Dhanabir Sharma

Intelligences

Designing and Conducting Inclusive Research: How a Global Technology Company and an Online Research Platform Partnered to Explore the Technology Experiences of Users who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing

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Presentation slide projected on stage: title, "Benefits of Remote Technology". text: "My phone I use for basically everything. I use it to have..." On the right is a photo of what appears to be a desk with a computer monitor (unclear)
DANA C. GIERDOWSKI Lenovo KAREN EISENHAUER dscout PEGGY HE Lenovo [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] This case study examines how researchers at Lenovo and dscout partnered to conduct a mobile ethnographic study on the technology experiences of individuals who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing, with the goal of making their products and research practices more accessible and inclusive. The study revealed common frustrations and pain points people experience when using their every-day technology. The researchers also learned valuable research design and operations lessons related to recruiting participants who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing, providing accommodations, and establishing an accessible research environment. This case explores the benefits of mobile-forward research design, and the additional considerations and adaptations necessary for collecting both asynchronous and synchronous data from individuals who have hearing loss and who have different...

Intelligences

The Giving Caregivers: Resilience as a Double-Edged Sword in the Context of Healthcare

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Juliana Saldarriaga speaking on stage at EPIC2022
JULIANA SALDARRIAGA A Piece of Pie [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] In this paper we challenge an assumption about caregivers of chronic patients that we’ve repeatedly encountered in our ethnographic fieldwork: that of the inherently and permanently resilient caregiver, or a person that, driven by feelings of affection for the chronic patient, will remain strong regardless of the challenges posed by the healthcare system or the disease itself. We describe three deeply rooted beliefs that explain why this assumption is still widespread within healthcare systems: the belief in caregiving as female calling, or the fact that women are assumed to have not just a biological advantage, but an interest in caregiving, the belief in individuality, or the fact that individuals are thought to have a preexisting and inalterable identity, and the belief in the pathological origin of mental illness, or the fact that we tend to ignore structural causes and social determinants...

Intelligences

Navigating the Next with Resilience: Global Portfolio Strategy in a World of Uncertainty

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Giulia Gasperi presenting at EPIC2022
GIULIA ELISA GASPERI TRIPTK SAM HORNSBY TRIPTK KATE MCTIGUE TRIPTK NICHOLAS PEDEN TRIPTK [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] Apparel & footwear (A&F) give us social identity, protection and a means of self-expression. But in a pandemic these ways of thinking about clothing are essentially pointless. When the world shuts down and stays at home, how are A&F companies supposed to figure out what’s next – and how to gear themselves up for the future? At TRIPTK, we created the What’s Next Desk, a ‘what do we do about it next’ set of strategic and tactical actions for a global leader in apparel & footwear to respond to the behavioral shifts in consumer trends during COVID-19. We believe ethnographic research is a powerful approach for connecting companies to the people, communities and culture they serve. And when the world shuts down and we’re forced to throw the classic ethnographic playbook out the window, we still believe the...

Intelligences

Creating Resilient Research Findings: Using Ethnographic Methods to Combat Research Amnesia

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Kristen Guth speaking at EPIC2022. Slide reads "Organizations can learn by reflection on memories, or shared understandings and beliefs, of specific events and contexts
KRISTEN L. GUTH Reddit, Inc. DOWNLOAD PDF [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] Product teams, including those I work with, struggle to connect the challenges observed in prior research to issues that endure in the field and market space. As a shortcut for efficiency gains, product partners rely on researchers to succinctly summarize deep insights, sometimes preferring reductive quantitative interpretations to enable a bias toward action in product development cycles. Challenges facing researchers in product development include maintaining the relevance of prior research, providing a way to make it evergreen and accessible, and building on it to deepen and expand an existing model of behavior. This case introduces the concept of Research Amnesia, which poses a threat to organizational resilience. Using core ethnographic methods, a strategic methodological approach is outlined to frameshift the value of existing research within a company to develop new insights, bring together disparate analyses and teams,...

Intelligences

Cybersecurity in the Icelandic Multiverse

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Photo of Megan McGrath presenting at EPIC2022. Projected slide says "Building a Strategic Multiverse"
MEGHAN MCGRATH IBM [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] “Security in cyber space should be one of the main cornerstones of economic prosperity in Iceland, resting on a foundation of sophisticated awareness of security issues and legislation.” —Icelandic National Cyber Security Strategy Iceland makes a unique case study for cybersecurity in that it ranks among the world’s most connected nations as well as among the highest for social trust. Data that elsewhere is considered sensitive is shared freely by individuals and businesses. As a result, technology built in places with different cybersecurity paradigms may not function as intended in an Icelandic context. This work, undertaken with undergraduate and graduate students from the University of Iceland’s Computer Science department, employed ethnographic methods in a classroom setting to build cybersecurity awareness with a special emphasis on culture and to engage the broader community in conversations...

