This case involves Xerox, a global brand recognized for their document and printing technology products. With the rapid socio-technological advances happening daily, Xerox sought to better understand the impact that these changes would have on the use of paper, printing, and electronic documents. Modern technology, with mobile devices and broadband internet access, has given people the ability to “work from home” virtually anywhere at any time. In fact, more and more companies are encouraging remote and mobile workers. In recent years, the number of companies with globally dispersed employees has surged. With diverse locations come a diverse set of workers who collaborate by means of complex, interconnected platforms to share information.
This diversification has significantly changed the workplace and the nature of work, leaving people increasingly dependent on social networking sites and online communication. In 2009, Xerox set out to study how people used technology to coordinate their work, and how the nature of documents, printing, and paper had changed in response to the new technology. In order to carry out such an undertaking, Xerox put together the Xerox Future of Work team: a group of researchers who used ethnographic studies to look at technological innovation and the effect it played on printing and document management. Depending on what their findings revealed, Xerox would reexamine the role of paper and electronic documents to ultimately determine the direction of their company for the future.
To carry out the study, the Xerox Future of Work team used a combination of interviews, recorded observations, and diaries in order to gain a broad understanding of work life and how it was changing. The team held detailed interviews with a total of twenty-six participants in the locations where they typically worked. Twenty-four of the participants worked primarily at home, fifteen traveled often and worked outside a static office, and some fit into both categories at different times. Additionally, to gain a wide sample size, these interviews were conducted in three different cities: Rochester, NY, Grenoble, France, and Washington DC. Prior to the official interviews, participants completed a diary of sorts and recorded their daily activities for seven days. For each day, they included pictures of their work spaces and specific details about their work practices.
Each interview lasted about two hours and covered many different topics such as where the interviewee worked, how they performed their work in various settings, and how paper and printing was utilized. Each interview was also complemented with a collaging technique in which participants used stickers and markers to assemble two kinds of pictures: their current work environment and their ideal work environment. This method was intended to reveal what functioned well with their current work situation and what aspects could be improved.
Through the interviews, ethnographers learned that the use of paper was on its way out. In fact, the majority of interviewed participants actually went out of their way to minimize the amount of paper they used. Several stated that all of their work was done digitally, and even if notes or other hand-written information was recorded on physical paper, it was regularly scanned online. One individual noted that he prided himself on the fact that he had almost no paper in his office and only ever carried a small binder and his laptop. That being said, it is not to say that people had no use for paper anymore. What the ethnographers found was that the role of paper came to serve an essential function for “transient purposes”, like note-taking which is later discarded. In describing their use for paper, many of the participants detailed ways in which paper sustained temporary tasks like planning during meetings, revising documents, and drawings diagrams to better explain information. Though paper was not kept permanently, it still played an essential part in the overall process of whatever work was to be done.
In another light, a better way to view paper’s role is that it makes up for the weaknesses of digital technology. Paper and printed documents functioned as a visual to-do list, helping remind participants of their work and what needed to be processed. With lots of different files stored into various computer folders, it was easy to lose track of hidden information. Mobile workers printed documents to read on the go, using paper to accommodate for small screen sizes, limited power and internet access, and transportability problems with technological hardware. Handwritten edits and comments on printed paper aided the revision process of official documents. For example, it proved easier to visualize corrections drawn out on a paper version of a PowerPoint slide and later manually re-enter it into the online PowerPoint file. Furthermore, many participants expressed frustration with formatting and designing documents completely online. It was difficult and time consuming to constantly flip back and forth between separate windows and cutting and pasting often led to unexpected formatting changes which took large amounts of time resolve. For these reasons, the act of printing out temporary documents aided the visualization and creation of online documents and served as a reaction to compensate for technology’s weaknesses.
Exploring new options for future work, in one example, the Xerox Future of Work team tested the possibility utilizing a printer in a coffee shop. With the increased usage of mobile printing, the shop owner invited the researchers to conduct observations within the shop for several days and collaborate on what kind of a printer and with what abilities would best aid his daily operations. Xerox also began developing a software they called Virtual Collaborative Team Space which would act as a service to facilitate remote collaboration between many people. Yes, many similar applications already exist, however in their fieldwork Xerox noted that many participants still could not make efficient use of them in their work. Researchers incorporated new features, based on the current problems experienced with remote team collaboration, to design a new collaborative team space to create, and print, documents.
The work produced by the Xerox Future of Work team helped the leaders of Xerox become more aware of mobile work and begin to think about how the company could redirect itself in response to the rapid changes in the workplace. Making use of the ethnographers’ research, Xerox’s response seemed to challenge basic business assumptions. They came to understand technological developments and the subsequent transience of printed documents not as a sign of rapid decline in paper and printing use, which is Xerox’s core business. Rather, paper and printing, however transient, were viewed as compensation for technology’s weaknesses and a new market to develop new ways to improve upon those shortcomings (Watts-Perotti).
