Chasing the future

Selling a device to a tech-savvy urbanite is a challenging but familiar task. Selling it to someone living on a dollar a day without ready access to electricity is a slightly trickier feat.

Increasingly, it's the needs of these billions of 'emerging market' consumers that tech firms are trying to meet.

Enter Jan Chipchase: sometime explorer, sometime ethnographer, sometime executive; the latter in his role as creative director of global insights at Frog, a US-based design and innovation firm.

In order to deliver insights to clients, Chipchase immerses himself in various cultures to see how people construct and express their identity, communicate, and adapt technology to their particular context - a form of sanctioned spying he terms “human behavioural research”.

Travelling to places like Uganda, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh, to name a few, gives him a glimpse into the lives of people previously ignored by major companies. Chipchase and his team apply what they learn to think about the future in different ways, and how to design for that future, he explains.

Currently based in Shanghai, which Chipchase considers the hub of the economic revolution set to shape the next century, he works at finding design opportunities for Frog's largest potential market outside the US.

“There's a much broader appreciation for doing the right kind of research to inform decisions,” he says, noting that the scale of the global marketplace makes this process all the more important.

When they invest in a product it better work and it better last and it better be useful.

Jan Chipchase

Chipchase joined Frog from Nokia, where he spent almost a decade studying communities' interaction with cellphones, to better understand the contextual, social and psychological impacts of technology.

On any given day, Chipchase's 'office' could be a highway between Cairo and Libya, a tea shop in Delhi, or a bar in Tokyo. Where others see a man talking in the street or a woman checking her phone at a coffee table, Chipchase sees powerful messages about the construction of space and social behaviour.

He detects an invisible contextual layer in situations and behaviour that have become unremarkable in their familiarity.

In some ways, Chipchase is a perpetual visitor, venturing into people's homes and places of work, or following and photographing them in streets, subways and caf'es. “Going into someone's home gives you a rich understanding of how they do the things they do.”

He also spends time trying to understand the organisations he works for, to help them identify opportunities for designing products and services they could release in the next two to three years.

For Chipchase, his explorations uncover two main categories of data - informative, which is broadly relevant; and inspirational - the outliers he may stumble across only once, but which mark the kinds of things that set designers' minds ablaze.

Nokia takes a similar approach, observing everything from broader socio-cultural trends to the behaviour of 'lead-edge users' on the cusp of innovation.

“By using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques, we are able to identify key areas in people's lives that need addressing by new technology. For example, 'connecting for purpose' shows the trend of people wanting to communicate in more defined spaces and applying specific boundaries around their social circles,” says Oskar Korkman, director of insights creation for Nokia.

The company's lead user research, a methodology developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studies how these users push the boundaries of technology to solve specific problems or needs they experience. Take what Korkman calls 'The wisdom of my crowd', the practice of indexing one's social media to search inputs to get more meaningful results.

Korkman adds they also examine how consumers actually use mobile devices, to understand their natural strategies and workarounds for getting what they want out of products.

Translating his observations into meaningful insights requires a constant focus on the usability and relevance of information gathered, says Chipchase.

“When collecting data, you have to decide with what degree of confidence you can treat it. You have to plan where to go and which questions to ask because all these things will shape the likely confidence and success of the data.”

He notes in 'Scaling the mobile frontier' that “with all the talk of services and outreach, it's easy to forget who we're designing for - What are the lives of our users like? What are their current practices? What motivates them?”

For multinationals, these questions could mean the difference between breaking into a massively lucrative market, or missing the boat entirely. Analysis by the World Bank's International Finance Corporation shows consumers in the lowest income segment represent a $5 trillion market. A further 1.4 billion people in the low to middle income bracket represent $12.5 trillion.

“People increasingly recognise that the poor are viable consumers,” says Chipchase, adding that for companies, this means a much smaller margin for error.

“The safety net for people in those communities, if they have one at all, tends to be very weak. So when they invest in a product it better work and it better last and it better be useful.”

Products aimed at this market face the highest possible benchmark, and the most critical consumers on the planet.

“If someone with very limited access to resources is going to spend two months' salary on a product, that's really the strongest vote of confidence.”

Technology is democratic; the cost of running it often isn't.

