Hidden In Plain Sight

Jan Chipchase looks after Global Insights at Frog Design - a global design and innovation consulting firm named after the acronym of the founder’s home country – Federal Republic of Germany. He used to work for Nokia as a “human-behavior researcher.” He’s also sometimes referred to as a “user anthropologist.”

Hidden in Plain Sight is a fascinating journey about his method of discovering extraordinary insights by observing the mundane.

Why did he write the book? Jan's answer:

"Who are your next customers – not just the ones you have today but the ones you will be serving in the next two, three or even five years from now? How do you figure out what goods and services will attract them before your competitors do?"

Jan was voted to be among the hundred most creative people in the world in 2011 by Fast Company. His blogFuture Perfect is read in a 191 countries.

The premise of this book is simple. Get to know your potential customers as well as possible before you design a product or service for them. Insights come from spotting and decoding behaviors that many will take for granted.

To understand the how people view money in different cultures he takes a walk through some of the crime ridden streets of Rio and tries borrowing money from loan sharks in Malaysia.

In the book Hidden in Plain Sight there are a lot of stories about mobile phones and the discoveries he made about how people use cell phones. Might as well, I'd say. After all a study by London Business School had shown that for every additional 10 mobile phones per 100 people, a country’s GDP rises 0.5 percent. In Africa, people use cell phone minutes as a kind of banking system, transferring calling card minutes to others, who redeem them for cash.

In India, he discovered that cell phones are actually being used to build freedom in the lives of the poorest. A cook in Bangalore, who now uses his mobile phone to sell his services in thirty minute chunks to busy households. “I now make four times the amount of money than what I used to when I worked for a single family.” A cellphone has the power to increase people’s productivity and prosperity, simply because they can be reached. Over several years, his research team has spoken to rickshaw drivers, prostitutes, shopkeepers, day laborers and farmers, and all of them say more or less the same thing: their income gets a big boost when they have access to a cellphone.

The mobile phone is also becoming a source of people’s identity. In some countries in Africa, the poorest homes are not numbered. They have their mobile numbers written on the door of their home instead. Ugandans use prepaid airtime as a way of transferring money from place to place since many of them do not use banks but prefer this method called sente. Across various cultures people carry cash, keys and mobile phones when they step out. These correlate to Maslow’s need hierarchy he says.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qn2NR901NMY 

All successful products or services come from our ability to understand unmet needs of the customer. Whether we are designing games, a product or a service, what matters is the ability to think of it from the eyes of the user. The method he uses is “extreme immersion”. Here’s an excerpt from his book:

There’s a particular type of traveler that many of us know: the tourist who never strays from the well-worn path of landmarks and tourist traps, who only sees the side of another culture that has been handpicked for people like him, and returns home with a very predictable--and incomplete--experience. Then there are those who like to explore, to get lost on purpose and let the unexpected find them. Unlike the first form of travel, those who allow themselves to get lost in the new environment have fewer guarantees and a greater risk of disappointment (and mugging), but there is also an infinitely greater chance of new and unique experiences that will prompt new ideas and points of view.

The next time you travel to a new city or a country you too can try his method of becoming familiar with the cadence of a new city. Wake up with the city and watch the city come to life. What do they do that is different from what happens in your city and what is different. Find spaces that are most conducive: where people hangout, talk openly and feel safe enough to speak to a stranger. Jan’s preferred space is the barbershop.

See their rituals and beliefs. How do people in that culture show status? Where do the young people hangout? What do they view as the new cool thing? What is considered taboo?

You can also use the methodology to understand your customer or even your employees. You can use the method to understand your company’s culture. Seeing a place with the eyes of an anthropologist may give you insights that you never had. Maybe use this approach to design the induction of new hires or the teams that work across different parts of your business. Or just to redesign the cafeteria. Maybe use this approach to simply understand yourself.

This book is a must read. Let me know what you think of it.----------------------

Read an excerpt from his book here Join me on Twitter@abhijitbhaduri

What is Design Thinking

First published in the Times of India blog <click here>