Introduction

This paper describes a year-long discussion about the potential of combining an ethnographic approach with futurist consulting methods. The purpose of which was to generate foresight, by identifying, synthesizing and analyzing trends which may impact an organization, or marketplace in the future and to assist by developing more structured and supportable strategies for facing future dynamics proactively. In this case, the futures consultancy in question augments its “traditional” offerings (e.g., foresight methods, scenario development, briefings and group workshops), with selected experiential techniques. For its inaugural European event, the consultancy required a means of immersing clients in actual social settings, from which they could “witness” indicators and evidence of possible future trends.

The second motivation for this research was to explore how contemporary cultural innovations are translated into management and business knowledge. Whilst not the central focus of this paper, we argue an increased interest in ethnographic research, which aims to get closer to the user, reflects a rising demand for methods that re-map the space between business decision makers and business problems. This paper presents an experiment to create a tool designed to explore how ethnographic knowledge is translated into organizational learning. The project is offered as an ontological experiment in what might be possible with ethnographic research. It therefore contributes to exploring the re-spatialization of knowledge production in advanced capitalist societies, which aims to understand how business and management knowledge is evolving into a self-organizing ‘cultural circuit of capital’ (Thrift, 2005). In other words the flows and folds that occur as knowledge is assembled through the interaction of management consultants, business school, the business media and gurus.

Making Sense of an Ethnographic Approach without Graphos

Before setting out the details of this project, we must clarify our use of the term ethnography. Our intention was never to make epistemological claims justifying a ‘full’ or ‘true’ ethnography of the future of work and play. We recognize such an undertaking would require a rich textual representations of social reality, which can only emerge through extensive immersion, analysis, reflection and interplay between theoretical and empirical perspectives. Hence, we do not claim the embedding process will generate the same degree of epistemological productivity as full ethnography. Instead it is a reduction, or minimalist interpretation, of ethnography, designed to reproduce the complexities of conducting ethnographic research for business decision makers. The following is intended to prompt thinking about one way of assisting the translation of ethnographic research into the panoply of methods employed in organizational learning.

Our interpretation of ethnographic fieldwork is also tightly coupled to the consultancies aims of hosting a two-day multi-client introductory workshop to futurist consulting. We do however believe the process of placing non-experts into field research settings may warrant further investigation as a means of prompting understanding of the epistemological productiveness and challenges involved in commercial ethnographic enquiry. A detailed textual representation of this project, (i.e., a graphos) has been documented elsewhere (Greenman, forthcoming). In this paper we wish to explore the possibilities of how ethnographers might create spaces designed to encourage business decision makers to witness the sensemaking (Weick, 1995) that is produced during ethnography.

We introduce the term “embedding” to refer to a tool for expanding an ethnographer’s ‘realm of influence’, (Jordan and Dalal, 2005) by physically placing non-experts into a social milieu, as a means of opening business decision makers to witness how ethnography can play a crucial role in creative problem framing.

This approach advocates bringing non-experts into situations in which they can experience the production of ethnographic knowledge and how it may assist in helping organizations adapt, through re-framing the accepted parameters of problem solving (Landry, 1985). In conceptualizing embedding as a tool to increase empathy towards ethnographic research, it is conceived as part of a wider shift towards promoting understanding and acceptance of how humanities and arts traditions can contribute to assisting business decision makers understand the complexities of socio-cultural organization.

We proceed by making the following claims for embedding. First, as a technique to reduce the distance between the ethnographer and business decision maker, by inviting non-experts to witness the conditions under which how ethnographic knowledge is generated. Second, as an additional tool for the commercial ethnographer, who could develop epistemological productive spaces, perhaps within existing organizational training programs. Together these are combine to stimulate ‘situated learning’ (Lave and Wenger, 1991) and build more effective ‘communities of practice’ (Wenger, 1999), by placing non-experts in spaces in which they witness the ‘collaboration, compromise and co-experiencing’ (Jordan and Dalal, forthcoming) of commercial ethnography. Embedding aims to turn the gaze of commercial ethnography back on the existing knowledge production processes within an organization. Hence, providing a space to reveal and reflect upon the proximal relationships which exist between ethnographers and organizational decision makers.

EMBED: A Tool for Thinking With

Embed was the name given to a half-day walking tour, DVD and map devised to compliment a two day futures workshop in London. The event was held in June 2005 and focused on the future of work and play in Europe. Day one consisted of a workshop introduction to Futurist research. Participants were encouraged to conduct scenario planning. This involved synthesizing major trends and transitions which the Futurists expect will impact on work and play over the next 20 years in Europe. On the second day participants were invited to witness three “zones of change” in London to further explore, validate, or amend the views developed on the first day. The driving forces included the following; immigration, technology development, cultural values, economic policies and an aging population.

The tour was developed on the assumption the participants would be planners, strategists and marketers from non-European organizations and from roles that rarely put participants in contact with “street-level” illustrations of the trends under consideration. The rationale for appealing to ethnography was to place the delegates in an unfamiliar territory, utilizing their unfamiliarity with the environment to heighten the epistemological productivity of being an outsider. During the tour, participants were encouraged to conduct basic semi-structured observation and were invited to conduct an “informal interview” with a key informer.

The tour route was chosen for various reasons. First, the sites were selected for their physical proximity to central London, where participants had gathered. The entire tour had to be completed within four hours, which limited the distance we could cover. Second, the sites had to reflect some aspect of the driving forces discussed during the first day’s workshop. This required selecting sites as “ideal types”, reflecting exaggerated effects such as immigration and clusters of knowledge workers.

