The EPIC Graduate Student Research Symposium seeks to support the next generation of EPIC leaders by helping them to shape their contributions to both the scholarship and practice of ethnographic praxis in industry. The one-day Symposium brings together Masters and Doctoral students with academic and industry professionals in a supportive environment of performance, discussion, and mentorship.
We are all explorers of ideas embedded in the junctures of people, place and time. This year’s Reflectivities provide an opportunity to collectively explore and draw inspiration from locally embedded experiences to reflect upon our EPIC 2011 theme, Evolution & Revolution, with our community of practice.
A registration table will be open in the St. Julien lobby all afternoon on Sunday.
Catch up with colleagues from around the world, enjoy a cocktail with a view of the Boulder Flatirons, and nibble on some hors d’oeuvres before you head out to dinner at any of the numerous local world-class restaurants.
A selection of light breakfast items will be available before the first morning session.
Conference Opening
Founder of Dubberly Design Office, a San Francisco consultancy focused on making hardware, software, services more compelling with design
The story of ethnographic praxis in industry is a story of practitioners and their methods drawing ever closer to the heart of business. The field's well-documented evolution has taken it from the status of an intriguing new perspective a few decades ago, to a must-have element in strategic decision-making today.
In need of an agent provocateur or unifier, a cultural translator, tour guide or decoder of corporate culture? There is a multitude of surprisingly diverse ways in which organizations can benefit from ethnographers – at their boardroom table and beyond. In our session, we aim to present and to scrutinize best practice examples of ethnography-based added value from a wide range of areas and industries. We hope to spark a vivid debate surrounding the potential for growth of successful ethnographic research in navigating the vagaries of evolution and revolution.
Pecha Kucha (pronounced: "peh-cha-ku-cha'') takes it's name from Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat," and is designed for concise, highly visual presentations. Pecha Kucha is as much a performance as a presentation, and rules are strict. Each contributor will present 20 images for 20 seconds each. This year's 10 contributions, tackling the conference theme of EVOLUTION / REVOLUTION in Ethnography promise an engaging and fun session.
Shuttles will leave the front entrance area to the St. Julien and take you one mile up the hill to our dinner locale. Catch an early one and spend a few minutes strolling around the historic Chautauqua Park!
Join us for dinner in the historic Chautauqua Dining Hall, open since 1898, preceded by cocktails on their sandstone patio with close-up views of Chautauqua Park and the Flatirons. Dinner tickets will be sold in advance on this website closer to the date.
A selection of light breakfast items will be available before the first morning session.
The workshops take place in parallel on the morning of the third day. They are an integral part of EPIC, and provide an excellent way of getting to know other conference attendees, and to share your experiences and insights and discover new methods and approaches.
Find a topic at EPIC interesting? This is your chance to take it further. Submit potential topics and vote on your favorites via facebook at tinyurl.com/EPIC2011unpanel before Midnight Monday (non-facebook users can go to tinyurl.com/EPIC2011unpanel2 ). The top 15 vote-getters will serve as fodder for small-group sessions that will take place in and around the Julian.
520 Collective and Danby4 team up to capture insights and provoke questions based on Sunday's tour of Reflectivities. Our Ethnography of the Ethnographers, will be captured in this interactive, multimedia event as we discuss insights and ideas from Sunday's Reflectivities.
Looking beyond the individual: New sightings on service and social systems
A selection of light breakfast items will be available before the first morning session.
Traditionally ethnography has been a local-level method for gathering direct, first-hand participant-observations and interviews in order to investigate the daily lives of a group of people, and to discover unmet needs. With the emergence of “digital communities,” “local” has taken on a new meaning for participants and researchers alike. Further, practitioners are now challenged to provide insights and recommendations, which provide value beyond product innovation and design.
Writer, provocateur, futurist, design thinker, critic, and author of Shaping Things (2005), among many other productions
