This is a companion blog to my recent FutureTalk on African digital makers and users; you can watch the video of this talk below. Although I’m jumping off from this specific research topic, really, it’s a talk about the relationship of human diversity to digital innovation: to the power we have to harness design thinking to make alternative futures.
Read MoreTo unravel cultures of exclusivity in the workplace and in the field as a whole, CultureEncode approaches the three aspects of any ED&I program as a cycle
Read MoreAs user experience research and design becomes a site for unparalleled innovation in tech, the field is revisiting the question of who participates in these studies, and how. We have figured out how to get into the mechanics of what makes our users tick; the challenge now is to reimagine the role of user to include those whose experience falls off the radar
Read MoreAll productive workplaces hope to foster genuine conversations about diversity and inclusion. All too often, though, these become stuck on the same setting: making sure workers avoid saying the wrong thing. How can we take diversity work a step beyond this and transform workplaces into sites of cross-cultural conversation and innovation?
Read MoreOne of the biggest mistakes we make as people-in-the-world is assuming that we already have a clear view of what our own personal values, habits, and hopes are; this becomes even more difficult when trying to understand a diverse group of people. Hiring into an unquestioned company culture can lead to problems with retention, worker satisfaction, and productivity.
Read MoreServing global markets requires intercultural knowledge for the sake of working efficiently, building positive longstanding partnerships with global entities that may work very differently form domestic ones, and avoiding ethical missteps that could lead to missed opportunties, or worse, bad publicity.
Read MoreIn this post, I want to work through two case studies in global design thinking that can be valuable to the field of UX Research and Design--and to the broader climate of digital innovation that is sparking across industry today.
Read MoreAnthropologists have, for centuries, attuned their work to understanding humans, how they organize into groups, and how they interact with and build out their environment to solve critical problems so that they can survive and flourish. We understand people, and we understand the material and technological world. User experience research, design thinking, global marketing, and diversifying the workplace–very different projects and processes– take on new dimensions when empowered by the insights cultural anthropology brings to the table.
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