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Background

Well I really won't start at the very beginning. I am currently happily ensconced as a Workplace Anthropologist at Pitney Bowes in the Advanced Concepts and Technology division in Shelton, Connecticut.


I have a PhD in anthropology from Arizona State University. Through graduate school, I worked at the Archaeological Research Institute in Tempe, Arizona. They also host ArchNet, a very cool compendium site for archaeology.

Some other places I've worked:

Strategic Intelligence Group of Fort Worth,Texas (my hometown).
InContext Enterprises of Concord, Massachusetts (yes, I have moved around...addresses have also included Philadelphia and York, England, and that does not include times I've spent in the field).

Some stuff I wrote while at InContext:

What's an archaeologist doing at a design firm?

Innovation or Market Research?

Using Video in Paper Prototypes: Reaping the benefits of paper prototyping when the product includes multimedia

I have been actively involved in the American Anthropological Association for many years, and am currently on the board of the National Association of Practicing Anthropologists (NAPA).

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Anthropology and advertising?

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To Label or Not to Label?

Blogger now not only allows me to tag my posts (that's label in google talk for some reason), but I can display for all my readers the labels and how often I have used them. For now I have added that widget (see right side of the screen). At first, I thought I would go back to all my old posts and tag them (maybe I still will). Then it seemed daunting. Then I worried about being somewhat consistent in my tagging, so that a reader could clearly see that I write a lot about anthropology, or social media. But then I looked at my posts and realized I actually write about a lot of different things. So if I start labeling, do I end up with just a long list of tags? Or do I then feel a need to constrain what I write about to a defined set of categories? I realize blogs with a theme are powerful...and I think I have some themes running through here...interspersed with random thoughts or items that catch my interest. What to do? Does it matter? Is there meaning in tags (beyond the me
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Yammer and distractions

We had a very interesting teleconference with some folks from Yammer on Friday. It was a great opportunity to learn about best practices and for our security minded folks to ask questions in that arena. There were probably 10 or 12 people on the call, mostly non-colocated, and several were live yammering the call. While I didn't add posts describing the content of the call, I did join into the discussions. It was an interesting experience for me. It was nice to have the side conversations, but I have to admit it was also distracting. Is it any less rude or distracted than emailing in a face to face meeting? I suppose since it was based in teh content of the meeting it may bedifferent...I know others found value in reading the yams later. I should perhaps fess up to trying to do some other work as well, but I know it distracted me and I am trying (not always successfully) to cut down on the mutlitasking to be more focused. My most important reminder to try not to be distracted is Ju
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