Guides Not Gurus

Bibliographic Data

ID5948258
AuthorsCatherine Howard, Peter Mortensen (0000-0003-1622-8272)
Year2009
Volume2009
Issue1
Pages17-28
Publication date2009-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEthnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings (CONFERENCE)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1559-890X • E-ISSN: 1559-8918
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1559-8918.2009.tb00124.x
OpenAlexW2155513192
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited2

The past quarter century has seen the deployment of ethnographic methods in business grow from a curiosity to a prerequisite for success. But in the process, the outcomes of ethnographic research-customer empathy, strategic directions, lasting market insights that shape design-have not been adopted at the same rate. The hand-off from ethnographers to designers and business decision-makers is the biggest challenge to success.The time has come for ethnographers to again reframe their role within business. Rather than acting as interpreters between the lives of ordinary people and the companies who serve them, ethnographers have the opportunity to instead help the entire business organization to gather a clear sense of its customers' lives. Ethnographers need to switch from being gurus of customer experience to being guides who take everyone in the company into the outside world

Business · Cognitive reframing · Curiosity · Empathy · Ethnography · Political science · Public relations · Quarter (Canadian coin · Sociology · Software deployment · Categorization, perception, and language · Cognitive and psychological constructs research · Diverse Academic Research Areas · Engineering · History · Psychology · Social Psychology · Marketing

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access