We’re on. The Chief Culture Officer Boot Camp will be held May 28th in London.
Mark Earls has generously offered to act as London partner and copilot. He will give us the benefit of his remarkable grasp of cultural matters, American, British and global. I am a big admirer of Mark’s published work, and a couple of months ago I had a chance to work with him on an extended ethnographic project. Our working relationship is well tested.
A CCO boot camp runs the day from 10:00 to 4:00. We are closing in on a venue, but we do not have a formal commitment. I expect to have that soon.
The fee will be £100. This is an introductory rate. (Act now!)
The bad news: there are only 45 spaces. (Book early, book often!)
Eventbrite is handling the tickets in its always capable way. Click here for ticket details.
The boot camp is based on the book Chief Culture Officer. You do not need to have read the book to take this course.
We will look to participants to bring their knowledge of contemporary culture. In a couple of days, we will set up a Flickr site for images, articles and other data that people want to share.
We did first CCO Boot Camp in New York City in February. It went well. (See comments from participants below)
Grant’s speaking style may be seen here at a recent PSFK event (thank you, Piers): http://www.psfk.com/2010/05/video-grant-mccracken-psfk-conference-new-york-2010.html
Here’s an outline of the day
The morning
This looks at American culture. I open by reviewing the new structural properties of American culture: the rise of a dispersive culture, the occasional moments of convergence that still happen, fast culture, slow culture, the death of cool, the rise of the new, more active, consumer.
I then treat the following topics:
1. deindustrialization of food and the rise of the artisanal (what and why)
2. great room and the rebuilding of the Western home (what and why)
3. multiple selves (new rules for defining the self)
4. social networks (new rules for defining the group)
5. gift economy (new rules for capitalism)
6. global trends (cultural generalities we can make across cultures)
The afternoon
The afternoon I talk about the how of being a CCO. (You may or may not want me to talk about the CCO concept. If you prefer, I can just talk about American culture from an anthropological point of view.)
2. how to monitor culture (big boards, magazine, experts, early adopters, etc. how to build a grid)
3. how to think about culture (the basic building blocks from the social sciences)
4. how to act on and in culture (how to participate in culture, with advertising, social media, and cultural productions)
5. how to work with and in corporate culture (how to work with your C-suite colleagues)
Praise for the New York City CCO
Steve Nasi: The Bootcamp was a marvelous day. Amazing to be in a room full of so many folks yearning to bring a deeper kind of cultural thinking to their brands, agencies, corporations, endeavors. And the content was a brilliant mix of deep thinking and accessible content, slow and fast culture and more. It was inspirational to say the least. My poor wife had to deal with me going on about it at length. Despite this, she’s gunning to go next time.
Heather LeFevre: I really enjoyed the CCO bootcamp this weekend – was totally worth the trip from Amsterdam. better than the typical planner conference where the speaker takes an hour to recap their book – I really appreciated that you gave us information that was NOT in the book that I felt I can use in my work.
Gail Brooks: Thank you so much for bringing us the CCO boot camp! An invaluable use of my time.
Rick Liebling: As an attendee at the NYC bootcamp, I’ll confirm the comments above. I got more actionable insights from that day than a week at work. Great material, presented in Grant’s uniquely engaging style. Well worth the price of admission.