When you hear anthropologist, you probably think of an academic like Margaret Mead researching cultures in far away places like Papua New Guinea. Now her research is used to create toys or sell cancer drugs.
Anthropologists have actually been working in business for decades, starting with Xerox in the late s. Microsoft is now among the largest employers of anthropologists worldwide. Cultural anthropologist Liz Briody was one of the first hired by General Motors in the s. Even then, her role was misunderstood. She now runs a corporate consulting firm called Cultural Keys. Yet increasingly, anthropologists are being recruited by local and international corporations for their specific skills in cross-cultural communication and their ability to analyse human behaviour, organisational structures, and corporate cultures.
Anthropologists working in business may be involved in market research looking at product design, social trends and intercultural marketing. They may also be involved in analysing consumer behaviour, researching purchasing trends, and identifying cultural responses to advertising.
Alternatively, anthropologists can act as organisational consultants, investigating organisational procedures and assessing the performance of workplaces. In the following film Micheal Walsh explains why companies can benefit from hiring anthropologists and speaks to anthropologist Genevieve Bell about her work at Intel. In the following film anthropologist Grant McCracken, author of 'Chief Culture Officer' explore how companies should employ a Chief Culture Officer to ensure they remain cutting edge.
Left Coast Press, NAPA was not allowed to affix a copyright, because they didn't have one to affix. So, the AAA would be the only people that could affix the copyright. And the executive director at the time was not a hundred-percent sure he was interested in this, and there was by now, you know, a lot of talk, I think, that was going around.
And we had actively gone to the AAA looking for funding, and they said no. They didn't have the money to support this. And so, we said, "Well, we're going to do it anyways. So, we'll just find a way to do it. And ultimately, the AAA did put its copyright on it.
But it was a battle. And what happened was there would be a five-person group who would review the video to see if it was good enough—.
And I remember at the time Dawn had a very good relationship with Jim Peacock, who was one of the people. And she basically, you know, helped him to understand the value, and make sure that he was on board. But the other people were a bit of a wild card.
And then the executive director was one of the votes. And so, there were four faculty, and one executive director. The vote was three to two in favor. At the AAA meetings in November of '93, I think that's right, '93, so we had been working on it exactly one year. We had a video to show the premier, so to speak, that NAPA sponsored, and we showed the video.
And I think it was in the evening—I don't remember the circumstances. People were blown away. They couldn't get enough of it. And we were so excited because we had worked so hard, that we were just thrilled at how it came out.
So, maybe, you know, there are things that might, we might have done a little bit differently. But overall, it covered the four fields. It had people who were telling students, and their faculty members, and parents, here are some careers that you can do as an anthropologist, you know? And we had, we had things pretty much covered.
From the biological end, we went to the Smithsonian, to the cultural end, the linguistic end, the archeology end, we covered it all. We had students who were talking in the video. I mean, we tried to show as much demographic diversity as we could. We came in on time, on budget. And we just were thrilled! I don't remember when, it wasn't at its premier. It was later. I thought, just like a lot of people thought after we elected Barack Obama, okay, it's post-racial now. I thought when I saw that video, oh good, applied is—we're on our way.
And that was what its value was. I mean, too many people were asking what can I do, or what can my child do, or how do we even think about this? And so I think it did serve its purpose. And it was a stand-alone for many years until Northern Arizona did its subsequent video, and then there was another one that Emily Altimare worked on at GM when she was an intern with me.
And so, you know, there are some videos out there that students can look at and get ideas. That was the whole point. NOLAN: —and advice, and so forth. So, Cultural Keys. I had left GM, in late April. And so, about two, three weeks later, I filed paperwork with the state of Michigan, which is where I live and work. And I created this, limited liability corporation, called Cultural Keys. I chose the name because I had an old set of keys that belonged to my father, who had died. And I thought, you know, cultural keys, it unlocks something.
It tells us, you know, that the key could help us. And so, that's how the name came about. And one quick story, my dad, during his life had met Fred Gamst, who wrote, The Hoghead , and many other, train-related articles and books.
He knew the rules of the rail. And my father was an old train guy. He worked for the railroads as an inspector of perishable items that in those days traveled by freight—meats, fruits, vegetables.
And so, one day I was going into Boston University, where Fred worked. Well, anyways, so, we took the train in, and we went to Fred's office. And honest to God I didn't get a word in edge-wise. Those two were just yap, yap, yapping the whole time. And, and I say that because my dad made quite an impression on Fred, and vice versa.
