Cyber Anthropology
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Two Bits – A mini-review

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I just finished reading Two Bits by Christopher Kelty.

I haven’t really had time to sit and think too much about it yet, but one thing that does jump out at me immediately is that the author is an anthropologist first and a ‘geek’ second (if at all).

This makes me a bit reflexive in my own work in that I think of myself as equally a geek and anthropologist. To me, they go hand in hand.

While he seemed to look at his research and knowledge of open source software and the culture that surrounds it in such a way that it was, say, elevated due to its scientific nature (take chapter 8 for example), I want mine to be on the level and completely accessible to those for whom it is about. Scientific of course, but purposeful and usable as well.

I suppose this is also the difference between applied and theoretical anthropology in that it is my goal to perform my research FOR an open source community rather than ON open source culture.

I think I’ll definitely give this book a second read, it deserves at least that. I have to say though, it’s not quite what I expected it would be.

Research and Development 2.0 – Hire Anthropologists

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This comes from directly from Harvard Business:

Anthropologists and ethnographers. By having anthropologists study and interact with end-customers in their natural settings, Western firms can learn to tailor their business models and offerings to match users’ socio-economic and cultural context. For example, Intel’s People and Practices Research (PaPR) employs sociologists and ethnographers who spend months in emerging markets embedded in grassroots communities to identify the latent needs of local consumers. Dr Genevieve Bell, one of PaPR’s anthropologists, traveled extensively across China and India observing people in their homes to find out how they use and what they want from technology. Her ethnographic insights shaped Intel’s groundbreaking pricing models and partnership strategies for Chinese consumer market.

On that note, I’m proud to announce that I will be partnering with the Fedora Project for my practicum (an applied Masters thesis), where I will be performing exploratory research on their online open source development community. More details to come soon!

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