Jan Chipchase

As greater numbers of these consumers vote with their pocketbooks, ICT markets worldwide are becoming more competitive in virtually every segment, according to the International Telecommunication Union's latest Trends in Telecommunication Reform report. Mobile cellular subscriptions now total over 5.3 billion, with penetration in the BRIC countries (more than 40% of the world's population), growing from 4% to an estimated 69% in the past 10 years.

Chipchase adds that while technology is democratic, the cost of running it often isn't. This includes everything from keeping a phone charged to staying connected by paying for airtime.

Many communities have found ways around this, creating village charging stations or innovative transfer methods. In Uganda, for example, Chipchase discovered cellphone minutes being used as a substitute banking system. People would send calling card minutes to others, who redeem them for cash.

“The strategies they adopt points to how acutely they understand the value proposition of what they're buying,” he says.

A constant concern for Chipchase is how to conduct research in a way that's ethical and rewarding to people, while still delivering value to his clients. “It's a rigorous process and we have a finely honed team of people, who when they go into the field, understand what they need, and what to reflect to companies.

“The people who let us into their lives are at the core of what we do, and it's something we don't take lightly.”

One area drawing interest from Afghanistan to SA is that of mobile banking, which cuts through many of the traditional barriers to financial inclusion.

Mobile money services such as e-wallets give the unbanked greater control and flexibility, as well as the chance to participate in the formal economy. According to some estimates, more than 364 million low-income, unbanked people could be using mobile financial services by 2012.

Author and columnist Malcolm Gladwell argues that “poverty is not deprivation; it is isolation”, and Jeff Pierce, manager of mobile computing research at IBM, says many of the shifts mobile phones have brought to the developing world focus on combating this isolation.

“Connectivity between people is communication, allowing widely distributed individuals to keep in touch in ways they couldn't before. Connectivity to the wider Internet is about access to information, being able to find answers to questions that previously would have remained unanswered.”

There are other types of connectivity, adds Pierce, such as links to intangible resources that allow the Ugandans in the example above to treat cellphone minutes as a commodity.

This forms part of what Chipchase calls the “key functionalities” of a mobile phone - the ability to communicate, to pay for things, and to prove who you are. He said in a 2007 TED talk: “If you think of everything in life you own, when you walk out the door, what do you consider to take with you? And of that stuff, what do you carry, and of that stuff, what do you actually use?

“If you ask people about the three most important things they carry, we find that across cultures, gender and contexts, most people say keys, money, and if they own one, a mobile phone.”

Chipchase explains that it boils down to basic needs - keys provide access to shelter and warmth, money buys food, and cellphones make a handy recovery tool.

Korkman agrees, saying phones are becoming increasingly 'attached' to people, both physically and psychologically. “We don't just carry phones close to us as we move around but we have dedicated places in the home where they sit and perform tasks for us.

“People are increasingly comparing the phone to the idea of being their 'little friend' who helps and assists them in their daily life, and also helps them tackle problems as they arise.”

For younger consumers, says Korkman, it's worse to leave their phone at home than their wallet. The phone's companion role is more essential than ever, providing a gateway to a myriad of services, from health information that improves quality of life, to sharing experiences via social networks, he notes.

Besides a ripe new market, the developing world offers a wealth of new perspectives and approaches. CK Prahalad writes in 'The fortune at the bottom of the pyramid', that the cellphone has shown this segment is a source of innovations in business models and applications.

Take illiterate users, for example. Chipchase first thought they wouldn't be able to navigate their way around a mobile phone. But he notes that these users find various ways around this, through rote learning or asking someone nearby for help.

“People can do anything; it's just a matter of motivation,” says Chipchase.

Korkman believes the digital realm should allow the development of an etiquette which makes people feel comfortable and in control within new digital experiences and communication techniques. “The most important thing technology can do for us is to enable that to happen with grace and delight, rather than trepidation.”

“People are always exapting technologies based on unforeseen needs and desires, adds Pierce.

He says it's still too early to tell where mobile devices will have the biggest impact.

“To date we've seen the most activity around social networking and games, but moving forward we might be completely surprised by what they impact next. That's part of what makes working with mobile devices, applications, and services so exciting.”

Chipchase adds that people are constantly figuring out new ways to use technology, which feeds back into what's developed next.

The unpredictability of technological innovation means Chipchase's work is never done, as users' adaptation of devices creates a continuing loop, blurring the lines between us reinventing technology, and technology reinventing us.