Page 50 - Design meets Business:An Ethnographic Study of the Changing Work and Occupations of Creatives

38 Design Meets Business
period, I followed the Pensio project (see previous) and juggled between two roles. On the one hand, I was wearing the ‘hat’ of a designer, joining a design team and do research for them. On the other hand, I was wearing the ‘hat’ of an ethnographer, aiming to do research on the designers.
Due to the highly participatory character of the second round of my field research, my primary data collection was concerned with capturing my own experiences in the field. As this project required the designers to move to the Netherlands and live in a hotel in the beginning of the project, for a period of almost two months, I spend 5 days a week almost 24-7 with the design team. One of the most valuable opportunities of such a ‘highly participatory role’ was that I had the ability to join both ‘front stage’ and ‘back stage’ events (Goffman 1959). I was present ‘front stage’ when Fjord interacted with others, such as the involved Accenture consultant, clients or other audiences. Examples include client presentations, client meetings, ‘escalation meetings’ with Accenture consultants, and small-talk with clients while walking to the coffee machine. Also, I was part of ‘back stage’ events. I joined the designers for breakfast before their workday started, sat side by side during team meetings and was part of social talk after ‘front stage’ presentations were done. In terms of data collection, it was especially helpful to be part of the team’s weekly project meetings. In such meetings, the designers did not only reflect on the progress of their work, but also had discussions among each other about design decisions and how to cope with clients’ involvement.
Once back at the Madrid studio, I continued my focused data collec- tion. As I was part of the Madrid studio for three months earlier that year, the designers knew me and I knew the designers’ habits, routines and approaches. Returning to the studio in Madrid felt a bit like ‘coming home’ again. As the designers were not so much on the road as during their time in the Netherlands, I could limit the physical setting of my field research to the project space in the design studio. Again, I captured detailed data during team meetings and (digital) client presentations. When I joined the design team, I captured most of my observations on my laptop. As the designers also used a laptop in meetings, this was a perfect opportunity for me to directly note down my observations in the online document. Whereas before my field notes before were more leaning towards my own interpretations of what I witnessed, now I gave more attention to the voices of designers. I tried to capture natu- rally occurring conversations and their own reproductions of situations. My data became increasingly ‘polyvocal’ (Clifford and Marcus 1986: 15), allowing me to develop a more nuanced interpretation of how the work of designers changed.