Qualitative Research in the 21st Century
Doot doot. From BPM to SPM
How inner feelings become outer signs
Hans-Bert Matoul & Michael WittenbergAbstract
Doot Doot. From BpM – Beats per minute – to SpM – Signs and Symbols per Minute – will show how there has been a significant change in the way people cope with feelings. And through this a fundamental shift in the roles they play – also as consumers.
Based on an interdisciplinary approach this paper has set itself the challenge of making the audience familiar with the current emotional state of the world. Revealing the significance of the repercussions of people’s lives as ‘travelling performers’ within the maze of symbols and signs. We will draw from fields as wide as neuroscience and ornithology (yes, bird watching!), cultural theory and sociology, music and psychology. As well as our day to day experiences as researchers.
We will explore the value of consumer stories and episodic accounts. Understanding the research value of consumer’s reviews of the past - to understand lifestyles, marketing and brand issues of today. Corresponding approaches utilise people’s inherent ability to interpret symbols, signs and habits. They work around the idea of revealing meaningful short stories of certain life episodes and capitalize on people’s inner ambition to perform best by letting them play selected roles in imagined settings. They may help us to better understand people’s behaviour as consumers by detecting how they act symbolically.
< BACKMichael Wittenberg
H,T,P, Concept, Germany
Michael Wittenberg, 38, has been a Project Director with H,T,P, Concept since 1999 and likes to nurse his Russian soul once in a while (Michael has a Russian grandfather) as a way to slow down, to see things through and sometimes to make sense. During his studies of sociology he was immortally infected with a passion for understanding the way people live. He was particularly inspired by the real ‘Godfather’ of lifestyle-sciences Georg Simmel and his ‘Philosophy of Money’.
Hans-Bert Matoul
H,T,P, Concept, Germany
Hans-Bert Matoul, 31, has been with H,T,P, Concept since 1999. In his first years he was mainly responsible for data analysis and has been a Project Manager since 2005. During his studies in Business Administration he enjoyed the challenge of capturing the essence of the world in two-dimensional tables via multivariate analysis. And sometimes likes to think he succeeded. After this he studied sociology and found his muse in Niklas Luhmann who claimed that incidents in one system of society can influence other systems but not determine the respective consequences. This insight brought him down to earth and provided him with a pleasant sense of reality. When he is not thinking reality, he likes to pretend that he is on the stage at Madison Square Garden whilst singing Karaoke and is widely known by his fans as ‘the Voice’.
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