Intelligences

Jobs Not To Be Done: Anti-Work Theory and the Resilience of Mutual Aid

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Presentation slide: bright red background with large white letters spelling "EXIT". People drawn in silhouette are running toward and through the letters.
TODD CARMODY Gemic [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] This paper explores recent developments in anti-work theory to identify key learnings for ethnographers in industry. It focuses in particular on how anti-work perspectives allow us to rethink the managerial notions of resilience that dominate across many of the industries that collaborate with corporate ethnographers. In this tradition, achieving resilience is a matter of “finding yourself” at work – of ensuring that a job is not just a paycheck, but an avenue of self-fulfillment. In order to explore what resilience might look like if we bracket the question of work, this paper turns to COVID-era mutual aid projects. Two key learnings help reframe anti-work theory for the EPIC community: the necessity of 1) rethinking the notion of reciprocity that sustains our commitment to work (you only get out of work what you put in) and 2) making positive claims on behalf of freedom (not freedom from work but...

Intelligences

Against Resiliency: An Ethnographic Manifesto

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Lauren Rhodes and Jillian Powers speaking together on stage at EPIC2022
LAUREN MONSEIN RHODES Cisco JILLIAN POWERS JP Morgan Chase DOWNLOAD PDF [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] Using ethnography as an analytic tool to examine the concept of resiliency, we call for a shift in our practice and praxis. Research subjects and ethnographic practitioners are tired of working against and thriving despite. We are tired of being seen as resilient in a world that demands so much from us and only values our contributions if they align with dominant views and world systems. We are tired of being relied upon to provide answers and solutions to the issues presented in front of us. In this manifesto, we demonstrate and argue that resilience, as a category of human agency, shifts responsibility to the person being resilient and away from the systemic problems that created the need to be resilient in the first place. By reifying resilience in our research and our findings, we celebrate survival despite the psychic and somatic labor and toll on resilient actors. As practitioners, we are...

Intelligences

Amplifying Resilient Communities: Identifying Resilient Community Practices to Better Inform Health System Design

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Diagram called "Strands of Health." Six strands of different colors are wound together, then unravel. The strands are labled: Environmental Health; Social Health; Physical Health; Emotional Health; Financial Health; Spiritual Health
ROMIT RAJ Quicksand Design Studio BABITHA GEORGE Quicksand Design Studio CRISTIN MARONA Matchboxology REBECCA WEST Ipsos ANABEL GOMEZ Independent Technical Advisor TRACY PILAR JOHNSON The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ADITYA PRAKASH Quicksand Design Studio SUNNY SHARMA Ipsos AYUSHI BIYANI Quicksand Design Studio MRITTIKA BARUA James P Grant School of Public health, BRAC University CAL BRUNS Matchboxology [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] Globally, the COVID-19 pandemic has been an inflection point, bringing heightened awareness around the preparedness and resilience of public health systems in dealing with severe shocks. While the pandemic has accentuated the existing weakness in public health systems, for many, especially those belonging to marginalized sections of society, seeking healthcare has always been fraught with severe challenges and frictions. This paper presents the findings from a two-year design research project conducted...

Intelligences

Show Must Go On: How Can Ballet Help Us Strengthen Ethnographic Practice?

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Photograph of a ballet dancer at the apex of a jump in a full split, with translucent white skirt and sleeves illuminated against the dark background of an empty theater.
ALMINA KARYA ODABASI Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] [s2If !is_user_logged_in()] Join EPIC to access video: → Learn about Membership → Browse Video Library [/s2If] [s2If current_user_is(subscriber)] Join EPIC to access video: → Learn about Membership → Browse Video Library [/s2If] This PechaKucha is drawn from research conducted as an organizational ethnography at The Dutch National Ballet (DNB), a renowned professional organization in the culture and arts sector in the Netherlands. However, just like most research trajectories, mine was also full of hurdles that I needed to overcome, the biggest being Coronavirus and the disruptions it created. While constantly adapting myself and my research to the circumstances of the day, I agree with Marcus and Fischer’s description of ethnography being a “messy, qualitative experience” (1986, p.22). I have come to recognize how resilience is very much engraved in the ballet as a profession with opportunities...

Intelligences

Beyond Representation: Using Infrastructure Studies to Reframe Ethnographic Agendas and Outcomes

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Still image of Karl Mendonca presenting at EPIC2022
KARL MENDONCA Google [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] The ethos and methods of participatory research have been widely embraced as a powerful approach to address systemic inequity in the design of technology. While there have been many gains and developments that merit celebration, an unspoken, prevalent assumption is that inclusive forms of engagement will unequivocally result in a more inclusive product. Using the case study of an ethnographic project, this paper critically examines how the task of producing “better” (more ethical, more participatory, more statistically diverse) representations, had the unintended consequence of displacing structural outcomes to questions of aesthetics and statistical sampling. An investigation into the cause of this displacement reveals the resilience of deeper historical biases that persist from the early years of electronic computing. As a possible remedial framework, this paper introduces the field of infrastructure...

