Anthropologist and author Grant McCracken looks at the state of our economy and asks the question “What will the current downturn mean to consumers?” He then offers up various models to explain the possible lasting impacts this trip through the recession looking glass might have on our spending habits. While the prevailing theory seems to be that once the economy bounces back, we’ll all return to our previous patterns of purchasing, what if we don’t, what will things look like then?
As we’ve written about before, the brain’s response to the decision of whether or not to buy already functions much like [...]

In his blog ThisBlogSitsAt, Grant McCracken offers an interesting perspective on the changing of guards in the overlapping worlds of media and commerce, authority shifting away from large institutions and corporations and congregating around smaller networks and individuals (the Tim O’Reillys and other, dare we say, influentials of the world). McCracken compares this power dynamic, though still very much in flux, to a medieval model of government: the large entities act like nation-states that operate “order-in,” with “an embracing idea, and an embracing bureaucratic order” while new media and influencers (and the events they hold, like O’Reilly’s FooCamp) reign as [...]

Especially if you’re trying to sell something. One of PSFK’s favorite thinkers, Grant McCracken, has been writing a series of posts about the importance of culture in commercial considerations. It might seem obvious but he says that marketers and theorists spend too much time excluding, diminishing and neglecting culture…