I like the 10 things format. I try to use it when appropriate to sum up big or complex projects into bite size gobbets. Jane Fulton Suri, Chief Creative Officer at IDEO, deploys it to some effect in this piece –Download jane_journal_advertising.pdf on Corporate Ethnography. She argues, rightly in my opinon, that just "simply doing it [ethnography] – making discoveries about people in context – loses its distinctive advantage" in a world where it is commonplace. So, she suggests ten things to bear in mind or strategies for doing it more effectively – none are madly new – but it’s a handy enough summary. I’ve paraphrased these as follows:
1. Be Non-linear – avoid observation-insight-solution.
2. Zoom out and head for the contextual long grass
3. Be Subjective – develop a point of view
4. Look at the Extremes and Create Analogies
5. Move from consumer behaviour to looking for cultural forces
6. Keep your sources broad
7. More eyesballs – take a synthetic and open source approach
8. Collaborate with consumers – create dialogue
9. Research ‘up’ and ‘inside’ – not just ‘down’ and ‘outside’.
10. Conduct ethnography in and of the ecosystem – take in networks of value and influence