The study of culture is one of those things that is both academic and accessible to all. There are dozens of dedicated journals (which are fascinating reads), but culture is equally something that we all live within.
And, in terms of an insight sprint, a cultural approach unlocks powerful analytical tools that get you to an answer quick.
Essentially, the aim here is to sketch out a cultural map by describing a handful of cultural tribes. It’s a fun and creative exercise, and you should feel comfortable relying on your intuition.
I recently mapped different tribes as part of an insight sprint looking at the modern ‘night out’. There was the sophisticated foodie, the craft aficionado, the playful retro and so on. A fun example of tribal analysis is the Guardian’s lifestyle series — ‘Modern Tribes’ — which adopts this method in a playful way.
The Cultural Method
There are multiple methods, but a good way to get started is to adopt a ‘keywords’ approach. This was a method defined by the godfather of cultural studies, Raymond Williams, who famously once said:
Culture is one of the two or three most complicated words in the English language.
If this was true in 1976 (when he published his work Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society), then what would he think if he was alive today?
This way of sorting through the complex mess of culture begins with the most elegant of written forms - the list. Simply think, discuss, read - and then jot down (in your Trello board) all of the words that you come across repeatedly, or that you feel have special resonance.
A useful brain hack to help choose which words to include/throw away is the Japanese method of KonMari — the art of decluttering and tidying your home. To do this you ‘hold’ a keyword in your ‘hand’ for a moment and ‘feel’ whether it has value or not. If it doesn’t, bin it. If you hesitate, keep it.
(I’ve just started reading the book where this concept came from : Marie Kondo, The Life Changing Magic of Tidying. Early impression = essential reading for anyone doing an insight sprint.)
The words you’re left with should open doors. They should be significant, complex and controversial.
Remember, words have a subconscious - and it is our job to probe it. Here are a few thought starters on how to do this:
- Unpick its relationship to other words, draw a map or relations
- Search for the word in a variety of different news/social media sites (we’ll discuss this method of netnography later)
- Look at its etymology
- Force yourself to think about how different people use the word, and what it might mean to them
- How has the word changed over time?
- Are there any killer quotations you can find?
- Find bi-lingual friends and discuss what the word means in other languages
From Words to Tribal Concepts
Once you have your ‘bag of words’ you can begin grouping them together. Give them a cool sounding name. Start to collect images from around the web and by taking pictures when you’re out and about in the city. Do anything that bring these tribes to life. If you have some illustration skills you can sketch them out.
Ultimately, this cultural framework is both a way to get started and something to continually develop. It will help you think about who to interview, and give you keywords for internet research. It’s also a great creative stimulus to anyone that is using the research to develop communication.
To finish this article, here is my list of the elements of culture. These are things to look for when mapping your tribes:
- Politics
- Norms
- Aesthetic
- Values
- Value
- Role models/influencers
- Language/slang
- Structure of romance
- Attitudes to sexuality/gender
- Fashion
- Brand relationships
- Media usage
- Interiorization
- Discussion hot-topics
- Institutional relationships
- High/low culture orientation
- Geographic position
- Pastimes
- Way of processing experience/phenomenology (don’t worry, I’ll explain this in a later post)