As all three cases demonstrate, companies had to be flexible and adaptive, able to adjust to the changing demands of a new audience in a new society. Each faced declining sales in their respective markets due to an outdated business strategy and needed to reevaluate the interests of the consumers they intended to reach. In most cases, human behavior in the business world is typically understood on the premise of an archaic model that “sees people as predictable, rational decision makers able to optimize a set of predefined preferences” (Madsjberg 3). This model however, suffers severe limitations and fails to acknowledge the rapidly changing with which people live in. People cannot be thought as immutable and static. The dynamic world that people comprise demands the implementation of human sciences to identify those cultural shifts and changes in attitudes and beliefs. It is the very essence of navigating through an undefined set of boundaries that Madsjberg calls “sensemaking”. Sensemaking reveals the implicit patterns of people and their behaviors, and it is precisely where ethnographers come into play.
As described in the Intel case study, their desktop market was declining due to a shift in their original purpose. One begs to question, would Intel have been successful if had they pursed the new developments in data storage, rather than reinventing desktops for another use? It is not to say that nobody will purchase desktops anymore, but these changes could signal a new opportunity for growth elsewhere. Indeed, ethnographers identified an open desktop market with digital content creators. However, that market is arguably much smaller compared to the number of users who require data processors and storage systems in general. Perhaps a better approach to the question might have been along the lines of what is causing desktop sales to decline, what purpose did they originally serve, and what is now taking over that purpose and how can we compete in that new market? It is this use of sensemaking that can properly address the realm in which Intel was operating in order to formulate the best change of action.
The method of sensemaking can also take various routes and does by no means follow a predicated set of standards. Whereas sensemaking helped Intel to figure a new market for their product, Coca-Cola’s use of sensemaking helped the company to rebrand themselves and change the way their company was perceived. Shown by the Israel case, Coca-Cola sought to restore positivity to their name by promoting active lifestyles through the construction of public playgrounds. But with what ethnographers later found, their work did not necessarily achieve the image they had originally intended. Would a simpler undertaking with less risk have had safer and more sustainable results? In the lesser developed regions, perhaps the promotion of youth activity programs in schools or access to fitness equipment may have had better success.
What if the money went toward increasing fitness and nutritional education and helping recreational centers support increased access to exercise opportunities? Though less prominent, these options would have been less risky, but still effective at promoting their name. The big signs and umbrellas at the playgrounds caught more attention, but one has to ask was it really worth it for all the trouble caused with the playgrounds as a whole? Using those findings, ethnographers can assume that other methods might have been more suitable and, more importantly safer, to promote that notion of CSR and appeal to citizens.
Similar to the Intel case, Xerox also faced declining sales with their printing and paper related machines. Their products had become outdated and taken over by the technological revolution and digitalization of documents. Ethnographers determined that in the workplace, paper now serves as a temporary filler to make up for what technology lacks. Their designed methodology made sense of paper’s newly fostered role and how Xerox could take advantage of that. However, one must consider the question: what if their focus had turned to occupations where paper was still very necessary? With actions like signing official documents or printing bank checks, the use of paper will always hold for obvious reasons. Rather than focusing on new ways to utilize paper, what if Xerox focused on improving and optimizing the use of paper where it was still necessitated? In turn, their question could have also focused on where is paper still heavily incorporated, and how could they advance developments in that market as well.
An additional aspect that all three cases and their respective strategies represent are the use of design anthropology and the focus on “user experience”. Design anthropology focuses on the overall process, meaning the practices by which anthropologists and designers develop new products and ideas. Of course, with Intel, Coca-Cola, and Xerox, all three companies utilized design anthropology as a research tool to rebrand their image and the new products they were presenting to consumers. As Christina Wasson describes it, “Designers and other members of product development teams draw on findings from such research to develop design ideas that fit the lived experience of intended users” (Wasson). In other words, the user’s experience is critical to the design process of a new idea and its subsequent success.
Anthropologists must make use of various ethnographic methods to really understand how users interact with such a product, and how that specific interaction can be optimized for the greatest experience and ease. The Intel case probably best represents the use of design anthropology, designing the most optimal high-powered desktop to achieve the best user experience of content creators. Ethnographers focused on how users interacted with the devices and what their needs were, and from that determined what kind of a desktop would give the best experience. With Coca-Cola, ethnographers had to design the best way to meet the demands for corporate social responsibility in the local Israeli communities and how citizens would best interact with their playgrounds to promote their name. Similarly, in the Xerox case, designers and anthropologists focused on how workers utilized paper and printing to direct a change in their company. They sought to redesign future products that would support the best user experience for the new use of paper and printed documents.
All in all, with the rapidly changing society that defines that world people live in, no trend or product can stay the same forever. It is therefore up to companies and businesses to learn how to react to such changes when they arise, and more importantly how to take advantage of those changes to promote a more successful future. Intel, Coca-Cola, and Xerox all portray examples in which current methods failed to meet the new consumers’ needs. They needed to redirect themselves and address a new audience. These companies made use of sensemaking and design anthropology to identify new strategies heading toward the future, all thanks to the ethnographers.
