Leveraging Ethnography to Predict Shifting Cultural Norms (Chapter 7 from Disrupt Together)

Radical globalization, technological and economic change, and environmental pressures are revolutionizing cultural norms, generating powerful new opportunities for disruptive innovation. The techniques of ethnography are invaluable for innovators who need to make sense of today's ambiguities and chaos. Now, learn to apply these techniques, and integrate ethnography into a complete innovation framework that works.

Leveraging Ethnography to Predict Shifting Cultural Norms is part of Philadelphia University's breakthrough approach to innovation: one that links business, design and engineering, and delivers extraordinary results in both new and existing ventures. First, Dr. Stephen Spinelli and Heather McGowan introduce this "Disrupt Together" approach, explain its deep roots in design thinking, and show how it generates far more high-value ideas for innovation. Next,Sarah Rottenberg shows how to use applied ethnographic methods to identify "white spaces": new, disruptive opportunities for innovation created by changing cultural norms. First, Rottenberg shows how to plan your ethnographic research: recruiting the right people, observing the right activities, and asking the right questions. Next, you'll learn how to follow the trails your participants lay down, wherever they lead — even when things get emotionally intense. Finally, you'll learn how to combine highly analytic techniques with those that prioritize your intuitive sensemaking, giving yourself multiple chances to see the world in new ways.

Leveraging Ethnography to Predict Shifting Cultural Norms is one of 15 e-chapters addressing all facets of innovation, from design processes and team development to business models and value delivery. Each is crafted by a pioneering business innovator — and they all integrate into today's most coherent, realistic blueprint for innovation. For all entrepreneurs, executives, managers, strategists, and students who want to drive more value from innovation.

Sarah Rottenberg is the Associate Director of the Integrated Product Design Master's Program at the University of Pennsylvania, and a Lecturer in its School of Design. She trains clients in design research methodologies and helps teams design products, experiences, and businesses that are desirable, meaningful, feasible, and viable. Formerly a design researcher at Doblin and a Directing Associate at Jump Associates, she holds a Master of Arts in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, where she studied anthropology; and a Bachelor of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.