This summer, Andi Simon of On The Brink, and Adam Gamwell of This Anthro Life, invited me to be on their podcast shows. I’d never been on one before, so I was pretty excited and a bit nervous, but they went well. I really enjoyed talking with Andi and Adam about anthropology, design, business, technology and research methods, among other topics. And it was great to exercise my “thinking out loud” muscles over my regular method of written prose.
On the Brink and This Anthro Life have pretty different audiences and areas of focus, so I got to talk about my work in different ways. On her podcast, business consultant and anthropologist Andi Simon hosts a range of people including marketers, entrepreneurs, consultants and others. Her listeners reflect the kind of people who might be my own clients or colleagues – business people, product people, executives, etc.
On the other hand, This Anthro Life features anthropologists of all stripes, subfields and work contexts, including those working in business and design like myself, as well as academics and authors, etc. Recent TAL podcast topics have included climate finance, robots and edible insects.
If you want to check either of these out, here are the links!
How Anthropology is Revolutionizing Design and Strategy – On The Brink
Synopsis: “As you know, at SAMC we preach the virtues of stepping out and looking at things from the outside-in. Rather than assuming you know what your customers are doing, the challenges they are facing, or the fears and struggles with which they are coping, go out of the office and hang out with them. Listen to their stories. Let them tell you what they think is the problem with the solutions they have today. Don’t try and sell them anything. Just listen. Along those lines, Amy and I dig into the ways in which anthropologists work in Design Thinking to provide an ethnographic approach to new ways to design things.”
Design Research is Anthropology Applied – This Anthro Life
Synopsis: “This is one of these conversations that’s a few years in the making. Adam has been following Amy’s work for a while now both on her blog anthropologizing.com where she writes about anthropology in industry, design and business, on LinkedIn and other social media sites as well as at conferences sharing the good work of doing anthropology in industry. Adam and Amy discuss what Design Research is and how it works, how it aligns and differs from traditional anthropology and ethnography, and how tactics and methods can be applied both in industry or academia.”
Anthropologizing 