Tiffany Tivasuradej talks to Sawyer J. Lahr: Revolutionizing Research Through Digital Tech – New Perspectives from Asia

In today’s episode hosted by Tiffany, Sawyer shares his experience as a UX researcher working in Thailand and applying anthropological frameworks and practices for design and innovation projects. Digital technology is a new reality for both the researcher and the research participant, so how does it affect the research process and what to keep in mind when designing it? We fail as a user of digital technologies when we try to use digital technologies to replace the in-person experience. Tiffany and Sawyer reflect on creative ways to deal with this new reality imposed by technical complexities and the need to rethink existing methodologies. Finally, Sawyer gives some tips based on his recent experiences and shares his hopes for ethnography in Thailand in the upcoming years.

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Tiffany Tivasuradej holds a first-class honor’s degree in Biological Anthropology from Durham University (UK) and currently works as a Consultant at Ogilvy Consulting in Hong Kong. In her role, she advises Fortune 500 clients in Asia, especially Thailand and China, on how to transform their business model, brand, and user experience in response to changes in customer and employee behaviors and culture. She also leads the local Behavioural Science practice at Ogilvy. Tiffany is passionate about advocating the application of anthropology beyond academia. Most recently, she was invited to talk about this topic and share her experiences of working as an anthropologist in Asia at the premier international conference on ethnography in business by EPIC in 2020.

Sawyer J. Lahr is Partner & General Manager of Teak Research, a product development research consultancy established in Bangkok in 2013 with his business partner Adisorn Supawatanakul and Conifer Research, Chicago. He and his team work on design research projects from conducting applied ethnographic research methods to identify opportunity all the way to developing product concepts through customer co-creation. He is currently a member of the Anthropologists in Asia LinkedIn network.

Mentioned in Podcast:
Teak research, http://www.teakresearch.com/
Miro, visual collaboration platform, https://miro.com/
Daniel Miller, How to conduct an ethnography during social isolation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSiTrYB-0so

Social media:
Tiffany: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ycttivasuradej/
Sawyer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sawyer-lahr-28066519/