exploring culture, discovering value
I published this paper at the Convergence Culture Consortium at the Department of Comparative Media Studies at MIT, March 8, 2011 under the title Assumption hunters: a new profession for the corporation in the throes of structural change. It has since disappeared from view. I am reproducing it here so that I can reference it [ ]
chatGPT will help us write our own stories and it may spell the end of the entertainment industry. After all, who will want to sit down to watch a story written by someone else about someone else?
A power struggle is playing out at Vogue. Several things hang in the balance. Specifically, this is a struggle between Edward Enninful and Anna Wintour. I have been waiting for an insider’s view of the contest, and found one in a brilliant essay by Kara Kennedy in The Spectator.. Enniful took the helm of British Vogue in [ ]
As the academic world continues its slow motion descent into financial and sometimes intellectual insolvency, some anthropologists seek employment in the world of business. The Journal of Business Anthropology asked me to describe my experience. Here is what I wrote for them. But first, here s an image from the field. It s me talking to respondents [ ]
Marissa Shrum and I talk from time to time. Today, we got talking about Elizabeth I. Today is November 17 and that makes it the anniversary of Elizabeth’s accession to the throne of England in 1558. I was noting how extraordinary Elizabeth was a political force. I even found myself speculating that had Elizabeth not [ ]
brought together but kept apart I felt like I was being chased up the beach by a tidal wave. Run for your life, anthropologist, run for your life! I was looking at a new ad for Lexis. Here it is. So much going on. See especially the opening chords which are, unless I’m mistaken, played on [ ]
Variety tells us that the new show called Only Murders is a comedy. And it could be. But there s a dangerous alchemy attempted here. Bringing together distant generations is hard to do. It almost always descends into an effort to find the funny in mutual incomprehension. And nothing is sadder. Different generations are different cultures. [ ]
Curatorial ability. You have it. And up until til now, you just gave it away. We are all culture curators one way or another. We are passionate about graphic novels, hip hop, noir films, craft beer, computer games, folk arts, or this thing called American culture or those people called the French. Something. As curators, [ ]
As you may know, we are on the verge of a new Culture Camp. Details here: www.culture.camp! This morning we got a query from a guy in the travel industry, who wanted to know why the camp could be useful for someone in his industry. I thought you might be interested in my reply! Eric [ ]
My apologies to readers. I haven t posted in a while. But I have an excuse. Two excuses actually. I spent the first half of 2020 scrambling to finish a book. The New Honor Code is now out. (Please support Cultureby.com by buying a copy!) And I spent the second half of the year scrambling to [ ]
“You can find awesome rhythm in everything. People will hear certain breaks that I make and be like, Where’d that come from? I’ll be like, That was the part where dude was running down the steps in Annie Get Your Gun. ” [Quelle Chris, producer, quoted in jason hirschhorn s @MusicREDEF, Aug. 26, 2020] Quelle Chris was [ ]
Originally published on Medium, January 21, 2020 Recently the marketing team at Twitter put culture at the heart of what they do, in that most precious territory, the value proposition. This is great, I thought. A company as connected and powerful as Twitter using culture to describe what it does, that has to be good [ ]