Feel like coffee? 

I’m going to be in the Bay area for the third week of October (12th to 17th).  I am hoping to meet up with readers of this blog. 

There are a couple of opportunities:

1) I’m talking to a Policy class at the School of Information at Berkeley on Monday (12th) about how a CCO or a CCO approach can serve not-for-profits and governmental organizations.  (I will be drawing on my work for museums and public education, chiefly.)  I’ll be arguing that the profit and the not for profit worlds are tunneling towards one another.  Now that Lafley has broadened the context of how the corporation thinks about consumers and markets, the not-for-profit world is poised to supply a still broaden frame.  NFPs can help the corporation identify how and where to create value in the gift economy.  I will also be talking about ethnography as a method for discovering culture and about culture has the larger (largest?) strategic frame within which to think about policy decisions.

2) I’m talking to the Marketing and Consulting Clubs at the Stanford b-school on Tuesday (the 13th).  In this case, I’m going to be sketching what a CCO is, why a CCO matters, and encouraging Stanford students to think of it as a career possibility.  (This will be my opportunity to ask students why almost nothing of the popular culture they know so well is represented in bschool curricula pretty much anywhere in the US.  Not to be a trouble maker or anything.  Honest.) 

3)  Thursday (the 15th) is my “off day” and I am hoping that I can get together with anyone who feels like getting a coffee on a kind of “likemind” basis: just a casual get-together with whomever shows up to talk about whatever comes up.  If anyone feels like meeting up, please let me know. 

4) Friday (the 16th) and Saturday (17th) I will be at the Planningness 2009 meeting organized by Mark Lewis.  I’ve been looking forward to working with planners since I started consulting many years ago.  This, finally, is my opportunity.  I will be talking about the Chief Culture Officer idea, in this case talking about the tactical issues and specifically how planners can use the CCO and the CCO approach as a way to shape senior decision making.  Mark has organized this event as a series of workshops.  So this talk will be less about the CCO proposition as a proposition and more about how to make it work.  Less propositional, and more strategic/ tactical.

There are places in Planningness available.  For more details, go here.  As to the other occasions, space is limited by the classrooms in which the talks will take place.  Send me an email and I will see if I can smuggle you in!  grant27[at]gmail.com.