Anne Kirah

When culture meets technology and when technology meets culture

Biography
Anne Kirah serves as a design anthropologist for MSN. Kirah leads field and laboratory research, including national and international projects, intended to influence current and future Microsoft product, software and service designs to improve humans’ interaction with technology. Kirah also works with Microsoft partners and organizes the Microsoft Field Research Forum, an internal discussion and quality control group. Using primarily ethnography and participatory design methods, Kirah aims to improve the features, interfaces and the general ease of use for many Microsoft products by giving customers a voice during the product development cycle.

Kirah, who joined Microsoft in 1999, previously worked as a research associate for Boeing, the world’s leading aircraft manufacturer. She helped conceive quantitative research surveys for use onboard lengthy international flights and led a team of interviewers seeking input from passengers and crew to improve customer and employee satisfaction of aircraft design. In addition, Kirah has worked as a lecturer for several higher education institutions and state and local governments in the United States and in Scandinavia; a program evaluator in the public health sector; an expert witness in a variety of court cases; a primary investigator for many university research projects; and a translator for the Scandinavian University Press. Kirah has lived and worked extensively in Europe and Asia and is fluent in English, Norwegian, Swedish and Danish. She also has some knowledge of French, Japanese and Mandarin Chinese.

Kirah has written award-winning newspaper articles in Japan, edited and written books about contemporary Norwegian society and won several research grants, fellowships and scholarships.

She holds an advanced graduate degree in social and cultural anthropology, as well as undergraduate degrees in social anthropology, the sociology of education and developmental psychology from the University of Oslo, Norway. She also holds a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Washington.

Position Paper
This paper will discuss the dialectic between technology and culture: Technology plays a role in transforming culture, but culture also plays a role in transforming technologies. Using multiple case studies from global ethnographic field research and participatory design in 12 countries, I aim to show how, on the one hand, we find the level of technological penetration as a mitigating factor in determining what types of social software are being used and how they are being used. On the other hand, culture and social context can actually thwart what is believed to be universally successful social products.

The first set of case studies will show how the level of broadband penetration and mobile penetration are determining product development, usage and desire. We are able to see global trends develop using these various levels of penetration as key indicators. What do Korea and Netherlands have in common? Both are amongst the highest level of broadband penetration in the world. They are also amongst the most developed when it comes to social software currently on the market both on the internet and on the mobile phone. I will specifically discuss Cyworld and Lineage II (from Korea—the former is a social software that literally exploded in the period of one year to become one of the most important internet and mobile software services in Korea (and used by all demographics). There are also social obligations that have developed in likeness with the “real world”. I will also describe a similar site in the Netherlands built by a small local government for the local teenage community.

The second set of case studies will focus on the other side of the coin. When does the culture and social context of communication in everyday life determine the use of technology? Through a study in Japan, it will be shown how social and cultural contexts are major factors in determining what technology is used, how it is used and why it is used. In Japan, the importance of polite “manners” and consideration for others, long commute times and limited household space, all contribute considerably to determining the lack of success of instant messenger as a form of social software and contribute to which solutions are successful. Through these insights, design decisions specifically for that market have been made and have proven to be successful. In a similar light, cultures with what we are calling “deep” communication styles tend to use instant message services less than cultures that have less “deep” communication styles. Italy and Spain will be used to explore the differences of these communication styles and the outcome it has on social software.

A key take away from the field research done at the Customer Design Center is being aware that software takes on its own life based on the cultural and social contexts of everyday life. At the same time, global trends are developing based on the level of technological penetration. Understanding the interplay between technology and culture through deep understanding of peoples’ motivations and aspirations, will help us build software that is useful, culturally relevant and desirable.

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