Why we love looking at money but still hate banks Bruce Davis 15 th February 2005.

“Why we love looking at money but still hate banks”

Bruce Davis15th February 2005

Overview

• The experience of financial services can tell us a lot about how people will use public services through ‘self service technologies’.

• Ethnographic research on money and technology suggests an alternative model of usage to the traditional adoption/education approach.

• Self service technologies will transform the social and cultural context and relationships of citizen, society and state.

What is ethnography?

Genevieve Bell, Ethnographer in residence at Intel

– ‘It’s based on the idea that you can best absorb a culture by being there and doing it. An old professor of mine called it ‘deep hanging out’. You have to actually be there, hang out with people and participate in their daily activities’.

Place

Putting the individual in their place- describing ‘being in the world’

“consumer”

segment/target

respondent

individual

Two quick examples

“please ignore Mt. Vesuvius”

“When is an ISA not an ISA?”

A journey into the individual’s imagined world of money

• Money is largely invisible in people’s lives and it is hard to discover the meaning.

• So we observed times of transition in people’s lives, when money was involved to investigate how it became visible in the real world.

• What we experienced was not the ‘money’ you get in a bank. That money is socially and culturally neutral in everyday life.

• Money in the real world is all about usage.

• Money is neutral; usage is social.

Usage of money reflects the way we see the world and society today

The Private- Solid-Home

-Bricks & mortar-My place

-Community -Kinship-Security

The Political- Fluid

-Uncertain-Wild

-Public- Isolated

- De-humanised- ‘across the table’

Money reflects the growing tension and disconnection between the political world of society and the private world of the individual.

The private world of the individual is appropriating and adapting language, products and meaning to express its place in an increasingly

threatening, irrelevant and changeable political environment.

We all have our own individual view of finances and insurance

Money helps place ourselves in both public and private worlds

the macro economy‘masculine & laissez faire’

the domestic economy

‘feminine & autocratic’

Increasing uncertaintyD

ecre

asin

g hu

man

ity

the lifestyle economy

‘experiment, play,social interaction’

Two worlds… two very different contexts

Private world of Money

Context =

– Home

– Life Choices

– Identity and Gender

– Career

Success = common sense

Public world of money

Context =

- Risk/Greed

- Fear/Shame

- lack of confidence

- lack of control

Success= knowledge & expertise

Adopt or Adapt?

Think ‘users’

‘Consumer’ = consumer of meaning

User = creating/imagining meaning

& purpose

Who has read or wants to read the technical manual of money?

Usage is social

• Usage is rich, social and visible.

• Usage communicates our values and creates our place in the world.

• Usage is creative.

• Usage generates meaning for money.

• Usage creates and demonstrates purpose.

• Usage labels and names money.

People use technology that puts money in its place…

• People want to get close to their money but do everything they can to avoid getting close to banks.– Banks are unnecessarily constrained and formal

social spaces for your money.– It’s a common remark that you don’t feel you

should even cough in a bank.

• Getting close to your money means having control over the choices and decisions of your everyday life.– Individual self expression– Domestic security and cohesion

Implications for self service government

• ‘Self service’ technology will transform the behaviour and role of government more than it will transform citizens and individual behaviour.

• The institutions and infrastructure of big government will become an increasingly invisible utility for the individual.

• Individuals will adapt and use technology to enhance their everyday lives and will reject technologies that challenge the social structures, behaviours and attitudes that make up their world as they see it.

• As these technologies become more widely used and distributed, individuals will create new places that allow them to make political, social and cultural exchanges.

Self service or DIY government?

Freemarket

Bruce [email protected]

07747 864472