It's been a while, but I am back. For a while wasn't sure I had anything new to say to the world, at least that wasn't based on proprietary research. Recently I have been doing a lot of thinking about innovation (hey it's my job), new media and so-called "social networks" in the work environment. Lots of interesting things happening in all these spaces, and I realized that blogging would be a good way to work out my own thoughts on the subjects, and hopefully get insights from others as well.
I read an interesting article on trend forecasting today. I've always found this fascinating (and wonder how much anybody checks later to see if the forecasters were right). The only thing that bothered me about this one, and this is not new, is the claim that what they do is like cultural anthropology. This is not a diss on advertising, marketing, trend forecasting, or any of the other fields that claim to be like anthropology--these folks to interesting work. I am just annoyed at the claim itself. Granted, we anthropologists are not always good at advertising ourselves...in that we offer a holistic approach, and theoretical insight based on our training. So anybody who observes people is now an anthropologist. Or is it just that Americans are so used to sound bites that they don't understand the nuanced differences in anything? Sigh.
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