Chief Culture Officer: How To Create a Living, Breathing Corporation

Between them, Levi Strauss and Quaker managed to lose $2.4 billion because they failed to read what was happening in the world around them. Levi-Strauss missed the hip-hop wave, while Quaker overpaid for Snapple, taking a huge hit when they resold the company just two years later. Like so many other corporations, they outsourced their understanding of culture to trend hunters, cool watchers, marketing experts, consulting firms or interns—at a huge cost.
Corporations need a new professional in the “C Suite”—a CCO or Chief Culture Officer-to keep a finger on fast moving trends while developing ta real understanding of the deep waves that move culture in America and the world. Apple, Virgin and Omnimedia depend on “gurus” to navigate culture, and with great success. As an anthropologist, we can reverse engineer the likes of Steve Jobs, Richard Branson and Martha Stewart to reveal their secrets for “reading culture”.

Speaker Details

Grant McCracken is a Research Affiliate at C3 at MIT. He earned his PhD in anthropology at the University of Chicago and was the founding Director of the Institute of Contemporary Culture. He has taught at Cambridge University, McGill University and the Harvard Business School and consults with an array of companies including Campbell’s Soup, Coke, L’Oreal, IBM and The Children’s Television Workshop. He has written nine academic books and his work has been covered by Oprah, the New York Times, the LA Times, Newsweek and BusinessWeek.

Date:
Speakers:
Grant McCracken
Affiliation:
MIT

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