This essay offers an analysis of the “pain point,” a commonplace figure of speech in UX design and contemporary business contexts more broadly. By situating this everday trope within a wider discourse of pain, and its politiciztion in the United States, I seek to problematize the modes of...
Genre: Paper
![Market Creation Through Community Engagement: Combining Ethnographic and Business Thinking to Bridge Life-Changing Technologies to Emerging Economies](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Tassi-video.png)
Market Creation Through Community Engagement: Combining Ethnographic and Business Thinking to Bridge Life-Changing Technologies to Emerging Economies
Emerging technologies such as drones, sensors, mesh networks and IoT have significant potential to bring new life-changing services and benefits to places where infrastructure and ICT access is still limited. Nevertheless, many companies have already failed in the attempt to bring new solutions to...
![Meaningful Innovation: Ethnographic Potential in the Startup and Venture Capital Spheres](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Haines-video.png)
Meaningful Innovation: Ethnographic Potential in the Startup and Venture Capital Spheres
The aim of this paper is to explore the potential for ethnographic approaches in technology startups and the venture capital firms that support and control them. The current practices and model of innovation aim for “disruptive innovation,” but most efforts fall short, prioritizing mass diffusion...
![Taking Sides in E-cigarette Research](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Annechino-video.png)
Taking Sides in E-cigarette Research
In the last ten years, an eclectic mix of electronic nicotine delivery products (‘e-cigarettes’) and practices have proliferated in the US with little restriction, producing a vast array of vaping mechanisms, flavors, and styles. At the same time, anti-tobacco movements have targeted e-cigarettes...
![‘It’s Not Just about the Patient’: A ‘360° Feedback’ Ethnography of Chronic Care Knowledge Generation](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Mahapatra-video.png)
‘It’s Not Just about the Patient’: A ‘360° Feedback’ Ethnography of Chronic Care Knowledge Generation
The paper attempts to offer a method to consistently monitor and capture a data eco-system in the everyday of a patient-caregiver relationship. We offer an account of the capture and intermeshing of different types and quality of data sources and their gainful deflection into a methodological...
![What is a Sustainable Innovation? Cultural and Contextual Discoveries in the Social Ecology of Cooking in an African Slum](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/georg-video-1080x675.png)
What is a Sustainable Innovation? Cultural and Contextual Discoveries in the Social Ecology of Cooking in an African Slum
This paper investigates how a close understanding of human activity can inform the design of culturally and contextually sustainable innovations for subsistence markets. Building on existing literature related to poverty alleviation initiatives and an ethnographic field study, this project...
![Bridging Ethnography and Path-finding Business Opportunities](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/27.jpg)
Bridging Ethnography and Path-finding Business Opportunities
While ethnography has been integrated into the design research, new product development and corporate strategy, it has been less well integrated into path-finding for new business opportunities. We’ve developed a model for path-finding research that has three core parts: creating a business...
![From Inspiring Change to Directing Change: How Ethnographic Praxis Can Move Beyond Research](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Hou.png)
From Inspiring Change to Directing Change: How Ethnographic Praxis Can Move Beyond Research
This paper reflects on the evolving nature of ethnographic praxis in industry and argues that we must move beyond research and towards strategy in order to elevate our praxis, and to deliver real impact and value for our clients. Although this conversation is not new for the EPIC community, there...
![How to Create Value via Object Circulation in Gift-Systems](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/01-1080x675.jpg)
How to Create Value via Object Circulation in Gift-Systems
Gift-systems build relationships and create various types of value for the individuals who participate in them. Organizations may also reap the benefits of gift-systems when they understand, support, and foster practices of object circulation within these systems. We adopt a theoretical framework...
![People, the Weak Link in Cyber-security: Can Ethnography Bridge the Gap?](https://www.epicpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/squires.png)
People, the Weak Link in Cyber-security: Can Ethnography Bridge the Gap?
Information Technology (IT) professionals are racing to keep up with cyber-security threats in the workplace. But, as any cyber-security expert will tell you, security technology is only as good as the people who use it. And, people are a mystery to most cyber-security professionals making them...