Short report on EPIC Europe, a conference on ethnography research in industry

Short report on the first European EPIC meeting by Anna Wojnarowska, UX researcher at Experientia:

Last Friday, 11th of May, around 100 members of the ethnographic research community in Europe gathered in Barcelona for the 1st European EPIC (Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference) meeting, to discuss the conditions of ethnographic practice in Europe.

The meeting concentrated on the specifics of European cultures and traditions from the point of view of the research industry. It was developed as a younger sister of the annual EPIC conference, which this year will be held in Savannah, USA, in October.

The meeting included lectures and workshops organized into three panels. The first one, “Mapping Ethnographic Practice in Europe” gave an overview on how the UX industry is evolving in Europe, including the presentation of changes taking place in the Italian market, by Experientia’s partner in charge of user research, Michele Visciola. Emerging innovative ethnographic methods, such as “netnography” and self-ethnography, were indicated as important developing trends.

The second panel, “Evolving Industry-Academia Collaboration”, focused on what can be done to combine the expertise of academics and professionals so that the two parties can effectively support each other’s’ practices and supplement peer knowledge. All the panelists agreed that creating a cooperative platform between the two parties would significantly contribute to research outcomes.

The last panel, “The Corporate Perspective” gave an insight into how the work of an anthropologist can be effectively communicated and implemented in corporations. The discussion ended with a vivid debate on how anthropologists could profit from the increasing amount of data on humans, which is constantly collected through various technologies. How could it be useful during research? Can it positively influence the quality of our work?