Apologies for the radio silence.  I have been running flat out.

I just presented some of my work in Washington.  I can’t talk about this and it’s just killing me.   This anthropologist has never presented in circumstances  so exalted.   I hope I will some day be free to give you the details.  Stay tuned

The work for Netflix continues.  And it’s absorbing.  And really interesting.  On Thursday I’m going to Austin for the ATX conference.  I’ll be hosting a panel.  Please drop by and day “hi.”

I am also working on the Culture Camp for London.   That’s Friday  June 13th.

First, a note of apology.  For reasons that are now lost in the mists of time, I chose to describe the camp as something designed for “cultural creatives” and to some English readers this suggested that this course was designed for creatives who make advertising.

My mistake.  This course is for students of culture, planners, strategists, innovators and ethnographers.  And yes, in the second half we will talk about how we can use your knowledge of culture to make culture.

The First Half: Mapping Culture

The first half of the Camp will review of the big trends reshaping our lives, markets, and culture.  We will look at the transformation of house, home, and family, the artisanal revolution in the world of food, what happened to “status” and “cool” as drivers of our culture (specifically, how they got extinguished and what replaces them), the revolution in the way we define women, the rise and role of old media and new.

You know those programs on PBS that shows us the coast line of Scotland from a low flying plane.  That’s what the first half is going to be like, American and Western culture as if from a Piper Cub aircraft traveling at 12,000 feet.  The whole thing (more or less) laid out before you.  We will talk about how you can build your own “radar” to track changes in this culture.

The Second Half:  Making Culture

The second half of the Camp is going to be really hands on.  It is one thing to know about our culture.  It’s another to begin making culture, in the form of design, advertising, innovation, story telling.

As far as I know, there is no handbook that shows what we do when we act as “meaning makers.”  And this is a pity, because what the ad person has learned about creating culture in the form of an ad can serve the designer who is creating culture in the form of a brand.

We will talk about cultural arbitrage, and here we will talk about a recent video by Ingrid Michaelson, the comedy by Amy Schumer, the TV of Beau Willimon, the design work of Warby Parker, and the  advertising by Carmichael Lynch for Subaru.

We will be talking about the meaning making, the meme making of Old Spice, Pharrell, Volvo, Apple, Oreo, Microsoft and others.

And we will be talking about the new rules of storytelling.  TV is effectively become a laboratory for the reinvention of story telling.  This gives me a chance to draw on my Netflix work to show how story telling is changing and what the new rules are.

This is a “vista” opportunity, a chance to see the what and the how of culture in a new, more systematic way.

So, please do come join us.  Here’s the link.