Tommy Stinson is a Strategic Director in the Technology Innovation Studio at Cheskin. He has over 10 years of experience in ethnography and market research, and brings expertise in leveraging innovative research techniques to understand consumers’ mindsets, needs, and behaviors. He has worked extensively with clients in the retail, technology, telecommunications, and pharmaceutical industries, and has a passion for bringing empathetic understanding of consumers to every engagement. Prior to joining Cheskin, Tommy worked for Avenue A | Razorfish, directing strategic consulting engagements for Fortune 500 clients. He has worked closely with a variety of clients, including Scotts Miracle-Gro, Smith & Hawken, Microsoft, McKesson Pharmaceuticals, McKinsey & Co., and Genentech. Tommy holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Washington University in St. Louis, and a M.A. in Anthropology from the University of Tennessee.
30 July 2009
I love coffee - I'm an avid coffee drinker and used to run a coffeehouse during school. Since relocating to San Francisco about 10 years ago, I've been blessed to find lots of great local coffee - and great local coffeeshops. It's a great urban adventure to explore coffeeshops and see how each reflects the unique neighborhood vibe.
27 May 2009
In a recent briefing for BNET, Katherine Glover noted a growing trend in the "local food" movement: false "local" claims and measures to qualify "local" when resources like fertilizer, pesticides, etc. are flown in to support local foods. Clearly, "local" isn't as simple as we'd hope.
22 May 2009
FrontlineSMS is a free mobile phone software solution that allows mobile phone users to send text messages to large groups of people. It's specifically geared towards non-profit organizations and NGOs. The initiative is sponsored by Kiwanja.net and nGOmobile and is achieving some pretty exciting and impressive things on the ground in emerging markets.
Kiwanja.net's blog has had a recent series of guest blogs sponsored by other innovative leaders; most recently by Anthony Papillion, founder of OpenEMR HQ.
Anthony's entry features a really innovative - and important - potential use of the FrontlineSMS software: allowing women in abusive relationships to make safe calls to authorities that can't be traced but can be used in future court action - or to summon help immediately.
This is a great example of innovative extensions of innovative solutions. Read more here.
3 April 2009
We've been hearing a lot about "value" lately, mostly in response to changing consumer perspectives in a recessionary economy. I came across this at PSFK, and was struck by how clearly it communicates that value is a mutable characteristic, wholly determined (at heart) by the buyer.
3 April 2009
According to MediaPost, Intel Corp has become a major new sponsor of PBS' "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." As part of the deal between Intel and PBS, Intel will get ample opportunity to highlight innovation in the American economy. Intel will fund a set of mini-documentaries focusing on the topic, and PBS, Intel and the Aspen Institute will also jointly host a series of dinners in the Washington, D.C. area with a similar focus.
Source: MediaDaily News
19 March 2009
On a recent trip to Denver to do some work for a retail client, I stayed at a new addition to the Starwood Hotels line: the Aloft. Billed as "a vision of W Hotels", the Aloft aesthetic reminded me a lot of the upscale professional "hostel" hotels in Europe (like the Clarion Hotel Stockholm where I recently stayed). According to the Aloft website, there are 25 hotels currently accepting reservations in the US, with other properties in Beijing and Montreal. The aloft Denver Airport just opened in December 2008, and it looks like expansion plans are aggressive, with a total of 69 (yep, 69!) new properties scheduled to open between 2009 and 2011 across the globe. But the brand still has a lot of work to do to make the chain successful with travelers.
19 March 2009
At Cheskin, most of us spend quite a bit of time on the road. This gives us a unique opportunity - the pleasure, really - of seeing widely varying and disparate parts of the world from an insider's perspective. I've recently been more intentional about seeking out unusual or unique things to see and do while on the road, and some of us have agreed to begin sharing the things we uncover with one another. I thought I'd open the discussion with highlights from a recent trip to Nashville, TN.
24 February 2009
Recently I've come across a large number of articles touting the value and benefit of conducting ethnographic research. It's a standing discussion in Quirk's and a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review includes a piece from Ken Anderson on corporate ethnography and its value.