And then after the visit, Fred typed up—in those days you typed up a nice note on stationary, and he sent it to me, and he asked to be remembered to my father. And years later, after I opened up Cultural Keys, he looked at my business card, and on the business card are my dad's keys on a keyring. And he looked at that, and he said, "Are those your father's keys? BRIODY: So, you know, the train people know each other—they know their culture, and it's just a very exciting thing for me to kind of carry on.
And it reminds me of my dad, so anyway. Cultural Keys, as I said, first started doing some work for a medical start-up. At the time they were very much focused on working with physicians who had their own independent offices, and who were being pushed by the insurance companies to become much more responsive to patients.
The model was the patient-centered medical home where your primary care physician would be, you know, sort of your coordinator. And you keep—the primary care is always the one in charge, in the loop, keeping things going—not the patient because the patient doesn't even necessarily know what's the matter with the patient.
So, I worked on that for quite a period of time, and helped train people who would go into offices of doctors to help them with process improvements in their office staffing, and in their office processes.
And it wasn't work that I was particularly interested in, but I could see its value. These were mostly quality engineers who would come and help people in the office environment figure out how to do things better. Like why haven't we got a system in place at the end, or at the beginning of summer, or at the start of fall, to make sure that young kids have a sports physical so they're ready to go when fall goes around, or something.
We just can't get our act together. Or the kid's got to go to camp, and we can't seem to get the form signed for the mom. What is our problem?
So, it was—those kinds of issues were, a real pain in the neck to deal with in these offices. So, I helped with that. And then little by little I got some consulting work, and have worked for a number of for-profit, as well as non-profit groups. Those have ranged from healthcare, to pet foods, to hotels, to research institutions, consumer products, you know, just sort of all over the map. BRIODY: Oh well, the funniest, I guess I would say the funniest story, and you can read all about this in a new book that just came out, called, what is it called?
It's Collaborative Ethnography in Business Environments. I have an article with Ken Erickson in that book, which is a must read if you are interested in the question of why don't panties talk to bras.
So, for all of you that are interested in intimates, intimate apparel, this story is a hoot. So, I'll just tell you very briefly. This was a project that Ken Erickson, who's now at University of South Carolina, but has previously had his own company called Pacific Ethnography for many years [got].
He does consumer research. And, Ken had this contract with a global intimates manufacturer, and they were interested in some organizational culture issues. They were interested in the impact of the organizational culture on what was going on with customers. So, customers go into a particular store, whether it's a, a department store, like Macy's, or a big box store like Target or Walmart, and, you know, people are shopping for underwear.
And, they wanted to know what's the impact of the organizational culture. So, we did some interviews at the headquarters of this firm, and in one of my early interviews, maybe the third or fourth, I was talking with a young woman who worked in an area of the company—something like consumer insights—so, a lot of survey data, and, and other forms of data that she was trying to pull together.
And I asked her a question, I said, "Can you see the culture of this company on the sales floor? And I didn't think she was ever going to answer. Finally, she answered. She said, "Yeah," she says, "bras don't talk to panties. Well, it turns out that if you go to any intimate apparel section of a store, you will find exactly what she said. The bras are on one side of that department, and the panties are on the other. Now you might say, well, who cares.
Well, I'll tell you who cares. Many women want to have matching sets. So, you can't put them together if they're not right next to each other. So, what ends up happening is you'll see this woman walking around with a bra, and she's trying to match it with panties, but she can't because she, you know, it, it's like, the fabric is different, and it just doesn't look right.
The best you can hope for is to coordinate. So, many—you have a print pair of panties, and you've got a, fuchsia bra. I mean, that's your best thing. So, we went back to this company and we—oh, and then, in addition to that, we went into peoples' homes, and we talked with them about their underwear.
And routinely we were told that the women wanted matching sets. Now, not every woman wants a matching set, but enough want matching sets, and they're not finding them with this company. So, we go back to the senior people at this firm, and, you know, we were talking to them. We found that they want matching sets, and they can't even get them.
And as a matter of fact, we were at the Macy's in Herald Square in New York, and we walked into the intimates department, and guess what? On four mannequins, right in front of us, there were matching sets. You know, we keep hearing that women want matching sets. And they do the same thing on their catalogs, and on their website. They show matching sets, but you can't buy them for love or money, unless you want black.
BRIODY: —which is exactly what this is all about organizationally speaking that the bras are in one silo, and the panties are in the other, and guess what? Where those items are produced in Asia, the bras are produced in one plant, and the panties are produced in a different plant. Well, it does take eighteen months. And I'm thinking General Motors can make a car in eighteen months. How is it that a bra takes eighteen months? Well, from the start of the design, to getting it packaged and everything else—.
