actually got the award from UNT and it was alumni making a difference award. Right. And so I was selected for this. And then I, they want me to give this speech at this at one of the, some applied anthropology expo that's upcoming in March. And also it came with like a monetary reward when I got it. I was like, Oh, I didn't even know I was on people's radar. And I'm exaggerating a bit like I, you know, I like back in October, I lectured, I, I did like a little talk for one of the anthropology at UNT. And then over the year, since we've graduated, I've done things here and there. But I also stay top of mind because like I use the alumni, like we have, you know, we had like a little listserv. And so I use that to like, try to find people or reach back out. Brooke Gibbs: And so that's just a little tidbit of people are like, Oh, she, Oh, she's looking for somebody for XYZ. Oh, she has this company. Like, it is kind of keeps me top of mind. I also went to kind of cop. I also went to conferences early on, even while still at P and G. And so that just kept me top of mind. And I feel like that is for sure, going to help you later, as you're trying to find that job, people will be like, once people know, cause I'm actually looking for someone right now on anthropologists who fits our cultural attitudes, behaviors. And so if I had other people, the person I did talk to was a person that was top of mind for me. But if I had some more of those people, you know, that were top of mine, I would very quickly be like, Oh yeah, I would hit them up versus them trying to, trying to find me. Matt Artz: Yeah. Cool. Well, if there's somebody you want me to post, when I do release this, you know, like if there's a link to any kind of chop posting, just let me know. So that's great. And did you say, well, congratulations again, that's really wonderful. That's really cool to hear. Did you, have you mentioned that you had some other advice that you read that you didn't mention, you want to share that? Brooke Gibbs: So one thing so more, so this will probably end up just being like a summary sense. I think I probably threw out this hour talk. I've mentioned splattering, some things here and there. Number one, I would say Ari said like people, the word anthropology right now is sexy and it's probably been sexy for the last few years. And so use that as a tool, use that to your advantage and don't use it as like a, Oh, people don't know what I'm doing and you know, people don't understand anthropology. No, like never let that be in your head. It's always a tool. Number one, the second one is to use your, this is really the story I was saying. Really use your alumni network, make sure you're keeping in touch with what your teachers, your, your, your old professors or whatever, whoever your committee chair was like, make sure they know what you are, what you're doing. Brooke Gibbs: If you're a current student. And if you've already been in this world, reach back out now, you know what I mean? Like make sure you make sure you are keeping a strong connection because you invested in this place. Right? I mean, then you got something from it, but there's ongoing opportunities. Like they want alumni to do things. So and they want to uplift, you know, it looks good for them. If their alumni are out here in the world doing great things. And so they're going to try to promote you in whatever way that they can. And so make, you're continuing, continuing to keep strong connections with those, those, the, the, the program and the actual professors. And then the third thing, and I kind of do this. Sometimes it just kind of falls in my lap. And then sometimes I do this proactively. So are you, I use LinkedIn as a way to, there's not a gazillion anthropologists in the world. Brooke Gibbs: So sometimes what I do is do a search. So I'll be like anthropology, Atlanta, right? So it's like someone who's put there because I'm in Atlanta, by the way for the audience. And so some people, you know, they'll put their location down, obviously wherever their hometown is, but then somewhere in the their description, they'll use that word anthropology. And so it'll come up and I'll be like, Oh, there's this anthropologist here in Atlanta. And so I've, I've literally done physical things where I'm like met up in person with people that I hadn't I've literally just met him on LinkedIn, met up for coffee with them. And we like shared war stories. And, you know, sometimes in the moment nothing comes from that. And then other times that has happened, we didn't meet up in person. We only like had conversation over the phone, but that has led to multiple projects because they were like, Oh, this one particular person, she was like, actually, this is so timely. I'm getting away from freelance and consulting and moving into a full-time position. And so all my old clients need someone I'm going to just refer them to you. That's okay. That's opportunistic. Right. And so that's the third thing of like, reach out at the anthropology community is kind, we're good people, you know I think there's a certain personality trait that actually makes you want to be in this field, use that to your advantage. And cause people want to help out one another. Matt Artz: Yeah. Yeah. Beautifully said that's great. And you know, also you mentioned like conferences and things. I would also throw out and I know you and I talked about this little in New York, but meetups, right. It doesn't have to be like academic conferences, but just local meetups. There's a ton of opportunity. Brooke Gibbs: Absolutely. And I have a bias because I love meetup.com. So plug for that plug for meetup, even though I'm not getting any type of check, but I absolutely agree. In fact there's with, COVID the, one of the positive things about COVID is now that everything has become virtual, it has enabled meetups that were in one location to be way more assessable. So even Matt, you know, the meetup that you do remember when we, we talked about when we were in New York together 14 months ago or whatever it was, it was very much so like yeah. So if you happen to be in New York at the next meetup, like let me know, you know, and I was like, yeah, let's do it. Right. And then maybe like the next month COVID hit. But then I was able last month to actually join your meetup because you had it virtually. And that was like, that kind of made my day. I was like super energized after like being on this, on the zoom with all these kind of like-minded people, but in the best, best way. Right. So absolutely thumbs up to meet up. Matt Artz: Yeah. Great. And well, for your knowledge, you know, we'll be having another one. I think it should be probably the end of March. So I'll let you know all that will be posted on meetup as well, so. Cool, great. Well that was all wonderful stuff. Thanks for sharing all that. I guess the last things is, you know, do you want to plug anything? Do you want to let people know where they can find you? Anything you want is fair game? Brooke Gibbs: Absolutely. So this is my time. It's like at the end of hot ones, when have you guys, there's a show on Brooke Gibbs: I know, I know I'm all, this is how my brain works. It's a show on YouTube and they do all this question enhancer. And then at the end, they are, they're able to plug their stuff. So you guys know that I own the company ARTYFACT. And so our website is ARTYFACT co.com. So let me spell that for you. It's artyfactco.com. And so that's where you can go and find out more about us also at the bottom of that, of the the landing page is an area where you can fill out your information if you want to, if you have a project idea and want to know more about how we can partner and help, we're also on Instagram and it's the same thing, ARTYFACT co so is our handle. And so you can find us there. Brooke Gibbs: I would say in general, we, no project is too big or small. What we would, what we always do is find the right solution for you, right? So if you have something where it's just as a part of a project, or you have a whole large project, we're going to find the right solution for you. And we are very hands-on and we want to partner with you. So we want to take the load off that's the whole entire point of what we do as well. So that is that nothing else right now to plug, except for look out for me. My name is Brooklyn is award-winning anthropologist, founder of ARTYFACT. Matt Artz: Congratulations. Again, it's good to see you again. We it's nice to sync up once in awhile. You know, ever since that first time we went to the rodeo in Fort worth, Brooke Gibbs: That wasn't the best modifier, but what's funny is I actually remember the, our dinner before the rodeo. Right. I think we had like, was it like the beers with the margarita? Like in it, you remember? Matt Artz: Yeah. I don't remember what it's called, but yeah, that was funny. Brooke Gibbs: It was amazing. And then yes, I rodeo very fitting for us to be in Texas. Yeah. Matt Artz: Well, Brooke, thanks very much. It was great talking to you. Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors.

