Mika Pantzar

User involvement in radical innovation: are consumers conservative?

Purpose – Consumers are sometimes unexpectedly resistant toward radically innovative product concepts, and it is often argued that this is due to their difficulties in understanding the novel products. Thus, marketing research has focused on new ways to make consumers familiar with new product concepts. The purpose of this study is to present the argument that educating consumers may not solve all problems, and may sometimes even address the wrong question.Design/methodology/approach – The authors previous research on consumer responses to new product concepts for the purchasing and consumption of food is drawn upon to explore the reasons for consumers acceptance of and resistance to radical product innovations.Findings – Ignorance about radical product concepts is not the sole reason for consumers resistance to novelties. In many cases, consumers understand the product concepts fairly well. Their lack of enthusiasm stems from other reasons, including the innovations instrumentalism, its impact on con...

Users inventing ways to enjoy new mobile services - the case of watching mobile videos

The introduction and marketing of third-generation mobile services has not been enough to make them a commercial success. User involvement and user innovations are apparently needed before such success can be achieved. We handed out mobile phones with video capability to test users to see what kind of meaningful contexts they might find for watching streaming mobile video. There were at least two different contexts in which they considered it natural to view mobile video. Firstly, they were able to avoid boring situations by entertaining themselves. Secondly, mobile video made it possible to share experiences with other people. Singing karaoke together or watching cartoons with children offered fun moments and represented a type of use not frequently found in visions of mobile entertainment.

The heart of everyday analytics: emotional, material and practical extensions in self-tracking market

As a result of digital and mobile technology, various kinds of monitoring practices are moving back and forth knowledge hierarchies. The analytics of bodily and mental functions is no longer the privileged domain of professionals. This essay focuses on the ways in which everyday analytics, heart-rate monitoring in particular, becomes embedded and normalized in daily practices and by doing so, paves the way for new market developments. The discussion contributes to the markets-as-practice approach that treats markets as outcomes of processes in which marketable devices are both shaped by, and shape, practices in the market itself. By relying on practice theory, the essay traces historical developments and identifies domain extensions in self-tracking. Everyday analytics progresses with the aid of new devices; however, these are only successful in moving and recruiting consumers if they promote emotional and practical engagements that generate conditions for current and renewed monitoring practices.

Beyond the Quantified Self: Thematic exploration of a dataistic paradigm:

This article investigates the metaphor of the Quantified Self (QS) as it is presented in the magazine Wired (2008–2012). Four interrelated themes—transparency, optimization, feedback loop, and biohacking—are identified as formative in defining a new numerical self and promoting a dataist paradigm. Wired captures certain interests and desires with the QS metaphor, while ignoring and downplaying others, suggesting that the QS positions self-tracking devices and applications as interfaces that energize technological engagements, thereby pushing us to rethink life in a data-driven manner. The thematic analysis of the QS is treated as a schematic aid for raising critical questions about self-quantification, for instance, detecting the merging of epistemological claims, technological devices, and market-making efforts. From this perspective, another definition of the QS emerges: a knowledge system that remains flexible in its aims and can be used as a resource for epistemological inquiry and in the formation of alternative paradigms.

Inventing Use for a Novel Mobile Service

Multimedia rich mobile broadband services are expected to be used widely in the near future. To become commercially successful, meaningful uses for them need to be invented. We approached the takeup of such novel mobile services from the perspective of user innovations. Mobile phones with video capability were handed out to test users in order to discover what kinds of meaningful contexts they might find for watching streaming mobile video. There were two different contexts in which users considered it natural to view mobile video. First, they were able to alleviate boring situations by entertaining themselves. Second, mobile video made it possible to share experiences with other people. Although streaming video service provides little room for user innovations, users came up with two distinctly different contexts of use. This implies that early user feedback in the innovation and commercialization processes likely will promote the development of successful next-generation mobile services.

