
One of the wonderful things about having customers enter you shop (iTunes) and buy stuff from you (our App) is that you discover new companies & individuals and strike up conversations with them.

Before we even started working on the App. We were thinking about a Twitter service for ethnographic researchers. A service that would allow clients and colleagues to ‘follow’ and to collaborate with a researcher in the field as he or she posted text, audio, video and photo updates. Quickly we realized there was no way of efficiently collecting such data on one device and sending it to an online ethnographic Twitter service. So before we build the service, we thought, let’s build the App.
Now that the App. is nearly ready, we have turned our attention to the web based service. And here is what we have in mind.
1) Even though clients can ‘follow’ a researcher in the field, we figured the last thing they would want are updates every few minutes. Which might include spelling mistakes or half baked thoughts and observations. So we experimented with a ‘digester’. This is someone who follows up to 6 ethnographers in the field collecting their posts and organizing them on a web based service (we have yet to build). A digest of the very best of the rest can then be sent to client side followers every few hours for them to comment on and collaborate with the thinking percolating through.
2) From a UI perspective, the digester/client/follower would see a tree (growing with time across the day) grow branches as its trunk stretches across the screen. Each trunk would represent a captured event and each leaf on the branch would represent a clip, photo or text post and a fruit would represent an insight referencing the event. And the digester/follower/client would be able to pick their favourite leaves/fruit into buckets and review/analyse/add meaning to data which has is easy to overlay, compare and view the same events across numerous households
3) My big idea, however, was a client/respondent matchmaking service. When a consumer downloads the App. they are given the choice of registering to make themselves available for video diary studies. Once registered, their relevant information will appear on the site for clients to view and choose which to select to participate in their study. Incentives can even be paid directly through the site using PayPal.
4) A skinnable site so clients can personalise their own pages with their branding or panel name
These are basic specifications. I know the matchmaking service, for example, won’t be as simple as I have set out above. So my question to you, gorgeous reader, is: what do you think? Have I missed anything? Would you tackle the web based service any differently? Are there similar service out there we could use without having to build one from scratch? And remember if there is, it will need to talk to my App.
Would love to hear from you.
I have a few confessions to make. But first… you know the old tale about the hairdresser who let his own hair grow so long he couldn’t see what he was cutting any more? That’s me. We run innovations projects all the time for clients. We have a process and a methodology which is rigorous, tried and tested. Yet here I am supposedly ‘innovating’ my own ethnographic iPhone App.:
Many of the above issues are down to funding – I have gone over budget by a factor of 2 on the App. However, on a positive note, there have been a couple of rather exciting developments.
At this very moment I am busy writing and rewriting the blurb which will accompany the App. on the App store site when it’s finally launched. Once done we will send it to Apple for approval. This process will take, I am told, 2-3 weeks. And then, and then, I will have perhaps the most anxious wait of my entire life as I wait for the first reviews to come through.
Update: As of Thursday 19 November 2009 - two days after writing this piece - I have a 16Gb 3Gs!
This is my dream camera. The Leica M9. Aarguably the world's best camera at this time. This is what Ken Rockwell has to say about it:
"The LEICA M9 is the smallest, lightest, highest-quality digital camera ever created by the hand of Man.
The all-metal LEICA M9 is less expensive than the old Nikon D3X, and weighs over four ounces (120g) less than the plastic Nikon D90! The M9 weighs only 2.4 oz (69g) more than the dinkiest Nikon D40!
The LEICA M9 is the most important digital camera introduced since the Nikon D1, the world's first practical DSLR, in 1999.
The LEICA M9 is a rangefinder camera, not an SLR.
The LEICA M9 is the world's best digital camera for travel, nature, landscape, interior and outdoor photography."
And I want one. But it costs almost £5,000 or over $8,000. Not including additional lenses.
My attachment to the Leica stems from my dad's beloved Leica M3 which I grew up with - which has also become the inspiration for the styling of my iPhone App.
So my challenge is to obtain this camera under my wife's financial radar. She would never let me spend this much money on a camera let alone a car. Although she did say she would get me one for my 50th birthday. I responded that if I didn't live to my 50th birthday she would spend the rest of her life guilt ridden about not having bought me the M9 when I asked for it. Predictably, she was having none of this.
So with resolve strengthened, I did a little research on-line and established that a gentleman called Christian Cerhardt is the US Marketing Director for Leica cameras. And late last night when everyone was in bed I crafted a carefully worded email to him with, 'I want an M9 - sorry for getting in touch like this,' in the subject box. In short, I offered an attractive barter/exchange. I would carry out a segmentation animation study for him to the value (and slightly over) of a Leica M9 with a few accessories.
He hasn't replied yet. I wonder if he will. I wonder if I will receive an email saying, 'let's meet when you are in NJ next week...' That would be amazing.
I will keep you posted on my progress. Stay tuned.
You may have seen this before but it's a wonderful experiment. An inspired experiment.
Anyway, enjoy.
AQR ethnography from researchtalk on Vimeo.
Surinder Siama of, Research Talk, kindly agreed to film my talk a few weeks back for the AQR. I also asked Greg Rowland to join me and help provide semiotic perspectives on the clips I was using to explain ethnographic analysis. I think he stole the show.The EthOS iPhone, Android and Blackberry App are free and available here: www.ethosapp.com