Quotes from Grant McCracken

People who escape familiar groups and make contact with unfamiliar ones becomes smarter and more creative. They have what Ronald Burt calls a "vision advantage." They are no longer captives of their cultures.

Burying ourselves in the cultivation of a single talent is now ill advised. What we need are lots of little projects, sent out into different parts of the world, by means of many media. Thus do we carry on that irreplaceably useful conversation between now and next.

We need [retail] shelf space to serve as our deep space. We are going to put things there and invite the consumer to give it a try....Most consumers engage in variety seeking, in any case. Why not invite them to pursue it within a purchase instead of across purchases?

Culture matters for reasons good and bad. First, it is the place to discover advantage, opportunity, and innovation.

Second, culture is the breeding ground of cataclysmic change, a North Sea out of which commotion constantly storms. Without a working knowledge of culture, the corporation lives in a perpetual state of surprise, waiting for the next big storm to hit.

Smarter viewers encouraged smarter culture. Smarter culture encouraged smarter viewers. For Generations X and Y, this development had become a badge of pride. Being good at popular culture became a generational marker. For boomers, popular culture might have been a guilty pleasure. For younger generations, it was a rich, more complicated joy.

Frost knew we don't win contemporary markets by adding a feature or shaving the price point. The trick is to make innovations that make people blink with surprise and perhaps shiver with desire.

In all of these cases, someone can act as a CCO not because he has studied contemporary culture but because he comes from that culture. He knows it in his bones.