Why there’s still benefit in doing things the "Old Fashioned" way

I’ve talked a lot before about how one of the major deltas between the business and anthropology worlds is the speed at which ethnography can be conducted. There’s great benefit in ethnographic research, however to do it right takes a lot of time, which in the business world usually makes it too costly from time and financial perspectives.

There are many anthropologists out there who are attempting to solve for maintaining the integrity of ethnographic research, while speeding the process to fit within real-world business situations.

Today I’m sitting here, for the first time since graduate school coding field notes. As I’m doing it, I realize the value in the very process of ethnography. First of all, I can’t just summarize the research – I have to actually read through all the notes that were gathered on this project. Then I have to start looking for patterns in the data by creating codes that correlate with the content. Then finally I have to re-read the notes and apply the codes.

By the time I actually get to quantifying the patterns in the data set, I’ve read the notes that were collected at least three times. I am so familiar with them, that the patterns are jumping off the page at me.

This not only makes writing the report a breeze, it also makes for a very rich document. Had I not gone through this process, I might have just pulled out points that stuck out at the time of conducting the research. Instead, more nuanced findings are identified and reported.

We’ll see how the client reacts to the report, but I’m hoping to employ this process more often in my day-to-day work.