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Viewpoint: Anthropology meets Top Stories

technology England's heartbreak as World
Cup bid ends
By Genevieve Bell
England's bid to reach a first World Cup
Corporate anthropologist, Intel
final since 1966 ends with an extra-time
defeat by Croatia.
1 June 2011 Share
56 minutes ago

Highlights: How it went wrong for

The first question anyone asks England
when they meet me is: "What does
2 hours ago
a corporate anthropologist do?"
UK's Brexit blueprint to be
I joined Intel, the US semiconductor published

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giant, 12 years ago, at a time when 11 minutes ago

the technology industry was
experiencing the first wave of what we Intel shows off its latest products at the
now call consumerisation. Computex 2011 fair in Taipei
Features
By that, I mean PCs were moving
from being a tool for the office into the home and becoming part of people's
personal lives.

At that time, the question among tech companies was, could you get out ahead of
that shift.

So Intel hired me and a number of other people like me to help it better understand
human beings. How England's players rated v
Croatia
Over the years, the team has grown to include people of a variety of different
stripes: anthropologists, sociologists, cognitive psychologists, industrial designers,
interaction designers and human factors engineers.

And our role has evolved to thinking about a broader array of questions.

Part of this is educational - explaining to a technology

company what happens after Moore's Law, in which
technology gets progressively smaller, faster and
The proportion of Fans' despair as England exit
cheaper.
[Indonesia's] online World Cup
population using
But the job is mainly to help the people who design
Facebook is one of the
our products to better understand those who will use highest in the world
them.

That involves getting out into the office, into the field, and into people's homes to
ask questions about where technology empowers them, where it frustrates them
and to learn about the diversity of experiences they are having with technology

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around the world.

On the move
One of my early projects tested the assumption that early adopters of technology in
urban Asia would behave the same as in America or western Europe. And of
course we found that they are very different.
'The everyday sexism I face as a
stay-at-home dad'
Indonesia is a fantastic example of that today. The proportion of the country's
online population using Facebook is one of the highest in the world.

But because of the issues they have

with the quality of broadband, the
majority of people accessing the
internet are doing it via their phones.

Back in 1998 when I started at Intel,

computing was all about the PC. Brexiteers hitting government
Flash forward 12 years and we are in where it hurts
a world where computing smarts are
Tablets are the next evolution in consumer
embedded in all sorts of things - and electronics
the interesting question is, what's
next?

One place where we expect to see a lot more computing technology in the next few
years is in cars.

There are nearly a billion of them on the planet and new cars today already have Who is making millions selling
somewhere between 12 and 24 computer chips in them. your data?

We've been in Singapore, Malaysia, China and Australia asking people to let us
turn out the contents of their cars: front to back, glove compartment, doors, in

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between the seats, under the seats, boot (trunk) and everything.

We put it on a tarpaulin and photograph it, a little like an archaeological dig.

We want to get a better understanding of the role that

content plays in their lives and where computing
technology might intersect with that.
In a sense people there
were using their cars to How much of Germany's gas
In Malaysia and Singapore, for example, we were
keep them socially safe, comes from Russia?
surprised to find people kept "ang pow" packets
not just physically safe
(envelopes of money given at Chinese New Year and
thought to be lucky) in their cars all year round.

In a sense, people there were using their cars to keep them socially safe, not just
physically safe.

Ultimately, my team's role is about making sure the product development

processes start from an understanding of what people care about when it comes to
technology. Interracial couples: People still
stare
And that as an organisation, we are literally testing our silicon against that ideal at
each and every step of the way.

The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by the BBC
unless specifically stated. The material is for general information only and does not
constitute investment, tax, legal or other form of advice. You should not rely on this
information to make (or refrain from making) any decisions. Links to external sites
are for information only and do not constitute endorsement. Always obtain
independent, professional advice for your own particular situation. 'We can build a real time machine'

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Share this story About sharing

More on this story Why Novichok stays deadly for so

long
Tablets to take stage in Taipei
30 May 2011

PC sales halted by Intel chip bug Elsewhere on the BBC

3 February 2011
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31 May 2011 look out for

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