Robert Morais on Anthropology in Business with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 01:38:13 +0000

In this episode of Anthropology in Business, Robert Morais speaks with Matt Artz about his career as a business anthropologist in advertising and marketing and the work he is doing to advance anthropology in business.

Who Is Robert J. Morais?

Robert J. Morais is a business anthropologist with experience in advertising and market research, and a Lecturer in the Marketing Division at Columbia Business School. He is currently focused on advancing the application of anthropology in business through writing, teaching, and mentoring, and educating business students on the value of qualitative research. Morais began his career at Grey Advertising and spent 25 years with advertising agencies, rising to Chief Strategic Officer. He then served for 11 years as a Principal and co-owner of market research firm Weinman Schnee Morais. He has worked with Procter & Gamble, GlaxoSmithKline, WD-40, Coca-Cola, Post Foods, Danone, Hain Celestial, Safeway, Sabra, Pinnacle Foods, Star-Kist, Prestige Brands, Johnson & Johnson, Bayer, Dentsply Sirona, Wyeth (now Pfizer), Boehringer-Ingelheim, Hill’s Pet Nutrition, Freshpet, Benjamin Moore, and the Fairmont, Raffles, and Swissôtel hotel group, among many other corporations. His publications include five books and 50+ articles and book chapters. His books are: The Language of Branding: Theory, Strategies, and Tactics (co-author); Ethics in the Anthropology of Business: Explorations in Theory, Practice, and Pedagogy (co-editor); Advertising and Anthropology: Ethnographic Practice and Cultural Perspectives, (co-author); Refocusing Focus Groups: A Practical Guide (author); and Social Relations in a Philippine Town (author). His research articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in Forbes, Huffington Post, Advertising Age, Medium, American Anthropologist, Human Organization, Culture and Organization, Journal of Business Anthropology, and Philippine Studies, among others.

Watch the Video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwBCnFn-qmE

Episode Transcript

Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors. Matt Artz: All right. Well, thanks everybody for joining. This is Matt Artz of the Anthropology in Business video podcast, and I'm here today with Bob Morais. First let me say, thank you for joining me. I'm really pleased to have you because of, of all the people in the business anthropology community, you know, you're, you're one of those top ones that are really trying to build the brand of anthropology and really help all of us sort of a younger anthropologists succeed. So thanks for that first off. And so you're, you're a great guest to have on really for not only for myself to talk with, but for really all the listeners, you know, you have really impressive background that probably hardly needs an introduction, but, you know, you identify as a business anthropologist, you had 25 years in advertising ending with your chief strategic officer position, 11 years as a principal and co-owner of a market research firm, five books under your belt, 50 plus articles and chapters. You know, some of those being for Forbes, Huffington post, and really highly visible content that has made a big impact, especially that Forbes piece a year or so ago. And I think maybe more recently the business anthro.com website and community. And so, you know, really, it's a, it's a pleasure to have you here. And I think, you know, everything we talk about today will be a great value for all the listeners. Matt Artz: So can you, I know I gave a brief introduction there, but would you mind sort of telling everybody just I know there's a lot to say, but maybe an overview of sort of your education and career history. Bob Morais: Sure. I'll give you the hopefully these three minutes or five minute version. I was an undergraduate major in anthropology. Went to graduate school with a focus on psychological and cognitive anthropology. My dissertation field work was. New Speaker: In the rural Philippines and I thought I'd be an academic anthropologist. Looked at the job market. I, a PhD was completed in 1988. The job market by then was pretty weak, but I also got wind of a program in NYU's graduate school of business, even before it was called the stern school of business. That refitted PhDs in the humanities and social sciences to business to essentially become business people one way or another, and the one way or another tended to exclude their actual subject matter. So the focus of this program was not to say, take somebody with a PhD in anthropology and have that person apply anthropology and business. Bob Morais: It would to take a PhD who had certain analytical skills some, some basic abilities in terms of writing and speaking and so on to function in the business environment. So it was like a mini MBA was a two month program. And I took that program. And then decided along the way that I was interested in marketing and specifically the advertising industry, particularly advertising, it was about human beings, hearts and minds. And I was interested in learning about them as an anthropologist. And I thought, Oh, I can do this as an advertising professional too. The only difference it'll be will be is that it's in the interest of a commercial hand as opposed through academic anthropology. And I was fortunate because I got a job right after the program ended at gray advertising. And I started out in account management, which is a sort of like a general manager position in advertising that was very junior. Bob Morais: So I wasn't actually general manager in that formal sense, but you're, you're managing a bit of strategy, creative media really every component of the, of the advertising business. And then you're interacting with the clients and account planning had been available at that point in 1981, early 1981. I I probably would have done that account planning is really focused strategic side of advertising. And it had started in the UK in the sixties, but it didn't really reach the United States until the mid 1980s. And so I, this was 1981, so I started doing account management. And so now I'm going to make this story a lot shorter because after doing that for a number of years I thought, you know, there's another aspect of advertising that I'm interested in that is now emerged, hold account planning. And I moved into that. I focused much more on strategy and about halfway my halfway through my overall career probably about two thirds of the way through my advertising career. Bob Morais: I switched to account planning while I still had to do some account management jobs because of the nature of the businesses I was involved in. And so I focus more on strategy and I was also incorporating anthropology by that time, there was feed Barnett had written about advertising and anthropology basically in 1980s in the 1980s. And I got wind of what he was doing. And you may have heard of him, some of your listeners may have heard of him. He was really a pioneer in applying anthropology in advertising and the marketing, but I didn't want to do that back then. I wanted a good job and I wanted to keep it. But by the early by late night, I think it was 89 90. I started working, integrating ethnography and a little bit to some of the projects I was doing. And that started to increase a little more. Bob Morais: I always had a kind of anthropological sensibility when we were doing market research of any kind, particularly focus groups, but I was now integrating some ethnography. And then that increased. So I was doing now, I was doing ethnography is I was doing more research firsthand and then as well, and then some friends of mine at a small market research firm was the 12, 15 people. And one of the two principals was retiring and I've known him for many years. I've worked with them and they asked me if I was interested in joining the firm. At first I said, no. And then we went out to dinner and I convinced me that it would probably be a great idea because anthropology