Intelligences

The Ethnography of a ‘Decentralized Autonomous Organization’ (DAO): De-mystifying Algorithmic Systems

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Slide from presentation: A cartoonish drawing of a dumpster in an alley with eyes and a smile, half open, with flames coming out of the open side. Label underneath dumpster sayd "Governance". Slide title is "The Field Site: 'Decentralized Autonomous Organization' (DAO)... A.k.a:"
KELSIE NABBEN RMIT University, Centre for Automated Decision Making & Society / BlockScience MICHAEL ZARGHAM WU Vienna / BlockScience [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] This paper details ethnographic methods, experiences, and insights from an ethnographer and an industry engaged complex systems engineer in how to study resilience in blockchain-based DAOs as a novel field site. Amidst digitization of numerous elements of government, work, and everyday life, ‘Decentralized Autonomous Organizations’ (DAOs) provide a field site for the generation of ethnographic insights into opportunities and limitations in organizational resilience in human-machine assemblages. As a broad organizational form, DAOs aim to enable people to coordinate and govern themselves through automated rules deployed on a public blockchain (Hassan & Di Filippi, 2021). DAOs are an experiment in ‘computer aided governance’. These adaptive, socio-technical infrastructures are...

Intelligences

Building Resilient Futures in the Virtual Everyday: Virtual Worlds and the Social Resilience of Teens during COVID-19

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Line drawing of teenagers tanking selfies and the screens of their phones showing social media profiles
JULIAN GOPFFARTH Stripe Partners REBECCA JABLONSKY Google1 CATHERINE RICHARDSON Stripe Partners [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] Virtual worlds have been central to an imagined future in which advances in technology propel new social practices. The recent focus within the technology industry on the “metaverse” is the latest iteration of imagined, utopian virtual worlds which have continually surfaced in literature, film, product development, and more since the 1960s. One might say that the concept of virtual worlds is resilient—but do these proposed virtual worlds actually make society more resilient? We argue that despite their endurance, these concepts present a deterministic vision of a singular future towards which humanity is inevitably progressing, revoking the agency, desires and resilience expressed by people today in their everyday realities. Building on original ethnographic research conducted with 31 teenagers in China, Germany and the...

Intelligences

Beyond Zoom Fatigue: Ritual and Resilience in Remote Meetings

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John Sherry speaking on stage at EPIC2022. Projected slide says "How is remote work affecting resilience?"
SUZANNE L. THOMAS1 Intel Corporation JOHN W. SHERRY Intel Corporation REBECCA CHIERICHETTI Intel Corporation SINEM ASLAN Intel Corporation LUMINIŢA-ANDA MANDACHE University of Salzburg, Austria [s2If is_user_logged_in()]DOWNLOAD PDF [/s2If] [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] COVID-19 has precipitated a massive social experiment – the sudden shift of millions of knowledge workers from their traditional offices to homes or other remote work locations. This has inspired heated debates and new ways of imagining the future of work. This paper hopes to contribute to a better understanding of these changes by reporting on the results of several dozen in-depth interviews with remote workers from a variety of geographies, industries and professions. We focus in particular on their experiences of remote meetings, with special attention to complaints workers have with their current implementation. As we learned, workers’ complaints tended to be driven by social – rather than productivity or technical...

Intelligences

Mapping the Messy: Using Visual Noise to Convey Not All Journeys Are Linear

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LISA KOEMAN Elsevier [s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] [s2If !is_user_logged_in()] Join EPIC to access video: → Learn about Membership → Browse Video Library [/s2If] [s2If current_user_is(subscriber)] Join EPIC to access video: → Learn about Membership → Browse Video Library [/s2If] In order to communicate research findings, industry researchers rely on a wide range of tools to convey insights. A prime example are visualisations depicting steps in a journey in a sequential order. The use of such a visual representation is often meant to summarise commonalities in a simplified way; they act as a standalone shareable shorthand designed to narrate ‘the experience(s)’. This PechaKucha instead makes a case for messiness: visual noise aimed to overwhelm. My research on rejection in academic publishing shows that the reality of publishing papers in journals is anything but linear. In order to communicate this message to stakeholders, I set out to paint a vivid picture of endless loops...

Intelligences

Cultivating Resiliencies for All: The Necessity of Trauma Responsive Research Practices

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Presentation slide: an arial view of a meandering river. Overlain text: "A Trauma Responsive Development Model. 1. Aware. 2. Sensitive. 3. Informed. 4. Responsive"
MATTHEW BERNIUS Code for America RACHAEL DIETKUS Social Workers Who Design DOWNLOAD PDF[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] [/s2If] This paper is an exploration of trauma, how and why it can surface during ethnographic and qualitative research, and the importance of anticipating its potential presence. We present a model to help plan for and mitigate the risks of trauma and demonstrate how it fits into broader methodological discussions of conducting safer and more ethical, responsible, and humane research. We close by discussing one pathway for a journey from being sensitive and aware of trauma to actively responding to it at both the individual and organizational levels across your work. Keywords: Trauma informed care, trauma responsive research and design, design research, ethics, qualitative methods Article citation: 2022 EPIC Proceedings pp 9–34, ISSN 1559-8918, https://www.epicpeople.org/epic [s2If !current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] To access the video presentation: JOIN EPIC or...