After selecting a geographical area in east central London we began to build a narrative for the tour from the following sources. First, we consulted academic ethnographies of work conducted in the area. These included Young and Willmott (1957) who discussed the kinship networks and Hobbs’ ethnography of entrepreneurship (1989). These studies were complimented by popular non-fiction writings about the area (Hall, 2005). Second, we turned to ethnographic methodology, especially phenomenology, to justify a walking tour. Walking was advocated on the basis that it would encourage non-experts to empathize with how a key technique in ethnography is the physical embodiment of the researcher in various social settings.

The three sites served as vignettes of broader social changes relating to work and play, which were sketched out during the workshop. Transporting non-experts into a field-setting was an invitation to witness, albeit temporarily, how ethnographic research is qualitatively different to other forms of research. The aim was to sensitize business decision makers to the production of ethnographic knowledge, by heightening awareness of the affects of ethnographic fieldwork, by creating a space which enabled participants to enter the field and witness, albeit temporally, the improvisatory nature of taking standpoints, “hanging-out,” and glimpse the struggle of ascertaining an emic, or insider perspective. Clearly, we were not making claims here of participant observation or “becoming the phenomenon” (Jorgensen, 1990).

These limitations are why Embed is referred to as a “tool for thinking”. The tour was devised to be fun, creative, unusual, risky and quirky. This is not to suggest it was indulgent or frivolous. Embed was not aspiring to be a Situationist drift around the city. It had a pragmatic aim of nurturing empathy between business decision makers and ethnographic researchers. It aimed therefore at assisting in the process of brokering a dialogue with non-experts. The aim is certainly not to discredit the work of professional ethnographers with relativist claims about the nature of social scientific knowledge. Instead we hoped to take steps towards developing a “meaningful vocabulary” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003) for experts and non-experts to discuss how ethnography contributes to business decision making.

Embedding

The term embedding is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as the “placing, or fixing into (something) firmly or deeply in surrounding matter; to make something an integral part of a whole; to implant (e.g., an idea) in the mind”. In geometry, embedding refers to the insertion of one mathematical object into another instance; or the insertion of a homeomorphism, or topological isomorphism, a specific type of geometrical mapping between two points of reference. Embedding affects a topology by stretching, or folding and re-folding the surface, morphing an object into something new. The process is isomorphic (isos meaning equal and morphe meaning shape) because the embedding must map together two complex structures into a corresponding relationship. Embedding is therefore a process of bringing together two structures, to form a new structure. A more in-depth account of the geometry and virtual philosophy can be read elsewhere (De Landa, 2003). Our interest in embedding is its potential as a process of insertion and creation of new possibilities.

Another use of the term “embedding” is the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DOD) media strategy. During the Iraq war, the DOD adopted a strategy it referred to as “embedding” to refer to the placement of media representatives into Air, Ground and Naval forces. As the DOD stated; “these embedded media will live, work and travel as part of the units which they are embedded…to facilitate maximum, in-depth coverage” (2003). Media “embeds”, were provided with direct access to the Area of Responsibility (AOR), to gain a “full understanding” through “extended participation”. In return for their “investment of time”, media embeds were said to have a “different level of access” to the “theatres” of war. Access to the situations was subordinate to “on scene commanders”, who had the authority to issue travel plans, protective gear and ultimate responsibility for deciding the degree to which media embeds would compromise operational security (e.g, dates, times, locations, military units, casualties, code names, service members names). In addition to seeking permission from these commanders, media embeds also had to obtain “informed consent” from interviewees.

The above is interpreted as an operationalization of an isomorphic embedding process. It created a new typology of war correspondence, by aligning media representatives with military personnel. Similarly our small walking tour of London was designed adapt the notion of embedding non-experts into the field, promoting new forms dialogue and encouraging a re-mapping the proximity between ethnographers and business decision makers.

Similar approaches can be found in other commercial contexts. Anderson and McGonigal use the term “place storming” to explain how engineers, designers and marketers were situated into real world situations, so as to explore the interrelation between virtual and physical space (2004). Mariampolski also discussed the possibilities, both positive and potential negative, (e.g., interference from internal politics) of involving non-experts in ethnographic fieldwork (2005).

A final justification is taken from Wenger’s pedagogical theory of “communities of practice” (1998) and Lave and Wenger’s theory of “situated learning” (1991). Their central argument is that learning occurs through participation in communities, rather than solely through reification and formal instruction. Hence the challenge for management education is in designing “learning architectures” which place learning into the wider trajectory of an individual’s life. Rather than focusing training solely on a classroom, learning designs should encourage various “modes of belonging”. These include engagement, imagination and alignment which aim to open an individual to the potential of identity change. Wenger noted the particular importance of mapping, off-site visits and tours to extend imagination and invite individuals to challenge the boundaries of their identity in relation to a community and/or organization.

We conceptualize embedding as a tool for increasing reflexivity towards the imagination mode of belonging. Our aim was to encourage individuals to consider how ethnographic knowledge could re-map the proximity between the organizational problems they face and the wider environment in which organizational adaptation occurs. By combining ethnography, futures consulting and theories of situated learning, we define embedding as follows: a tool for engaging business decision makers and non-ethnographers in the complexities of everyday situations, in order to heighten the reflexivity of embeds towards the boundaries of organizational problems and to assist in re-framing the imaginative frontiers of organizational learning.