- Anthropology journals online…
- Livescribe’s Smartpen…
- An Ethnography Primer…
- Swivel|See, understand, and share numbers…
- Evernote…
- VisualAnthropology.net…
- “The Cell Phone and Its Technosocial Sites of Engagement”…
- Ethnography and Marketing
- Logitech Webcam C250…
- Cybersociology #6: The Virtual Ethnographer…
- JayCut.com…
To really get a grasp on ethnography, or any subject for that matter, a review of the available literature never hurts. WashU’s Anthropology Department compiled this list of anthropology journals online.
I first learned about the Livescribe Smartpen via a post @mwesch‘s Digital Ethnography blog: SmartPen as Digital Ethnography Tool. Check out the company site as well. I haven’t tried the Smartpen yet, but I’d love to hear feedback from anyone that has (in addition to @mwesch).
This PDF brochure entitled “Ethnography|Design: An Ethnography Primer” provides a quick and effective introduction to how ethnography can be used to solve problems in design. These insights can be easily adapted to marketing/advertising.
Swivel.com is a site for finding and sharing social data (as well as many other kinds of data). Make charts, graphs and visualizations to gain new insights. Play with your data! Ethnography is innately qualitative, but there is nothing wrong with a quantitatively informed observer.
Evernote is your all-purpose online journal for organizing thoughts, documents and ideas. Clip text, images or files from anywhere on the web. It’s free!
@caseorganic studies the interaction between humans and machines, and how technology changes culture. This is her thesis on cyborg anthropology and cell phones: “The Cell Phone and Its Technosocial Sites of Engagement”.
@Judd Antin approaches the intersection of ethnography and marketing with this piece from 2005: “The real value in ethnography, after all, isn’t just in collecting the data but in knowing what to make of it.”
From YouTube to 6Rounds and Skype, you’ll need a webcam to participate.
There’s an interesting passage on video in the field that I recommend checking out in this article from Bruce Mason and Bella Dicks, from the School of Sciences @Cardiff University in Wales.
Video ethnography can result in hours and hours of footage. What do you do with all that data? Edit it into digestable and meaningful clips online with jaycut.com.
