The Science of Desire

Sarah Ross and Kambria Sauer

History of Ethnography• Harnessing the social sciences

since 1930’s

• How to make employees more productive

• Since 1960’s companies use ethnography to get a better handle on their customers

Advantages to Ethnography• Richer understanding of

consumers• Focus groups, surveys

and demographic data still used

• Intel and its critical transition from chipmaker to consumer-products

Up Close and Personal• Corporate ethnography can

sound flakey

• Findings don’t often lead to a product or service, only generalized sense of what people want

• Takes a long time to produce any real results

• Possible backlash surrounding ethnography

Accelerated Global Society• Markets are sliced into

ever-thinner pieces

• Product life-cycles are measured in months or weeks, not years

• New ideas zip around the planet at the speed of light

Refreshing a Product• Using ethnography to

revitalize an existing product or service

• Marriot hired IDEO to rethink the hotel experience for the young, tech savvy road warrior

• IDEO dispatched team of 7 consultants on a 6 week trip to 12 cities

What They Learned• Hotels are generally good at

serving large parties but not small groups of business travelers

• Lobbies tend to be dark

• Marriot lacked where guests could comfortably combine work with pleasure outside their rooms