Comments on: Anthropologists and others http://cultureby.com/2008/09/anthropologists.html This Blog Sits At the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics Sat, 20 Mar 2010 11:33:19 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: peter http://cultureby.com/2008/09/anthropologists.html/comment-page-1#comment-1157 peter Sun, 28 Sep 2008 15:56:08 +0000 http://grantmccracken.com/cco/http:/grantmccracken/page-title#comment-1157 <p>One interesting aspect about explaining culture to engineers is that Engineers have their own culture, which differs in many respects from the world we (and they) live in. For example, engineering is a business arena where expertise and knowledge typically increase with age: generally, the older an engineer, the more he or she knows about engineering. </p> <p>This particular aspect of engineering culture is not true of the culture of marketing or advertising departments, and especially not true of those departments targeting younger people. With the exception of Florence Skelly, the people who have best known teenage culture, for instance, have mostly been current or recent teenagers. Likewise in Finance, knowledge of sophisticated financial instruments was something which did not necessarily increase with age -- at least, not until recent events.</p> <p>As you will know, Grant, a culture in which knowledge increases with age will generally find itself in conflict with a culture in which youth knows all worth knowing. </p> One interesting aspect about explaining culture to engineers is that Engineers have their own culture, which differs in many respects from the world we (and they) live in. For example, engineering is a business arena where expertise and knowledge typically increase with age: generally, the older an engineer, the more he or she knows about engineering.

This particular aspect of engineering culture is not true of the culture of marketing or advertising departments, and especially not true of those departments targeting younger people. With the exception of Florence Skelly, the people who have best known teenage culture, for instance, have mostly been current or recent teenagers. Likewise in Finance, knowledge of sophisticated financial instruments was something which did not necessarily increase with age — at least, not until recent events.

As you will know, Grant, a culture in which knowledge increases with age will generally find itself in conflict with a culture in which youth knows all worth knowing.

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