In Conversation with Jared Braiterman
I got a chance to catch up with Jared Braiterman, PhD. in Anthropology and Principal of Giant Ant, to chat about some key topics from this month’s DUX2007 in Chicago (you can still register). The following is an excerpt of our conversation.
Jared, fair warning—the first couple of questions are going to be a bit like the “Justify Your Existence” column in The Onion. They are intended as a warm-up. Describe what you do in 5 words or less?
New product innovation
I love it. Why is it worth attending your session at DUX?
You are going to hear about stuff you haven’t heard about before. We’re looking at how designing for extreme users can provide ideas and inspiration in design for mass audiences as well. Some of the extreme users will include 2 year olds, seniors , and Zen Buddhists. In popular consciousness, none of these groups necessarily have a burning need for technology yet it is easy to make the case that technology plays a big role in their lives. It just may look a lot different from the type of interaction that we see with mainstream users.
Ok, you haven’t categorized yourself as a “Designer”—and you have a PhD. in anthropology—but the theme of DUX2007 asks some pretty fundamental questions related to the notion of design and the designer. How do you perceive the roles of design and designer changing?
Well, you allude to the fact that I’ve had a dual sort of career with an academic training in anthropology and then 12 years in new product design. Combining anthropology and design provides a focus on human activity and meaning which can inspire and create products which can really break through what is currently considered possible or desirable.
For design, it has really been a change from shaping business concepts to actually creating businesses. This is a new role for design, and top design schools like your alma mater IIT Institute of Design are engaged in that type of activity. Rather than simply being given a design brief and being told what to do, design now has an opportunity to really lead business and the creation of value.
I’m not going to argue with that.
I didn’t think you would.
I attended the University of Chicago focused on anthropology and psychology so I have academic roots in the social sciences as well. I’m sure you are part of the Anthrodesign group on Yahoo!. I have to say, I’ve been really frustrated with it over the past months. You see, I have an issue with purists. I’m a pluralist, not a purist and I feel like too many people in the social sciences are trying to hold their discipline so dear that they are limiting the potential impact. Maybe you can talk about how the role of the social scientist has changed or is changing related to the business world.
Anthropology has tremendous potential to contribute positively to business and social change. I think that it’s ironic that academic anthropology, including programs like those that both you and I attended, has historically not wanted to engage in the world. They’ve been focused on understanding, conservation, and preservation. I think it is still very controversial to do applied anthropology though I don’t believe that this hesitation is discussed very often or openly in the Anthrodesign list.
I bet it will after someone from the list reads this interview.
This is a good thing.
By combining anthropology and design we can not only have insights about people but also create the models that drive product design and innovation. That said, I honestly haven’t been trained to do any of this in graduate school. I feel that is important to bring this up as well. I was never trained academically to create visual models of how we understand the world and, more importantly, how we could change them. The work I’ve been most proud of has been doing exactly that—introducing completely new models for emerging technologies and businesses.
Ultimately, I think it’s not just anthropology but also design where you find purists who are very proud of their credentials… which they might have received 10 years ago, as I did. Purists are interested in disciplinary policing, ownership, and traditional authority. I agree with you that it is exactly the wrong way to go.
The reason I’ve been able to be successful in this space is because I’ve been able to embrace and learn new skills. Primarily these have been design skills and visual communication skills—things I wasn’t trained to do in school. Even with a PhD., I don’t believe this is knowledge that’s going to last me the next 40 years. You’ve got to be constantly adding to your skill set and learning about business, communication and technology. Those who insist on purity and boundary policing are doing a disservice to the new product innovation industry. They will be less valuable to business and more importantly the people who could benefit from their knowledge. We need to aim to do the best work we can given the constraints. This is a fundamental design principle.
One last word on the Anthrodesign list—I did want to point out that there’s someone in Chicago I have a lot of respect for in terms of bridging these boundaries between design, research and innovation. Dori Tunstall is one of the first formally trained anthropologists teaching at a design school. She teaches at University of Illinois at Chicago, another design school involved with DUX this year. She is creating a dialogue between professionals where the sum is greater than its parts.
I couldn’t help but notice you’ve embarked on this worldwide research project at the moment and that your staff is fluent in an enormous number of languages… how do you manage all of this? Maybe I’m being naïve here but culture is changing so rapidly now that it seems difficult to imagine the relevance of research sometime done just 6 months ago. So when you conduct lengthy worldwide research how do you manage?
Well, I agree that the world is now changing very quickly and we need methods and practices to keep up with it. At the moment, we’ve specifically chosen to focus on China which is not the typical place to do technologically-focused research like Korea or Japan. We’ve decided to focus there because we feel like the activity in China, particularly in the mobile space, will have a worldwide effect, in addition to China being the largest global consumer market. Some of these activities will have strong effects on the so-called BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) and other emerging markets but will eventually reach the United States.
In the United States we have this quaint idea that we are the most technologically advanced, and yet some things that Asian countries have had for a decade are only now becoming adopted by the masses here—like text messaging. Sometimes the simplest technologies can be those used most passionately and are most surprising in effect.
Technology futurists are interested in emerging markets because of the type of leapfrogging we’ve witnessed. In countries like Brazil, most people will never have a landline. They moved directly to the cell phone. In much of the developing world, most people will never use a personal computer. Their first use of networked technology will be the mobile phone. Eventually, that will become the Internet but even today there are a large number of people in China and elsewhere who are willing to spend months and months of salary to have access to this communication platform. This is not only access to a new mode of communication but also the status associated with it, a functional and emotional leap forward at the level of nations and of everyday people.
Switching gears, it seems at some level like people are closer than ever before because of social networking platforms but also further apart. There is some level of alienation happening. What do you have to say to that?
I think you’re hitting on a really interesting and important topic that hopefully will be explored by people at the conference with more expertise than myself. I think you’re correct that through digital media we are able to be in more places and connect with more people than ever possible before in human history. That said, there are still a lot of things that divide the digital world including the most basic differences such as language.
We talk about the “world wide web” but, in fact, the world wide web comes in many different flavors and languages. As Americans we often forget that much of the excitement of the web is not in English. There is a great ability to learn and share with people. A colleague of mine and a speaker at this year’s DUX conference, Elizabeth Goodman conducted a fascinating study of Dubai Flickr users and has learned quite a lot about Dubai and image making in that country. This has been accomplished entirely through online research.Still, there are a lot of subtleties in the language and communication that still make this type of online global research very difficult.
Wow. Having attempted a brief virtual study of my own on World of Warcraft and feeling like I was horribly under-prepared both in terms of rigor and time, I’m interested to see how to make this work.
Virtual research is going to play a big role in the future of new product innovation. But, I also don’t think it’s going to be easy or quick.
If there was exactly one concept or meme to be aware of in the social networking space what would it be?
The unexpected. Be prepared for the unexpected. To return to the theme of anthropology, defamiliarization is very important. It’s easy to think we know what’s going on, but looking at the same reality from different perspectives can really open our eyes with regards to what things are and what they can be.
Any final words?
I also would like to plug the conference a bit. DUX is only held every two years, and it is the preeminent practitioner conference which brings together academics and industry in a truly relevant way. DUX is one of the most valuable conferences for those building the digital future.
I’ll make sure to buy you a drink for saying that.
No need. I really do believe it is a unique and very valuable conference.