was something they needed and was booming. They were PhDs in psychology. And most of the people in the company had PhDs in psychology. Bob Morais: There was one archeologist. He still had the company still exist. It's Wyman Shanae mores. So she's the one who retired company, kept his name in the middle. And then my name came at the end. And so I went there and I was there for 11 years as a partner, one of two active partners with Cynthia Weinman and our staff. But as I said, mostly it's psychologist and people generally experienced, very experienced in market research. A lot of what we do is qualitative. I'd say about half of them or half of our work was quality. The other half is Quan. We were involved in a lot of client consulting on strategy. My advertising background helped with that. And then I was doing more and more anthropology and more explicitly. I mean, it wasn't until I joined that market research firm that I quit PhD after my name on my business card. Bob Morais: Before that the 25 years in advertising people knew that I had an anthropology background and they knew that I apply it sometimes. But they didn't, it wasn't my primary job function and it wasn't my primary job function. It was an important job function when I was in the market research firm, but we did all kinds of market research. So I, I didn't, I didn't if somebody called and said they wanted to do ethnography, maybe we do that. But maybe I would say, that's really not what you need. What you really need is a, is a contract or they said, we want to do focus groups. And then I might say, well, maybe you did ethnography. But when we, we worked with a lot of clients longterm, so we were doing a lot of different types of research for them. Bob Morais: One on the way starting in I guess, mid, early part of the two thousands. I started getting back into academic writing. I had done some based on my original research and some other work back in late seventies, early eighties, and then put that aside and started writing academic articles and getting involved in books and so on and have been doing that for about 15 years. So engaging in the emerging business anthropology field was a big part of what I did. And I also started teaching first at the Columbia school of professional studies, but then I realized that I would be happy at the business school and I knew stumble. And then he got me in. And so I've been teaching now for several years and that's been a great experience and that's become a big part of what I do now, because I retired from my regular business job in 2017. And now not to take any commercial projects having but I've been involved not only in teaching, but I've written some chases and I've gotten involved with some other things and some other things in the, in the business school department and after leaving gratifying. So that's where I am now. I just finished my fall course, which is I don't, I teach one course I co-teach every year. And then there's some other courses and other guest spots that I do throughout the year. Matt Artz: Okay, great. Yeah. Well, thanks for that. You know, there's a lot to unpack in there. One of the first things that I think is interesting is, you know, the, the business program that you, the academic program that you went into for sort of the mini MBA, I mean, in many ways, you're lucky, right. To have that experience, to have found that, because it seems like, you know, from our own conversations like offline of this, there are many people who are sort of just, you know, maybe falling into sort of applying anthropology and business sort of discovering it, you know, maybe after they've graduated, but a PhD or an ma or whatever it may be. Whereas, you know, you, you were really sort of quite lucky to have had that. Pop-Up when it did, but the, but since most people don't have that you know, do you think, I mean, I know you're teaching anthropology within the context of, of an academic program, but you know, what, what might others sort of be thinking of right now, you know, in terms of preparing themselves to maybe go in a similar path that you did Bob Morais: Well in a way it's a very hard question, because if people have said to me, should I get a PhD in anthropology, or should I get a PhD in business stand for apology? Well, there aren't a whole lot of business PhD programs in business anthropology. I'm not sure Wayne state is even active at this point. Because Alan Berto who really founded that program has retired and they may offer it still, there are a lot of masters degrees, like at UNT where you went and I shouldn't say a lot, there were a few master's degrees in business anthropology. And, but I would recommend anyone who is interested in working in the area should seriously consider getting a master's degree in business anthropology, because you do pick up, I know at UNT, for example, you get you know, you learn a lot about methodology. Bob Morais: You're taught by apologists. You know, it's a good program. I just wish there were more of them. Of course you can take as an undergraduate, you can take a little bit of business and a little bit of anthropology. Clemson has a certificate program. University of Pennsylvania has a program that is the organizational culture. There are a couple out there that are more certificate oriented and there's been some discussion about maybe some others. As far as formal credentials go though, I think an undergraduate degree in anthropology, but also if you're interested, for example, in, during consumer marketing, take a marketing course, take on managerial statistics course. If you're interested in organizational culture, you should check a course in the business school in that, as well as whatever you can learn, if you can, and your anthropology department about the cultural organization. Bob Morais: And so crossing over is really important. So that's, that's what I would recommend. I think, you know, if you're already in a PhD program in traditional anthropology and there's a business school at your university and you're interested in working in business, it would be good idea to get a little bit of a taste of it. I was very fortunate in that I had some training, of course you learn a lot on the job too, but it does help, I think, to make the case to say, well, I've taken not here. I have this degree in anthropology, but I also, I also have taken some business, which it shows the our commitment among other things. Matt Artz: Yeah, no great, great recommendations. And so, you know, back to your, your journey you, you sort of said how you left the PhD off your business card, you know, during your advertising role and you were using ethnography, but you weren't sort of explicitly maybe identifying as an anthropologist and sort of quote unquote, like doing anthropology, but at, at some point we, at least as you started bringing in ethnography, how did you go about pitching that, you know, maybe first, internally, but also to clients and how did you get buy-in to sort of start bringing that methodology into, into the brand? Bob Morais: Well, you know, it was interesting in that account planning was a call at the time it was introduced in the United States, one of the greatest new business tricks ever because it was a way of separating strategy. There was a lot of theatrical to it. It was a combination of research and a little marketing acumen certainly advertising strategic planning. And if you could bring in a fresh methodology, which at the time I was initially doing it was still pretty fresh up. A lot of people using ethnography now it added a little pizazz to the whole process. So it was a relatively easy sell when I was working at an ad agency to convince management. In some cases I was management to invest in doing some ethnography where we convince my clients to spend the money on it. But of course that's just being performed before performance. Bob Morais: There there's a much more substantive side of it, which is of course that I would tell my clients, you know, and they would know they don't have all the asterisks. They don't seem to be