Flux: Changing Social Values and their Value for Business

Social-cultural tensions and instabilities are opportunities for businesses. Social values are frequently highlighted as the basis for design or the foundation for marketing and new product development. The traditional assumption is that values are a social-cultural constant and thus a reliable means to plan marketing communication and product design. Instead of focusing on the supposed stationary moments of values, it is useful for new business innovation and strategies to focus on values in flux. Flux is an approach that demonstrates one way to move the work from its traditional focus on design and making good products to the development of new business models. To start to shape directions for new business opportunities, ethnographic practice has an opportunity to look more broadly at shifts in social values taking place in the landscape, and at the specific practices that change in concert with those values.