Genevieve Bell
Genevieve Bell
Genevieve Bell
Genevieve Bell thinks about people. She travels the world studying us -- how we think, how we live, and what place technology has in our lives. This year, the Stanford-educated anthropologist is doing that in her homeland, as a "Thinker in Residence" for the government of South Australia, and she's using technology to gauge how people use technology. "I am running a reverse blog," she says, "asking citizens to share their stories of how technology affects their lives." (Those without Web access can submit stories by postcard.) The lessons she learns could be coming soon to a gadget near you. -- Ellen McGirt
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"If there is no social experience that the technology supports, whether that be work or personal, it won’t work. Technology for its own sake is rarely successful."
- The Friday Interview: Dr Genevieve Bell, Intel, Source
"Social scientists and anthropologists are trained to think about people, cultural practices, what makes people tick. That kind of rich understanding is what our discipline is about. The challenge for us is to take that rich understanding and translate it into a language that business understands."
- The Friday Interview: Dr Genevieve Bell, Intel, Source
"If we know the things people care about, we can start to understand why certain technologies are successful. Only if technology allows people to do what they care about, it can be successful."
- When cultures shape technology, Source
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