If you bump into a Dundee design ethnography student roaming around in Germany or the USA, India, China or London this summer, say hello! Semester three of the Masters in Design Ethnography is underway and the gang are off on their fieldwork travels. It’s Hothouse Summer time again and it is all about the numbers: 14 students, 5 companies, 1 theme…
Mobile. Migrant. Communities.
This year we are tackling the idea that many of our lives are increasingly characterized by various intersections of those three words – Mobile. Migrant. Communities.
Industry Partners
Our industry partners in the Hothouse Summer 2011 are:
- Intel Interaction and Experience Research Lab, Portland USA
- Fjord Design, London UK
- Swisscom, Bern Switzerland
- brightsolid, Dundee/London UK
- Intel Healthcare, Dublin Ireland
What is the Hothouse Summer?
The idea is simple – we take one orienting theme and each industry partner develops their own particular research ‘angle’, which a small team of students tackles for thembetween May and the end of July.
The innovative bit is that throughout, all the project teams share everything – so everyone gets sight into, and we hope insight out of, the work of all the other teams. Then in August we come together, students, faculty and industry partners, for an all-hands meeting to share, discuss, review and begin tackling the challenge – pulling everything together. This stage is all about insight across the diversity of approaches and findings to create our Hothouse Summer Research Pool – a pool of ideas and research insights around Mobile. Migrant. Communities we hope we (and you!) can tap into this pool to innovate new design and business projects, inform existing projects, build new research projects/agenda, or simply network with like-minded folk and organisations.
Design Ethnography and Experience Research
Design ethnography and experience research have been part of the design and business community globally for over 20 years, in increasingly diverse kinds of organizational settings (from non-profits to global corps, from service design to community development, from Norway to Brazil). The challenge now is to build on that history and create a clearer vision of what it is, what its value is, how to do it, and what the benchmarks for quality should be. The Masters in Design Ethnography was set up to contribute to wider efforts to undertake that task. We wanted to create a space where industry can more easily and freely exchange ideas through partnering with us on projects, participating in events, and engaging with the challenge.
This summer it’s all down to the power of those 3 numbers – 14 + 5 + 1 to meet 3 important objectives in a time when the need for innovative, grounded thinking about business and design challenges and opportunities is growing:
- providing our Design Ethnography students with a challenging ‘live’ project in which to consolidate their skills and learning in the final semester of their studies (ensuring there is a also pool of great talent out there to do this work).
- providing the design ethnography and experience research community with an opportunity to share, explore, and develop methods and working practices (ensuring both as a community and in the eyes of our clients/employers this work is seen to be robust, understandable, and clearly adding value).
- creative new ways for industry and academia to collaborate on experience research into cutting-edge, wide-ranging, business and design challenges and opportunities (ensuring that academia meets its obligation to society to spread ideas and knowledge, and that industry has an effective and light-touch way of tapping in to that).
Get involved
Sounds exciting eh? Want to get involved? Well we have lots of ways you can do that:
- In an organization using or looking at using DE/ExR? Watch out for our Hothouse Summer 11 events – there will be one in London in the first week of August, and another later in the year (location tbc). Get the inside scoop on what we are doing, how, and what we are finding.
- In an organization engaging with themes related to Mobile. Migrant. Communities? We are keen to build a network of ‘Hothouse Associates’ – folks who have specialist areas of expertise that our student teams could informally tap into (on a ‘we totally understand if you don’t have time to respond’ basis!). In return we can tap you into our network of projects and partners in this year’s Hothouse.
- Interested in working in DE/ExR, or already doing it but want a chance to deepen your knowledge and skills? Join the programme next year (details here) or come along to one of our upcoming series of workshops (watch this space for details). Places still open and we have a range of scholarship/funding opportunities.
So like we said – if you see one of our gang, be sure and say hello. And if any of this is of interest then give Course Director and Hothouse Summer Manager Catriona Macaulay a call – catriona@mac.com.