getting them from focus groups or from surveys or from the other, you know, wanting to get the one-on-one interviews that you're doing. It's just something that they're not they feel like they're not going far enough. They're not going deep enough. And so I would say, well, why don't we do this? Or, you know, I would apply anthropological thinking and focus groups or in depth interviews, or even sometimes I'm thinking about surveys, like bringing out a kind of anthropological spin, but doing ethnography. It very often had to do with the need to learn what we had not learned previously and just seemed to be missing. Bob Morais: And we didn't know what we're missing. And we thought ethnography is an exploratory sort of discovery technique would be worthwhile, but that's a little bit of efficient expedition. Sometimes we would use ethnography to understand product use and context. So you want to understand how people use the salad dressing or how they go shopping for baby food or how they use an industrial lubricant or why they're not using a type of industrial lubricant, why they're choosing competition. And it's a really good idea to go to the field to see that because if we know from surveys and focus groups and other interviews or, or methodologies, but at time people are reporting what they want to report, what they remember you know, you're not, you're not seeing. So you know, it's, it's like the difference between believing what people tell you and believing with your own eyes. And without biography, you can hear what they tell you, and then you can see with your own eyes. And that's a real plus, Matt Artz: You know, as you first started doing that, especially since the firm wasn't really doing that kind of work before, what kind of challenges did you have, you know, for, I'm asking you to sort of in context of anybody who's maybe moving into this role and they're sort of trying to make sense of how they apply, you know, academic anthropology and the business sense. So like, you know, what, what kind of challenges did you face as a young anthropologist? Bob Morais: Well, first of all, I wasn't that young at the time, and that was an advantage in the sense that, like I learned enough about business and how it worked to learn the language and the customs of people in business. And so I knew how to sell an idea and that's important. You know, if you don't, if you don't have that context, if you don't know enough about business, it can be very hard because you don't know your audience very well. And I think it's important for anthropologists to look at, and I'm not the first person to say this. But to look at the businesses they're working with, whether it's the one they're working for, or the clients, or any other enterprises as a, you know, tribal societies, there's small scale societies, they've gotta learn their customs, they gotta learn their language. And and that's how you can get into their heads and figure out what might be acceptable to them. Bob Morais: That's sort of a guiding principle. The other side of it would be the specific project. And what I would do is I would going back to what I said before, is that for a specific project need, I would I would say, you know, we've asked the question we have, we have, we have tried to discover why people aren't using your brand as much as you'd like them to use, and we're still not getting to where we need to go. And so this could really be a worthwhile way to get there. And and they would very often be convinced. The other thing that I've told people, this is the advice that I give to young people is that it's a really good idea to either have a case that you've worked on or to read about occasions that the journal of business anthropology or in the Epic perspectives collection and or anything on Epic that you could go to Epic and, and the Epic website. Bob Morais: And you can you could post that you can post the Matt. Maybe you can post the general business anthropology journal link. There are lots of great case studies and you can pick the one or two, whether you're in tech or whether you're in consumer products, your organizational culture. And of course you don't want to just have people read the article because a lot of those, even on Epic, that can be a little academic. The Epic ones are a little more consumer friendly than a lot of the academic journal articles, but you can synthesize them. And you can say if you haven't done it yourself, if you're working in a particular category, you can say, well, this method would, you would use in this category, let's say consumer packaged goods. And here's what they learned. And here's how they applied it and a strategy. And it really had a great effect in the marketplace. That's how I teach MBA students. That's sometimes how I would convince clients. Usually I could do it with a story based on my own experience when I had clients with students. Sometimes I talk about my own work with, sometimes I talk about published work, and I think that's, that's the advice I would give someone if they're having a hard time you know, to really illustrate concretely if you're too vague, people will just say, this is just too expensive and too time consuming. Matt Artz: And that's great. I think yeah, it was one of the things that comes up often when we speak. So I think that's a very concrete way of giving, pointing somebody in the right direction. Now, you know, in there, obviously we contribute to research, but you know, you, you ended up in your advertising portion of your career in the chief strategic position. And I know you feel that anthropology can contribute to, you know, far more than just conducting the research and producing the sort of insights. So what else do you think, you know, from your own perspective, what did you think your contribution was at the time and you know, how, when you were in the strategy position, how does that maybe relate to something like business strategy? Bob Morais: Well, as I said, I had an advantage because I I've worked in business who was able to bring methods and areas from anthropology in a business context. I wasn't just trying to shove it. If we're talking about a specific research role, vis-a-vis a strategy role. My main role was strategy and, and the research was in the service of strategy. And so I would need to select the methodology that best suited the learning need and then apply that to ultimately a strategic discussion and the codification of everything I learned into a strategy and in the handbook of anthropology and business that Rita Denny and Patti Sunderland, did I have an article that speaks very directly to your question because it has to do with the how does an anthropologist or someone with anthropological training insert himself or herself into the strategic planning process and the way of doing that is to fully understand the business problem and, and to, to lay out the research in a way that responds to the learning need, that would address that business problem. Bob Morais: And there's actually a really good article that I use in teaching called backward marketing research, where you think in of where you want to go, you don't know what the answer is in Europe. The solution is, but you go back to the kind of research that's needed to answer those questions. It seems very simple, but a lot of people don't think that way. But in any case the idea would be to have some hypotheses, some thoughts about what you might see in the field partner with your client, always keep your clients as a thinking partner, bring your client to the field, have them, you know, what I always loved was it say if I was doing ethnographies in the morning and the afternoon, say three hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, you know, one, one, one house, the home visit and a shop along in the morning. Bob Morais: And then the same thing in the afternoon, that was a frequent pattern. Not always there'd be an hour and a half break in the middle, and the hour break was out to get lost from one ethnography to the other. You always have to, without the time, even if