So, you've got—and panties, what, panties don't take that long. So, you've got this time difference. You've got a plant difference. And you have a fabric difference. The fabric for bras is different than panties, and so therefore part of the problem here is a technical issue. The dye lots are different. It's really hard to match that fuchsia color you might want.
And besides, what are we going to do if, you know, we don't sell all the sets? We're going to have all this leftover inventory. And we don't want that. So, their solution was, we'll make a teeny number of matching sets, get people in, and they'll buy something. Well, hate to tell you people, but it's not working because who's take—who's taking you to the market? And, and they are predictable, and, and going to be very useful when people hear them. What advice have you got for junior colleagues as they start their careers in applied anthropology?
What recommendations have you got for the discipline in terms of educating people to become applied and practicing anthropologist? And what do you see as the future course—particularly for your own sort of interests in business anthropology?
Advice for junior colleagues, advice for the discipline—. BRIODY: Well, I think for the young people that are going through college, and then graduate school now, I think the most important thing is—aside from learning enough anthropology where you feel somewhat proficient—is to get as much work experience as possible doing something where there is a link to anthropology.
And that can happen through internships, but it can also happen through volunteer work, and it might even happen at your uncle's store, you know, or, or some other place where you haven't even thought that you might be able to make a difference. So, that would be one suggestion. And a second suggestion is to use those experiences, and the people you meet as part of those experiences, and keep track of them.
So, in other words, learn how to create a professional network, and maintain it. So, you never know when someone will think of you as a person who might be good on a particular project, or who might be interested in a particular job opportunity. And you never know where you will end up, but you might remember a person who had a very similar interest, and now that person would be ideal for you to work with.
So, I would say those are the two key things: work experience where you're using your anthropology and networking. In terms of the discipline as a whole, I think there is a pretty big change afoot. I say that for a number of reasons. But one is there is a consortium of applied, practicing and applied anthropology programs.
And there are now thirty-one, thirty-two programs that are associated with COPAA, and they are in a position to share information with each other, project ideas with each other, et cetera, et cetera, and that is precisely the way in which students and their faculty members can benefit and learn more about it. They also offer a visiting scholar scholarship—I guess it's the Visiting Scholar Program it's called—which provides money for a professional anthropologist or practitioner to go to a particular university and work with the faculty at that university in a partnership so that both parties benefit.
And there's a sum of money that the practitioner would get. And to make it useful for the practitioner—not just that the practitioner is giving time—but the practitioner may have some things that he or she would like to do. For example, there may be an expert, in a particular area that faculty, that department, has, and maybe it's possible for the practitioner to get more information from that person, sit down and have a conversation. Or it could be that the practitioner, would be interested in having the students test out a new method, or take a survey, or provide feedback on something that the practitioner is doing as part of their own work.
So, that would be the way the practitioner could benefit. And then the university obviously benefits because the students can connect directly with that person, hear that person's views, hear that person's story, get ideas, get connected with other people.
So, it's, it's truly a potentially very good benefit for both parties. So that's one thing that's going on. I think though, that more and more departments are feeling like they need to offer courses not just in applied anthropology, but professionalization skills. And I think we're not seeing enough of that yet. So, this is an area of potential future focus where you really have a boot camp, and you essentially run it so that students feel comfortable interviewing, so that students feel that they know what to expect, how to approach somebody, say, in a particular business, or in a particular non-profit or government agency, whatever it happens to be, how to prepare a resume, and can you go to two pages, or should you keep it to one?
I mean, all these simple little questions, that aren't so simple. I think there's a lot to be learned. I remember even when I was a grad student, the sociologists in the Population Research Center were doing it then. They called it the training seminar. And it was mandatory. If you were a grad student, every Friday afternoon for one hour you were at the training seminar, and they were being taught how to become more professionally oriented.
So, one week it was on grant writing. The next week it was on resumes. The third week somebody was going to be giving a talk at a conference. And so you had to listen and give advice to that person. And it was extremely useful. I'm not sure why anthropology programs don't do that routinely right now. That would be immensely important. And, you know, there's all these alums that live nearby universities, or they can Skype in, and you could ask them to give talks.
It's no cost to anybody. So, final question, what's the future? What does it look for application? And you can talk about in relation to business anthropology if you want to, or just in general.
But what we know from past history is that the number of people interested in practice careers has grown exponentially. We now have about twenty-five-percent of the anthropological association that is non-academic, that is, they are holding jobs outside of academia, in various kinds of organizations and community settings.
So, that number has increased over time, and I think it's going to continue to increase. We hear more and more about how few tenure-track jobs there are.
0コメント