We are first and foremost a team of professionally trained and active social science researchers with decades of experience using psychological and anthropological research methods. We work at the cutting-edge of mixed methods research design, implementation, and qualitative analysis. In the late 1990s, as increasing amounts of mixed methods research was being implemented, we found ourselves challenged by the lack of tools and technologies available to meet our research needs.

How to manage, share, and analyze the increasing amounts of data being collected by teams in geographically dispersed settings—teams made up of individuals responsible for different tasks, with varying computer comfort and skill, and working on different computer platforms (Mac, PC)…AND do it all as a coordinated collaboration?

Nothing existing came close to meeting our needs, so we decided to build something for ourselves to make our own lives easier and our work more efficient. EthnoNotes for Filemaker Pro was born and it worked! A bit rough and simple, but it worked and is still in use today. As others began to learn of EthnoNotes, many expressed interest in using the system in their own work. We shared freely and began to expand the system features as new users often asked, “Can it do this?” Our response was always the same, “I don’t know, but we’ll try.” Features and capabilities blossomed, but we regularly ran into the limitations of the FileMaker platform—frustrating. The computer scientists we constantly bothered for advice were telling us, “you know what you want, so just go build it yourself.” About two years later and following, countless hours, creative problem solving with a bright young programmer, and a huge financial investment, EthnoNotes RIA (Rich Internet Application—web-application) was completed and delivered.

Hundreds of users, us among them—and more every day—have helped prove we produced something of great value. The problem for us was that we were still a (really) small company and as we watched technologies advance, we knew we wanted so much more from EthnoNotes. Just a few details were holding us up: people, money, office space, office equipment… details, details, details. Oh, and one big slice of courage. We found it all.

Where are we today?

Today, we are delighted to offer Dedoose, “Great Research Made Easy.” Dedoose takes advantage of the absolute frontier of Internet technologies and delivers a powerful, feature-rich, collaborative, inexpensive web-application. We’ve learned a lot along the way. Dedoose does everything that users loved in EthnoNotes and so much more—more intuitive, faster, more transparent, easier to learn, and it is so very very cool.