you have GPS but also to meet with the client over lunch and talk about what you've seen and heard and talk about the implications that are both strategically and tactically. And that's how you integrate yourself into the planning process as an anthropologist. So rather than what you're doing, be a handoff, you know, here's the research, here's the report, you know, you present it in your PowerPoint. You're done. Thank you very much onto the next one. There's more of a sustained involvement in the field, just brainstorming. And then once when the report is being written, communicating with your client again, in a partnership, a kind of co-creation of where you're going strategically start there on board when you're presenting to the larger group, whether it's at a workshop to come up with more ideas or to management to talk about the future planning process. Bob Morais: So for me, a lot of it was understanding the business, understanding how to write a strategy and knowing that I knew what part the research would play in the strategy when finally was delivered and all the way through partnering with the client. And knowing that the research was that in the service of what needed was the strategic blueprint, really, because the blueprint is what, whether, if it's advertising it's for creative team, it's for promotion and for promotional team, if it's for a brand innovation, in terms of a new product development or line extensions of a product it might go to R and D all of these things needed to be ultimately transfer. They, they, they needed to be not really so much translated but transformed in ways that were palatable to these other constituencies. And you as an anthropologist need to know how to do that. And the more you can stay involved as a partner, the better. Matt Artz: Yeah. It's yeah, it's something I was going to bring up here in a bit, but just to maybe dive into that. So, you know, in terms of selling it to the various stakeholders, you know, after you have your sort of insights, obviously like, you know, going to lunch and building a rapport with your, your project sponsors is sort of critical to getting that buy-in then, like you said, it's got to go onto other teams oftentimes, and, you know, if you're not involved in that, it can certainly get watered down. And even over time, even if you're involved up front over time, it could maybe get watered down and, you know, there's always organizational memory problems. So did you find there is any way to, to codify that work or to transform it, to use your words there, like, you know, in a, in a particular format that worked best to hand it off, was there, you know, not just giving out a deck, but was there anything particular that you did to shop it around that you found, worked really well to get people to, to really embody the findings? Bob Morais: Well, there are a couple of ways. One of them is that in, in market research, it depends on your client terms of what your ultimate report will look like. You know, some, some of my clients would say, we want, you know, just the facts or we just want the we've just want the basic report. We don't even want you to make recommendations, but those were usually weren't long-term clients. And they weren't even clients. I really like working with pretty much what I wanted, as I said, was a partner. And they would want the report to you'd have your findings, and then you'd have your insights would be, which would be a leap from, you know, the, the core of what you found in the field or from wherever you might've found it. So I just wouldn't only apply to something that was ethnographic. Bob Morais: And then there would be a very clear section of insights that could be drawn from the findings. So you'd take your client along in that way. And they would ideally have an epiphany, the same epiphany that you had when you were first, considering the findings, maybe you had the epiphany in our field and you wanted to transmit that excitement to them in the presentation where if you're giving it in their presence or even just the written report, but insight section is really important. And then of course the recommendations flowing out of that. So that's one thing and that's pretty basic. And, but I think something that really I found worked really well for certain clients was to add a little more color to it. So for example, I have an article that just came out in the journal of business anthropology pet food product. Bob Morais: That project that I did was actually the last big project I did before I retired. And and so it was on a fresh path and I, it was a very unusual project because my company was hired to do two components of qualitative research. So it was kind of a mixed methodology, but we didn't mix it all the way through. We only mixed it at the end. And that's part of the point of the article. So the client who was an insight director, who we had known from work, we'd done with her many over many years at pro foods, cereal company had now moved to fresh pet as the insight director there. And she asked us to here's my partner, Cynthia, to spearhead the focus group portion of it and put her psychological spin on it. And for me to spearhead the ethnographic side of it and put my anthropological spin on and in an unusual way for us is that she wanted us to sequester ourselves from each phase of the research until eventually our joint report would be created. Bob Morais: And then it would be mixed if you will. And so my partner did her thing and I didn't read it. I didn't usually, normally I would have attended the focus groups and sat in the back room and she did that. And then I did, was done sequentially in that way. And then I went to the field and by the way, the client went to the focus groups and the client went to, I think it's not all, but most of the ethnography. And so she knew what was going on. But we didn't. And then my partner and I didn't, there were some other people from our company that were also involved. And when I was writing up the report on my side I had a kind of Tiffany my, my partner had an epiphany of her own about cognitive dissonance. Bob Morais: And if anybody wants to find out about that, they can read the article and they can read the articles or find out more about what I'm about to say, which is that I was talking to people in their homes and I asked them to imagine essentially a two poles, one of them was fresh food. One of them was dry food has been, you know, when you get in the bag and one of them was what would be called wet food. When you get into cannon, that was their nomenclature. And that was what the client year, they divided the category into wet food and dry food. That's how they still have, that's how they thought the consumers thought. And I went in with, in a way that assumption, which, you know, maybe it wasn't the best research question, because I could have just said, how would you think of that? Bob Morais: I mean, I did ask them that I haven't talked about wet food versus dry food, but it was still an opposition. I had an assumption in that way, before that I did have him talk about what dog food was, purposefully naive question, but then I, after they did that, even if they didn't get to that binary, I gave it to them as a binary. What was interesting is we had also been talking about homemade food along the way, because people would say sometimes I make my dog a little bit of homemade food, not just feeding frappes at the table, but maybe when they're sick, I make them a little chicken soup. You know, they think of their pets as their children and which isn't a big revelation in that category. And they would give their dogs that they, what I realized when I was talking to them is that in a number of these people were freshmen users, but not all of them. Bob Morais: Some of them were hoping non-users people that were using other brands that were open to using fresh preps. So we looked at, we talked to both types of people, and what I realized is that fresh hat didn't fit the, by now, it wasn't wet food and it wasn't dry food. It was somehow closer to