As principal researcher for Nokia, Jan Chipchase travels around the world and inside our pockets in search of behavioral patterns that will inform the design of products we don't even know we want. Yet.
Why you should listen to him:
Jan Chipcase can guess what's inside your bag and knows all about the secret contents of your refrigerator. It isn't a second sight or a carnival trick; he knows about the ways we think and act because he's spent years studying our behavioral patterns. He's traveled from country to country to learn everything he can about what makes us tick, from our relationship to our phones (hint: it's deep, and it's real) to where we stow our keys each night.
Jan's discoveries and insights help inspire the development of the next generations of phones and services at Nokia. As he puts it, if he does his job right, you should be seeing the results of his research hitting the streets and airwaves within the next 3 to 15 years.
"A trove of mobile trivia, Mr Chipchase (actual job title: principal researcher) knows, first-hand, that burkha-wearing students in Iran cheat in exams using hidden Bluetooth headsets; that 50 per cent of the world’s women keep their phones in their handbags (and miss 30 per cent of their calls); and that most Asian early adopters who watch mobile TV ignore the mobile part and tune in from home"Times UK
Blog Posts on TED
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Our cell phones, ourselves: Jan Chipchase on TED.com – October 18, 2007
Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase investigates the ways we interact with technology -- a quest that has led him from the villages of Uganda to the insides of our pockets. Along the way, he's made some unexpected discoveries: about the ways illiterate people use their mobile phones, the new roles the mobile can play in global commerce, and the deep emotional bonds we share with our phones. And he's got a surefire trick to keep you from misplacing your keys. (Recorded March 2007 in Monterey, California. Duration: 16:15.)
Watch Jan Chipchase's talk on TED.com, where you can download it, rate it, comment on it and find other talks and performances.
Read more about Jan Chipchase on TED.com.
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Jan Chipchase's quest – April 12, 2008
Photo: Shaul Schwarz/Reportage, for The New York Times. Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company The New York Times Magazine recently tagged along with Nokia researcher Jan Chipchase and got an arresting look at the impact of mobile phones in the Third World. Chipchase, a "user anthropologist," spoke at TED in 2007 to talk about how Third World users have transformed their mobile devices: they've become fixed identity points inside fluctuating populations, channels for entrepreneurship amid poverty, pocket-sized Western Unions. Many Ugandans, he points out, use prepaid airtime as a way of transferring money. (And during the recent Kenyan crisis, donations to the Kenyan Red Cross could be made in the form of minutes, as noted by TEDGlobal fellow Afromusing.) Part ethnographer, part marketing agent, Chipchase's work reveals the fundamentals of human character across cultures -- and is helping shape next-gen product design to match local needs. Read the story in print this weekend or online now >> There's another TED connection in this story: Watch Iqbal Quadir's talk about GrameenPhone, an outgrowth of the GrameenBank devoted to building mobile networks in the developing world. -- Matthew Trost More
