Synopses & Reviews
Welcome to Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football, Burning Man, the Ford Fiesta Movement, Rube Goldberg, NFL Films, Wordle, Two and a Half Men, a 10,000-Year Symphony, and ROFLCom Memes Will Help You Create and Execute Breakthrough IdeasA Culturematic is a little machine for making culture. Its an ingenuity engine.
Once wound up and released, the Culturematic acts as a probe into the often-alien world of contemporary culture, to test the atmosphere, to see what life it can sustain, to see who responds and how. Culturematics start small but can scale up ferociously, bootstrapping themselves as they go.
Because they are so inexpensive, we can afford to fire off a multitude of Culturematics simultaneously. This is evolutionary strategy, iterative innovation, and rapid prototyping all at once. Culturematics are fast, cheap, and out of control. Perhaps as important, they fail early and often. They are the perfect antidote to a world where we cannot guess whats coming next.
In Culturematic, anthropologist Grant McCracken describes these little machines and helps the reader master them. Examples are drawn from NFL Films, Twitter, the Apple Genius Bar, Starbucks, Ford, SNL Digital Shorts, Restoration Hardware, UNICEF, J. Crew, Pie Lab, USA Network, and the GEICO gecko.
For the traditional producers of culturethe creators of movies, design, advertising, publishing, magazines, newspapers, and corporate R&Dthis book will inspire new innovation and creativity.
For the emerging producers of culturethe digital playersthis book will serve as a practical handbook. Culturematic: our app for creating the world anew.
Review
McCrackens lively exploration of how media experiments, rule breaking, and parody can expose culture and move it forward proves fascinating and provocative.”
Publishers WeeklyInspirational and quirky, McCrackens book offers insight on why corporations might want to do this, and suggests a recipe for going about it.” Research-Technology Management
This book is for all businesses and is written to inspire new innovation and creativity.” T+D magazine (American Society for Training and Development)
McCrackens point is that in the modern world it is almost impossible to know where the next big idea is coming from
But, thanks to social media and also to the fact that the world is in many ways a lot more homogenous than used to be the case, certain ideas, thoughts, programmes spread like wildfire.” futureofbusiness.com
Grant McCracken introduces, in this thought-provoking book, the notion of the culturematic, a machine for making culture otherwise described as an ingenuity engine... McCracken has interesting observations about how the growing inscrutability of the world haunts traditional producers of culture.” The Irish Times
Worth the read if youre trying to create meaning and value in the world.” LeadershipNow (leadershipnow.com)
Working in the digital culture industry, Culturematic is certainly inspirational. If nothing else, its an excellent compendium of cultural artifacts that have touched the zeitgeist in the last few years.” Social Media Group (socialmediagroup.com)
Engagingly written and accessible to both business and lay people, the book will have broad appeal to entrepreneurs, marketers, inventors, artists, and people looking for a creativity boost in their professional or personal lives.” Library Journal
his book will definitely lead you to a greater appreciation of your own inner curiosities” Marketing Daily/MediaPost
ADVANCE PRAISE for Culturematic
No one views American culturenor discovers its meaningin quite the way Grant McCracken does. With his sparkling Culturematic as your guide, go from consuming culture to making it, one small, achievable, and ingenious step at a time.” B. Joseph Pine II, coauthor, The Experience Economy and Infinite Possibility
Culturematic pulls back the curtain on the fascinating cultural world that drives brands, corporations, and society. Both a revealer of history and a predictor of the future, Grant McCracken provides tools for innovation and mischief that will help you place yourself and your company on the relevant edge of culture. A guidebook, a tool, and a great read.” Stanley Hainsworth, Chief Creative Officer, Tether
Grant McCracken is a cool guy and thinker with consistently cutting-edge insights about the way people are thinking, working, and feeling. McCrackens challenge here, to be a culture-making entrepreneura Culturematicresonated strongly with me, as I expect it will for many people and leaders who want to invent their futures by starting small.” Peter Sims, author, Little Bets; Cofounder and Director, Fuse Corps
We are leaving behind a marketing age that rewarded safe bets. Culturematic prepares us to listen more and hear the answers in unexpected places.” John A. Deighton, Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School
Theres a misconception that innovation lives only in labs populated by white-coat wearing scientists. In his wide-ranging and entertaining book, Grant McCracken shows how that is not true. Culturematic manages to be both an engaging and practical guide to creativity and innovation. A worthwhile read.” Scott D. Anthony, Managing Director Innosight Asia-Pacific; author of The Little Black Book Innovation
About the Author
Grant McCracken, an anthropologist, has studied American culture and business for twenty-five years. He is the author of several books, most recently
Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation.