Intel's People & Practices Research Group

Learn more about Intel's People & Practices Research Group @ http://www.intel.com/research/exploratory/papr/

and @ http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=RFUITENAX55QOQSNDLRCKHSCJUNN2JVN?articleID=199902426

Purpose: Research into ethnography, the scientific description of the customs of people and cultures

Genesis: A small team inside Intel's ProShare group conducted a study in 1996 aimed at better understanding home control for the then-forthcoming Pentium, and the team became a basis for Intel's People and Practices Research Group

Number of staff: Currently, 8 (the number has fluctuated from 3 to 14)

Current projects are:

Mobile Times: developing new models of time for mobile-computer users

Small Country Effect: studying why some small countries, such as South Korea and Estonia, adopt new technologies ahead of developed countries

Personal Digital Money: analyzing how electronic payment systems provide opportunities for innovation

Islamic Charitable Institutions: looking for ways to funnel the assets of Islamic charities into technological deployment in local communities

Community-Based Technology Adoption: focusing on how technology adoption has succeeded and failed in various rural communities globally

Women and Technology Adoption: exploring the dimension of gender in information and communications technologies

Hit or miss? "Bad ideas just die a natural death from lack of interest." --Maria Bezaitis, the group's director