Now, I couldn't agree more that ethnographic work is unique, valuable, and crucial to innovation. And I think a lot of Dr. Anderson and the work he and his colleagues do at Intel. But I find that the mantra of "seeing how people really live" is growing over-used. And it doesn't really capture ethnography's value at all!
6 February 2009
At Cheskin, most of us travel pretty heavily. We spend significant time in hotels, in airports, and in taxis. As we all know, routines often go un-examined and the standard of service - and subsequently the experiences we encounter - go unnoticed and are accepted norms. The only thing that prompts surprise is a particularly good or bad experience.
3 November 2008
I recently spent a weekend in Atlanta, GA observing parties and tailgates for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. It was fascinating. Even though I'm from the South, I've never been to a NASCAR race and always tended more towards SEC college football than racing. But the thrill of the event was tremendous, and got me thinking about NASCAR and the racing audience.
4 August 2008
I spoke today at the Media X Conference entitled, "Monetizing Audience Engagement in New Media". My talk was on the importance of basing audience engagement on an anthropological understanding of the audience and what's meaningful to them. Certainly not the most interesting of all the talks given, but hopefully I said something of value.
In preparing for the presentation, I created a slide that addresses an assumption that underlies much of what we do: that products and brands (and services, and channels, etc. etc.) have an inherent symbolic value. Products aren't products in the abstract - they stand for something, and often that "something" is what informs our purchase choice. I was looking for recent examples that could illustrate this point, and was very pleased to find an article detailing responses to the recent InBev acquisition of Anheuser-Busch. I couldn't have found a better example.
28 May 2008
Dori Tunstall (professor of design anthropology at University of Illinois, Chicago) has just written a great piece for the Adobe Design Center's Think Tank on the intersection of anthropology and design.
21 May 2008
I recently returned from an extended series of work-related trips throughout the US and Europe. During my travels I was struck by how common it's becoming for individuals to carry permanent bottles with them for water - a few years ago it was Nalgene bottles, and now I'm seeing tons of Sigg bottles throughout the US.
12 October 2007
In recent days there has been quite a bit of hubbub about the use of anthropologists to support the American military in local involvement in Afghanistan ("Army Enlists Anthropology in War Zones", New York Times, November 5, 2007). Anthropologists, public policy experts, military experts, and even design anthropologists have weighed in on the ethics of using ethnography and anthropological insight to support military objectives.
Without getting into the debate about this specific instance, the discussion has reminded me of our call to be ethical in our dealings with research participants, and I wanted to say a few words about that.
12 April 2007
Last weekend, the Washington Post published an interesting piece about an experiment in culture. Joshua Bell, a highly-acclaimed concert violinist, put on a baseball cap and casual clothes and posed as a busker in the L'Enfant Plaza station of the Washington, D.C. Metrorail. His goal (or rather, the goal of the journalist who wrote the piece) was to see if morning commuters would stop and listen to his music.
Now this is an accomplished, highly-decorated artist playing extremely difficult musical pieces on his 18th century Stradivarius. And the end result of his 45 minute incognito concert? $32.17. And only a small handful of the thousands of morning commuters even seemed to give him a glance as they walked past.
14 February 2007
Last Thursday, Steve Portigal introduced a great cautionary note on the dangers of bad (read: quick and uninformed) survey design. Steve's argument was that design educators do their students a disservice by implying that quantitative online surveying is easy and quick. That it's important to know that a survey is not something that anyone can do without planning and forethought, an understanding of appropriate methodologies, and an understanding of effective nuances of survey flows and guides. (Steve, if I'm extrapolating too much, I apologize!). I think Steve's point is well made, and I would extend this cautionary note to ineffective ethnography.
6 December 2006
Sometimes debates emerge that challenge my long-held assumptions and prompt me to “go back to the beginning” to examine why those assumptions are held. Recently I was reading a discussion led by Grant McCracken’s blog on “why culture matters” (http://www.cultureby.com/trilogy/). McCracken cites both sides of the argument - that understanding culture holds a minor role in innovative marketing & branding versus the notion that understanding culture plays the prime role. In reading the comments and dialogue, I couldn’t help but consider how relevant this discussion is to the work we do at Cheskin.
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