Living the metrics: Self-tracking and situated objectivity

This paper evaluates self-tracking practices in connection with ideas of objectivity via exploration of confrontations with personal data, particularly with reference to physiological stress and recovery measurements. The discussion departs from the notion of ‘mechanical objectivity’, seeking to obtain evidence that is ‘uncontaminated by interpretation’. The framework of mechanical objectivity tends, however, to fall short when people translate physiological measurements to fit their expectations and everyday experiences. We develop the concept of ‘situated objectivity’ with the goal of highlighting the everyday as a domain of interpretation, reflection and ambiguity, proposing that the concept offers an analytical entry point to a more profound understanding of how people engage with their personal data. Everyday data encounters are not methodical and systematic, but combine knowledge in an eclectic manner. Framed in this way, self-tracking practices are less occupied with ‘facts of life’ than translating and transforming life based on earlier experiences, cultural understandings and shared expectations. Paradoxically, new measurement devices and software, which are supposed to be based on sound, universal and generalisable principles, hard facts and accurate descriptions, become raw material for daily decisions, as people seek bespoke answers and craft personalised theories of health and life. From this perspective, self-tracking measurements can be used to experiment and learn, gaining value in relation to the communicative processes that they promote and contributing to possibilities for rethinking health knowledge and health promotion.

Social rhythms of the heart

ABSTRACT A long-term research focus on the temporality of everyday life has become revitalised with new tracking technologies that allow methodological experimentation and innovation. This article approaches rhythms of daily lives with heart-rate variability measurements that use algorithms to discover physiological stress and recovery. In the spirit of the ‘social life of methods’ approach, we aggregated individual data (nu2009=u200935) in order to uncover temporal rhythms of daily lives. The visualisation of the aggregated data suggests both daily and weekly patterns. Daily stress was at its highest in the mornings and around eight o’clock in the evening. Weekend stress patterns were dissimilar, indicating a stress peak in the early afternoon especially for men. In addition to discussing our explorations using quantitative data, the more general aim of the article is to explore the potential of new digital and mobile physiological tracking technologies for contextualising the individual in the everyday.

Intricacies of back-office

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how back-office service staff cope with the intricacies of administrative work. Design/methodology/approach – The paper applies the research approach of “at-home ethnography” in a university back-office. The primary method of data collection was participant listening in the field, either in formal interviews or casual conversations. Photography helped the authors to zoom the conversation in to specific artefacts in administrative offices. Findings – The study identifies both forward- and backward-looking recipes as essential administrative tools that back-office staff develop and use to handle intricacies that emerge in their daily work. Forward-looking recipes are based on anticipatory cognitive representations, whereas backward-looking recipes are based on experiential wisdom. The study elaborates on the different kinds of modelling practices that back-office service staff engage in while building and applying these two different kinds of recipes. Practi...

Seeking connectivity to everyday health and wellness experiences: Specificities and consequences of connective gaps in self-tracking data

Objective Self-tracking technologies have created high hopes, even hype, for aiding people to govern their own health risks and promote optimal wellness. High expectations do not, however, necessarily materialize due to connective gaps between personal experiences and self-tracking data. This study examines situations when self-trackers face difficulties in engaging with, and reflecting on, their data with the aim of identifying the specificities and consequences of such connective gaps in self-tracking contexts. Methods The study is based on empirical analyses of interviews of inexperienced, experienced and extreme self-trackers (in total 27), who participated in a pilot study aiming at promoting health and wellness. Results The study shows that people using self-tracking devices actively search for constant connectivity to their everyday experiences and particularly health and wellness through personal data but often become disappointed. The results suggest that in connective gaps the personal data remains invisible or inaccurate, generating feelings of confusion and doubt in the users of the self-tracking devices. These are alarming symptoms that may lead to indifference when disconnectivity becomes solidified and data ends up becoming dead, providing nothing useful for the users of self-tracking technologies. Conclusions High expectations which are put on wearables to advance health and wellness may remain unmaterialised due to connective gaps. This is problematic if individuals are increasingly expected to be active in personal data collection and interpretation regarding their own health and wellness.

What’s the difference between work and fun?: Explaining the difference between utilitarian and hedonic IT use

Information systems theory tells us that the deepest going difference between utilitarian and hedonic information technology use is that different sets of motivational factors direct the two types of use. However, recent advances in social psychology and consumer behavior research suggest that there is an even more profound difference: Only utilitarian IT use depends on the self-control mechanism and the limited resources consumed bμ exercise of self-control. This causes the daily and weekly rhythms of utilitarian and hedonic use to be different. Utilitarian information technology use decreases throughout the day and the week while hedonic information technology use does not. In this paper, we test for the first time whether the daily consumption pattern of utilitarian information technology use indeed reflects the hypothesized patterns at the aggregate level. Our data suggests that it does, which means that the self-control mechanism should be integrated in the information systems models that seek to explain information technology use.