Comments on: The Malamud effect: ideas and the corporation

By: John McCreery

John McCreery — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 08:43:08 +0000

Gene McCracken, I write as an admirer who has used Culture and Consumption I in my seminars at Sophia University in Tokyo and has just discovered your blog. FYI, I, too, am an anthropologist, by training a student of Chinese popular religion who once wrote a dissertation on “The Symbolism of Popular Taoist Magic.” Through various odd quirks of fate I wound up in Japan, spent 13 years as a copywriter and creative director for Hakuhodo, the second biggest Japanese agency, and have written a book of my own, Japanese Consumer Behavior: From Worker Bees to Wary Shoppers (Curzon Press and U. of Hawaii Press, 2000), looking at changes in Japanese consumers through the eyes of the Japanese researchers at the Hakuhodo Institute of Life and Living. Would be delighted to share thoughts and observations on culture and consumption in our various parts of the world.

By: Matt

Matt — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 03:57:41 +0000

When everyone in the organization needs to have his own input into the final product, it tends to drag quality down and schedules outward. When examining the phenomenon from the inside this is quite obvious. Hence I would conclude that there is a causal relationship involved, but that it’s not between speed and quality, but rather between good organizational dynamics and both speed and quality.

By: steve

steve — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 16:30:46 +0000

The need for speed may be an overdetermined phenomenon. Market urgency and a desire to reduce development costs also lead some firms to run new-product projects on a “timebox” basis (set a deadline and go with what you have regardless of whether it’s met all goals 100%).

Your suggestion that speed also protects innovations from internal resistance is an original one. My only question is which comes first–do we need to have already overcome resistance in order to move the project along? One traditional tactic for overcoming internal obstacles is to create special “tiger teams” or “skunk works” outside the normal organization structure. Such groups also tend to move a lot quicker (with fewer formal procedures). That solution would correlate speed and lack of resistance in a non-causal way, i.e. speed and lack of resistance would be the joint results of an organizational choice.

By: jens

jens — Mon, 26 Sep 2005 04:50:09 +0000

beautiful story.
maybe it was better in the first draft though…

…
no, joking.
very beautiful story.
(with a slightly longish middle part)

By: Vox Clamantis

Vox Clamantis — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 22:19:29 +0000

The Malamud Effect

Grant McCracken has a thoughtful post on organizational behavior and the so-called Malumud effect. From Grant: There’s a wonderful story by Bernard Malamud about a painter who manages in a moment of inspiration to create a work of greatness. All

By: Diablogue

Diablogue — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 18:37:30 +0000

Idea culture

An interesting post (from the home of interesting perspectives) This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics….continues to keep us thinking about the Good vs Great debate and just how you go about fostering and maintaining a culture