fresh fruit, partly because it was bought in a refrigerator case. They have K news stock keeping units for those who don't know what that is, that are that are not in the refrigerator. But the one that we were focusing on was in a refrigerated case. And it really looked kind of like a pepperoni or a salami that you've sliced and then put her dog's bowl and it looks very fresh and bought that way. And it's stored that way. So my epiphany was that maybe this category is not a binary. Bob Morais: Maybe it's the hierarchy. And maybe the hierarchy, which is, this was Google discovery process was dry for them because everybody always got dry for, with the most basic wet food, which they knew their dogs love more, but they thought it was good for their dogs to chew on dry food. And they thought maybe the wifi would have been too much fat in it, fresh pack. And none of the top of this hierarchy, there was homemaker. And so maybe that doesn't sound like such a big revelation, but it's that, it's like this immediate category that we talk a lot about anthropology, that my client had this idea, their perspective, or that they were in the category with this binary opposition. They didn't talk in terms of binary opposition, but that's how they felt about it and that their customers did. And even in the research approach, maybe we were too assumptive. Bob Morais: We thought they did too. Turned out it wasn't that explicit. You know, if you just ask them, you know, they wouldn't say worth the hierarchy, you had to discover that in the conversation. And it wasn't just one person. So a few people, and you know, I had taken a psychology when I was an undergrad to remember Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So I had this little idea, it's a spark of an idea when I was working on the report and I felt like, Oh, what about the hierarchy of fee? And it was just funny. And then I did a little graphic on the pattern of PowerPoint, and I thought, this is, you know, this is kind of cool. This is fun. It's a handle. It's not meant to be an advertising line. I explained it by saying, it's not wet food. It's not dry food, it's fresh bread. Bob Morais: But that wasn't meant to be an advertising line either. It was a positioning and it was a way of positioning the product in the brand, in the minds of customers. That was very different from the way they, they weren't trapped position. That was why I got this assignment in the beginning. They were, they were looking at different ways of positioning it, but to position it as being very different from the rest of the category, a very different way of thinking about the category and what was cool about it was, it was also a flip for the clients. So when I talk about email and eat it, you know, the times were not, they were borrowed by cultural anthropologists from linguistics, and now they've been borrowed by consumer anthropologists. And, you know, the purists would say, that's not really what they are, and that's not really what they mean, but are certainly for my purposes, very helpful. Bob Morais: That is to say the clients thought about it in one way, the consumers trying to did, but maybe we weren't quite sure. And then it turned out, maybe they could think about it in a different way. And so fresh pet could be positioned within a hierarchy closer, very different from wet and dry, very different and come closer to homemade food, but that also connected to it being in the refrigerated case. So it will fit with what the brand was in terms of its reality in terms of its form and the way it was sold when purchasing someone. But it was also really cool for the presentation. So this was a long story, but it was meant to say that the use of the hierarchy of feed and the way I did it in the meeting generated a lot of excitement. And, and so what I would suggest to people that work in the world of consumer anthropology, at least, and maybe other areas of business, half apology is don't be afraid to be creative. Don't be afraid to add some not just the DAS, but add some strategically informed insight that may be graphically depicted or certainly telegraphic in the way that you express it. They can get your, your client or your colleagues excited. They understand it right away, and then they can apply the, got it. And then that could then be transformed, or sometimes they use the term transposed into a strategy, more, more formal strategy document. So that's the long story, but that's an example. Matt Artz: Yeah, no, but it's a great example. Yeah. I appreciate you giving real world examples. I think that's helpful to everybody. And, you know, just to, to build on that, I oftentimes recommend to students that I speak with, to develop some basic design skills, because I think that having those and to communicate your ideas visually goes a long way, Bob Morais: But Matt Artz: Also in there. So you, you know, you mentioned Maslow's hierarchy and EDIC anemic, so you're, you're pointing to something that comes up in a lot of the conversations we have when talking with people and, you know, the questions around, you know, the, say the pace of research being different or that, you know, maybe in business, you know, we don't get to bring in theory or it's, you know, it's somehow like a, you know, like a watered down version of what you're doing academically. And so in your career, at what point I know you've spoken in other presentations, I've heard you speak and you've mentioned like liminality. And so I know at some point you were starting to bring, say theory in more overtly into what you were doing and maybe that wasn't always brought in, but when did that start to happen in your career? Like at what point were you established enough to really make that a little bit more over? Bob Morais: Well, it really depends on the client. It's not so much of it being established in that you know, I always had the basic credential to do it. But in fact, in the liminality study that I, that I, that you're probably thinking about on this breakfast food was for honey honey bunches of oats. That was the one where the insight director that ultimately may years later God has been to the freshmen project. I don't know if I talked about liminality in that presentation was actually a focus group based piece of research. And and I, the insight was sort of theoretically informed about breakfast as a kind of Rite of passage and the importance of liminality within that Rite of passage and how the brand could kind of own the transformations that occurred during that liminal period. Bob Morais: And there are a lot of business anthropologists written about liminality. A lot of anthropologists are written about liminality. So it wasn't, but it's not so much a matter of feeling comfortable if it goes back to reading the client, you know, any business anthropologists can tell you this or that, that there are some clients that will hire you because you're an anthropologist and they want that credential and they want you to lay it on. They want you to talk about liminality. They want you to talk about any kind of theory that you can bring in, and it really enhances their position when they hired you. And it helps convey the idea. Some clients either will say, or you just know, want you to keep it under the hood. And so, for example, in this fresh pet study, there was a lot that I kept under the hood because they weren't particularly interested in hearing about some of the theoretical ideas, you know, as soon as I'll talk about things like like in refrigerator tastes, I talked about making the unfamiliar familiar because the refrigerator case is something that really didn't belong in a fresh in the pet food section. Bob Morais: And so how do you make, can you get people to see it that's a design challenge. And that was also part of the report that I worked on and the discovery process, but that was an easy one. I don't, I didn't mention it. You take an email to my client and I think it's a lot of it is that, you know, even in 2020 slash 2021 you know, anthropologists can be seen as eggheads. You know, even