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DISCUSSION

This research was conducted in 1999, and there have been significant shifts in technology deployment and adoption in the intervening two years. We have not had the opportunity to go back and revisit the households we interviewed to see what has changed in the last two years as new media technologies and the Internet have continued to spread. Furthermore, because the work was intended to form an ethnographic baseline, not an exhaustive analysis, there are significant gaps in our knowledge. To date, we have not conducted significant research in Scandinavia or Eastern Europe, and both of these areas have different cultural traditions and present different patterns of technology adoption.

Over the last two years, however, this research has continued to linger and influence our work. Arising out of our initial forays into Europe, we identified several themes (and critical social practices) that have continued to shape our thinking around such issues as the work/life boundary, media consumption, the role of television and mobility (14). The ethnographic research also pointed to new product opportunities such as computing in public spaces.

This research helped firmly establish at Intel that there was not "one" Europe and that to think about Europe means thinking about a range of different cultural and national traditions. This has significant implications for marketing strategies, for product development, and for design. What works in Italy might not work in Germany. What works in the UK will surely not work in France. But, clearly there is a need for further research in Europe.

The original internal partner on this project was interested in developing domestic computing appliances. Our research provided explicit feedback on the structural and social affordances of European homes. To design a computing appliance for the kitchen, for instance, involved understanding the different ways kitchens functioned within European homes. In northern Italy, for example, the kitchen was a social hub where entertainment and information content were frequently consumed. In France, by contrast, kitchens are the site of meal preparation, but not content consumption. The small size of many European kitchens also suggested the necessity for devices that did not take up valuable counter space.