Mating rituals
This is what happens when a David Attenborough commentary on the natural world is overlaid on the ‘mating’ rituals of humans. Feels like a rich seam that could be mined […]
Markets and Public Institutions
The final paragraph of a long piece in the October 24th issue of the London Review of Books by Stefan Collini on the thorough-going marketisation of the British higher education […]
Colour tinted glaciers
Restored footage of the ill-fated 1924 British expedition to reach the summit of Everest, this clip being of ice formations at East Rongbuk Glacier in Tibet. The Epic of Everest […]
Thinking differently? Really?
As a follow up to last night’s session at @unrulymedia which I really enjoyed, here’s a short but penetrating piece by Thomas Frank, author of “Pity the Billionaire.” and “One Market […]
Giving ideas away
I’ve giving a talk – well 5 minutes of comments which will likely be off the cuff etc and probably not not worth posting here – at the first Unrulyversity session of […]
Dance of the algorithms
“…our lives are influenced by technologies not simply as objects but invisible systems that surround us, and whose architecture shapes the patterns of our lives. To live inside these invisible […]
Why the world needs anthropologists.
I’m looking forward to speaking at this event in Amsterdam this autumn. The outline of my talk is below. ‘That full complement of riches’: the future role of anthropology in business and society […]
Anatomy of Distraction
Anyone who has a Smartphone or who lives with or mixes with people who own Smartphone – which is basically everyone in the Western world – will be able to […]
Writing as a kind of observation
This is a piece of writing about writing. The original aim was simply to explore the thought that writing diaries, writing anthropological fieldnotes and maintaining blogs are activities that share […]
The Universal Machine
“It can be anything you want it to be. This is the nearest we have got to seeing what I would call a universal machine.” David Hockney, in a 2010 […]
Imagination
From the 2012 Jefferson Lecture by Wendell E Barry “The term “imagination” in what I take to be its truest sense refers to a mental faculty that some people have […]
Unaccustomed earth
“Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children […]
Mountains and Minds
I’m reading Robert Macfarlane’s Mountains of the Mind. A terrific books from which I could quote any number of passages. Here’s one nice passage: “Mountains seem to answer an increasing […]
Big data, asymmetry and business
[This post is a little longer than initially planned – it’s about a 15 minutes read] It was of little surprise that big data figured as a major presence at […]
The ageing process
A staggering 5 minute time lapse video of the ageing process showing the imperceptible transition from school child to old age, via The Verge, where you can learn more about […]
Avatars of the political process
“Drones are avatars of the the political process: they are instantiations of a set of ideologies and beliefs, made visible by their reification in electromechanical systems. When we talk about […]
On numbers
“To depend on statistics is to asphyxiate the dynamic heart of the business.” Simon Marks, co-founder of the UK retail giant, Marks and Spencer, 1956.
Possessive companies
Typically sharp and incisive piece by Benedict Evans on the tendency for companies to think, and talk, about owning their customers. He relates this specifically to Google Glass but the […]
The said and the unsaid
When the FT Magazine did a special issue on visual design anthropologist Gillian Tett opted to highlight the influential thinking of Pierre Bourdieu and his concept of doxa as a […]