In a recent Business Week article, The Science of Desire, Ethnographers are described as:
'...a species of anthropologist who can, among other things, identify what's missing in people's lives -- the perfect cell phone, home appliance, or piece of furniture -- and work with designers and engineers to help dream up products and services to fill those needs.'
The rather lengthy article is full of informtion of how companies that 'get it' are using Ethnographers and other Social Scientists to observe the real world in search of inspiration for new products that people actually need and want. I can't resist including the closing sentence in this posting:
'...with anthropologists in ascendance, engineers -- and everyone else -- had better get used to it.'
If it makes you feel any better, in addition to being Ethnographers, Brad Wiederholt is an Engineer (actually, a Computer Scientist) and I (Don Rickert) am a Market Researcher & Industrial Designer. We look forward to comments from engineers and everone else :-)
DR
