This paper examines social transitions in forms of ethnographic representation from seductive play to productive force in Industry. With a focus on the hi-tech consulting and marketing fields, I examine the eight strategies of ethnographic representation include, (1) informal conversations, (2) designed printed materials, (3) video, (4) electronic presentations, (5) personas and scenarios, (6) experience models and diagrams, (7) opportunity matrices, (8) and experience metrics. It addresses the use of these strategies within modal degrees of symbolic seduction and productive force as shaped by the theories of Baudrillard and Taoist philosophy. I propose that the combination of the concepts of Seductive Play and Productive Force and Yin Yang provide a way out of several challenges in ethnography’s engagement with business decision-making, especially related to its role, mission, and power. I attempt to seduce ethnographers into seeing themselves as Taoist “scholar/warriors” able to maintain the human-centered balance in any Industry context.
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Introduction
The purpose of the EPIC community is to develop understandings of the praxis of ethnography in Industry. By ethnography, I mean the philosophical orientation that says that knowledge about people’s experiences should be represented from the modalities of the people studied. Because of my hybrid intersections across the fields of design and anthropology, I come to this understanding through the examination of the representational channels and forms that ethnography uses to communicate what it is/does in Industry. In the high-tech consulting and integrated marketing sectors with which I have been most intimate, there are eight representation strategies used:
- Informal conversations
- Designed printed materials
- Video
- Electronic presentations
- Personas and scenarios
- Experience models and other diagrams
- Opportunity matrices
- Experience metrics
This paper addresses the use of these representation strategies within modal degrees of symbolic seduction and productive force as shaped by the theories of Baudrillard. I select Baudrillard as an intellectual interlocutor because of (1) his clear articulation of what is at stake in productive and symbolic modes and (2) the similarities of his thinking to Taoists ideas in Tai Chi Chuan. Through my practice of Tai Chi Chuan over the past five years, I have learned that applying Taoist principles to the business contexts reduces my perception of sharp dualities and my protective disengagement with dehumanizing processes1. My proposal is that the combination of the concepts of Seductive and Productive and Yin Yang provide a way out of several challenges in ethnography’s contemporary engagement with business decision-making:
- The effective communication of the value of ethnography to business decision-making
- The underlying assumption that ethnography has to demonstrate its value to business-decision making
- Ethnographer’s fears of cooptation within the structure of business
- The interdisciplinary jockeying for power among ethnographers, designers, engineers, business managers, etc.
- The articulation of a mission of Ethnography in Industry
I present this proposal in a series of “songs” in order to seduce ethnographers into embracing a role of, what Deng Ming-Dao calls, “scholar/warriors” who can effectively use techniques of symbolic seduction and productive force to maintain the human-centered balance in business decision-making.
Contemplative Songs of Seduction
The Song of the Universe of Production
[/s2If]We now live in a universe of forces and relations of forces… A universe of production, investments, counter-investments and the liberation of energies, a universe of Law and objective laws, a universe of the master-slave dialectic. (Baudrillard 1990: 177)