Dr Beth Meriam, corporate anthropologist and consultant / trainer, was the principle anthropologist engaged on a Cultural Mapping project led by Narrate and supported by Cognitive Edge.

The project piloted narrative and SenseMaker®-based approaches to understanding different cultures. Students in schools in various countries supplied and collected narratives, giving deep and contextual insights to local cultures as well as indicating possible future projects in those communities.

Narratives were collected and self-signified using paper, voice recorders or iPod Touches as well as a successful website. To date, over 7,000 narratives and micro-narratives have been collected from students in South Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America.

Analysis using SenseMaker® Explorer resulted in recommendations for education, cross-cultural dialogue, communications and others.

This article authored by Dr Meriam contains the documentation of the signifier design process for the project.

Narrate, a Cognitive Edge Network member based in the UK, has kindly made the article available for download.