psychologists and business can be seen as eggheads. Some clients want that some don't and you've got to read your client, you've got to know what they want. So it's really not a matter of, of, for me, it's adjusting to what they want and what they need. I want to do good work and I'm going to apply it no matter what the theory, but some studies are purely ethnographic. They're purely observational and there's really no need for theory. But the ones where theory helps depending on the client, I'll, I'll make it. I, well, I'm not doing that kind of work now, but, but I made it either more explicit or less explain. Matt Artz: Yeah, no, that's helpful. So, you know, pivot going away from maybe your, like your, your life, you know, as, as a practicing anthropologist and maybe more so into what you're doing now, which is teaching, building the brand business anthropology through the business, anthro.com community I'd like to maybe you know, to dig into that a bit. And so what would you you know, I do, well, first off, let me ask you this. Do you think business anthropology has a branding issue? I do something I think we've talked about, so, okay, go ahead. Bob Morais: I think part of it is that you know, despite the fact that people have been writing articles on either anthropologists and business for, you know, ethnography being applied when marketing or organizationally you know, for decades, I have a whole collection of you know, going back to the eighties people are still unclear about what it is and so work needs to be done. Matt Artz: So how would you define it for everybody that's listening? Bob Morais: How would I define business anthropology broadly? But it partly depends on my audience. But I would say in general, it's the put very simply it's the application of ideas that are derived from anthropology and methods that are derived from anthropology in business. Although more specifically, I would say in marketing organizations organizational cultural, organizational culture change again, you know, it's like those examples that I talked about getting into specific examples in design studies in user experience. So it starts to divide itself into very specific areas and that helps define what it is because it's manifested in different ways in, in, in different domains. So it was the most basic it's really basic is applying the method because a lot of people get ethnography right away because that's where you have to probably just do. But I always like to say that theory turbocharges the work you're doing in most cases, not a wall. And when that happens, you know, that's what you get to there's really great aha moments. And that, and depending on whether it's an organization or a or a consumer product or a technology experience, or any of these kinds of things, the, the, the anthropology manifests itself very differently. Matt Artz: And so what do you think we all need to be doing to some, to be more public, to say, get hiring managers interested in what we do to, or clients to get interested in what we do? Bob Morais: Yeah, I, I do. I think that I'll relate this to a question that I've been asked, which is should I put my anthropology upfront in a job interview for a user experience job, you know first of all, it's more likely that you'll see an ad for user experience job than an anthropology job in business. And what not, my answer is always that you should you should distinguish yourself as, as an anthropologist working in user experience by talking about very specific skills you have. So, for example, when you use your experience like ethnography, but a lot of them aren't trained in how to do ethnography, you are trained in doing and, and a lot of people that are applying ethnography and user experience, or maybe it's shift observation, don't really know much about theory. And so if you can add that, that's a tremendous plus, but of course you had the word theory can scare people. So that's where I would probably get to a very quick, you know, elevator pitch type example of how theory might help something. But I, but I, but I do think those are, those are some ways in I don't know that fully answers your question, but that's how I start to think about it. Matt Artz: And so building on that in, what do you think when I look around, I would say that though, there are many of us doing great work all across the globe in a lot of cases, unless we've started our, our own businesses or work in maybe smaller practices. We oftentimes don't seem to have LAR you know, a seat at, at the quote unquote table, if you will, in large organizations yet. So what, for those who are practicing, you know, do you have any suggestions of what people can do to, to increase their influence, you know, within their organizations? Bob Morais: Yeah. You know, it's interesting, it's been a way it's an anthropological scale it's listened and observed. Understand, as I said before, what the core business problem is, understand what the corporate culture is all about in terms of what will bear, what you can bring to the party, you know, what, how much you can bring to the party. But I think a lot of listening and observation is critical because you'll learn businesses have so many big problems and so many little problems there's plenty to work on. And so the, the, the, the question is, as you're listening, the question, you have to ask yourself when you're listening to when you're in meetings. And when you're engaging with clients, are you getting engagement to prospective clients is how can I help them solve this problem in a way that someone else can? And I think that's true for RFPs or request for proposal, you know, if you get it and you're competing with other people, if you're say a supplier you have to bring your unique skillset to that. Bob Morais: And again, without getting too heavily into the jargon, just talk about the way that you can help them in that, whether it's the, of course, the front end or a discovery process, or a texting user experience, problem that you can, you can gain, give them access and understanding, and ultimately insight that they won't get from anyone else. And you know, you, don't, you're positioning yourself as a distinctive property, but just think of set of skills. And I think you'll be invited to the table because you'll have something fresh to add, and they'll listen to you more. I don't know that you're going to get a job as chief cultural officer and the way grant McCracken would like the story. I think it's a great objective. I mean, it's, you know, we'd love to see every company have one maybe more than one. Bob Morais: But I also think, you know, it depends on your job title. I remember when we were doing the song at the, in 2019, I was asking some people who were user experience folks and I have had this conversation with some design people. So how do you identify? And some of these people have PhDs map apology, how do you identify around the office? How would you identify and interview? And they said, it's user experience expert. Whereas the design expert, they didn't try to push themselves into the table as an anthropologist. That gives them to say that sometimes that's not exactly what a company wants. They want the anthropologist there, but if you don't know that, then you have to discover it through a listening, observing process. And if somebody says, well, I actually got a call like that from an ad agency, a friend of mine was creative director there. Bob Morais: And his boss, the CEO said, you know, we need a social anthropologists, good we're pitching. I think it was red lobster. This was a few years ago. And he said, Oh, I know someone. And he called me and I basically did a little consulting job with them talking about food and restaurants and that kind of thing. And they apparently showed some of the video and a new business pitch. And it was all about me being an anthropologist. I never thought the video. But sometimes that's exactly what people need and, you know, not always. Matt Artz: Yeah. And I think that's a good input. And I think a lot of that really would extend to the