How has ethnography been used?
Driven by the need for ever-deeper customer understanding, ethnography is being applied in a widening variety of settings to examine an array of topics. Some large companies (e.g., GM, Intel, Kodak, and Lexis-Nexis) have staff carrying out ethnographic research full time. Other organizations in a variety of industries have used it to generate ideas for new products, markets, or services, such as Charles Schwab and Fannie Mae in financial services; Kellogg and General Mills in food products, Xerox and Intel in technology; Proctor and Gamble and Unilever in personal care products; S.C. Johnson in home care products. A number of government agencies, including The US Postal Service, NASA, Housing and Urban Development, and the Census Bureau have also used ethnography to strengthen their programs. In some cases, these organizations conducted the research through outside consultants, and in other cases involved their own cross-functional teams. In addition, for nonprofit organizations or gov