related question of, of selling it to, again, sort of the hiring manager or the potential client, right. It's not always just selling an internal, but of course, selling to them as well. And so I think those are all good tips for people listening, if you were you know, I know we, we talked about this very briefly at the outset because of your, your sort of mini MBA experience, but if you were, and, and in that context, you recommended sort of cross training. And, you know, I would say maybe like upskilling in, you know, various business areas, tech design, you know, all those things I think contributed. And you've also mentioned, you know, a lot of the good academic programs for people to look at, but if there was one thing aside from like that stuff, if there's one thing that you could do over again, if you were starting your career, you know, is there any other way you would approach it? Bob Morais: What would I have done differently? You know I don't, it's hard for me to say, I think I would have made some, you know, we'd have some better insights faster for sure. And maybe listened to better along the way. So I didn't make some mistakes that I made. So certainly some of those things, but in terms of the way my career flowed, I kind of liked the way my career flowed. You know, if you talked to any given business anthropologists or anthropologists business, depending on how they want to define themselves, they all have different paths. You know, the, the series that Elizabeth Powell is doing for the journal of business anthropology, so terrific. She interviewed a lot of people including me, but a lot of people who are, who were business anthropologists about their career paths and the most recent one talks very directly about the path. Bob Morais: I'm glad that I learned business. Now. I got my degree. Then I learned business. I only a little bit in the NYU program, but mainly learned it on the job and then was able to integrate anthropology. That's what worked for me. I'm not saying it works for everybody, but I think if you're going to be an anthropologist working in business, you really have to have a good business sense. So and I also think it's great to work in different areas, you know, in a way that you have, you've worked in a lot of different functional areas. And I think that's an enormous asset asset in business because you, you see through a number of different lenses and that can only help you you know, anthropology, isn't just one lens, but it certainly in general, a very different lens than say someone gets has if they just have an MBA. Bob Morais: But if you, if you really think hard enough about a company that you're working with, or business business problems that you're dealing with, then you look through their lens a little bit, not just MBAs, but you know, people that are just working in business you see differently. That's what we're supposed to be doing anyways, anthropologist. And and so my career is in terms of the basics of my career, it's gone the way that I liked. I don't think it's necessarily, in some ways it doesn't make any sense at all. I mean, here I am doing traditional anthropology, doing field work in the Philippines on suddenly I'm working great advertisement that doesn't make any sense, a lot of people. But I, you know, I'm happy with the way it worked out. And I know that a number of anthropologists that I know in business, and I would probably say, I would say, if not all the vast majority of people I know who are anthropologists working in business, they were very happy that they, they took the route that they took, even though it may have been a little Rocky at times, a little Rocky. Matt Artz: Yeah, for sure. It's funny. It's always interesting to hear the different paths in it is also very varied. So you know, in closing, you know, you obviously have a lot of things going on the teaching business, anthro.com. So is there anything you would like to sort of bring up anything you'd want to mention that would be good for everybody? Bob Morais: A few things one of them is if you're in business school and watching this walk over to the anthropology department and try to take a course at Lisa and method and maybe another course in theory, because it will enrich your business experience no matter what you go into in distance. If you're an anthropologist who is an undergraduate, as I said before, and you're interested in business, it's a good idea to take a course or two or three, whatever you can fit. And the same thing for if you're in graduate school the website that I'm involved in that you've been such an asset to as well business and fro.com is a wealth of resources. We've got a lot of good information there. And I would recommend that anybody who is interested in this field going visit that site and look around a little bit, because then you'll, you'll find some interesting things to read. Bob Morais: You'll see some podcasts and other, other other resources there that will educate you and give you some ideas. And the last thing I'll say is that if you're interested in developing your career in this field talk to as many people that are in it as possible, do as many informational interviews as you possibly can. And you know, if you're, if you're interested in a design career you'll benefit from talking to an anthropologist even if you don't even use that much anthropology, because some of the ideas can still be applied, some of the methods cause, Matt Artz: And so where can all the listeners find you, Bob Morais: People could find me? Let's say there are a couple of ways you can Google me. And the first thing that comes up in Google with my Columbia business school website and my Columbia business, my Columbia email is there. They could also contact me on my basic email, which is on my Gmail account, which is our more raised 67 I guess gmail.com or whatever, like with gmail.com at, you know, dot com. So either, either one of those ways is bird. My other information is on our business anthropology site, but those are two ways. Matt Artz: All right, great. And so Bob, thanks very much for coming on and really appreciate it. I think you've offered a lot of great advice that I think everybody listening will really benefit from. So thanks very much. Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors.

Welcome to the Anthropology in Business Podcast with Matt Artz

Matt Artz — Wed, 20 Jan 2021 03:24:48 +0000

Welcome to the introductory episode of the Anthropology in Business podcast, where you will learn about the many ways anthropology is applied in business and why business anthropology is one of the most effective lenses for making sense of organizations and consumers. I am Matt Artz, a business anthropologist specializing in design anthropology and working at the intersection of product management, user experience, and business strategy. I've started this podcast because anthropology is one of the most effective lenses for making sense of organizations and consumers, and yet, it's one of the least adopted. As business anthropologists, we know that applying the methods and theories of anthropology to business can help us improve our organizational culture, understand our consumers, innovate products and services, and design a business strategy that is differentiated and sustainable. Unfortunately, the discipline has historically encountered two issues. First, we have a supply problem since most academic programs are not training anthropologists to work in business. Likewise, many lack a firm understanding of the potential business roles and how to make the transition. Second, we have a demand problem because business leaders often lack an understanding of what anthropology is, how it's applied to business, and why they should hire anthropologists as consultants and employees. To address these issues, I've started this podcast as a form of public anthropology to help other anthropologists transition from academia to business and to increase our media visibility. I hope you all find this podcast helpful, and most importantly, I hope it can help grow our brand.