Talked about social media in the Swedish TV news Aktuellt:
In the TV news
In August
The 24th of August I will curate a session at The Conference (Malmö). This is what we will talk about:
Our social relationships are increasingly sustained and nourished by our digitally extended selves rather than by personal encounters. Social media platforms make the creation of a virtual self possible by manifesting a chosen identity through the pictures we post and the stories we write about our lives, including social as well as personal experiences. It is primarily younger people who have quite an intimate relationship with their digital devices. Are the media industries developing their products with this reality in mind? Current days social critique is arguing that the social media is enhancing a culture of narcissim. Are we in fact returning to the days of the old masters painting when the duty of every portrait artist was to beautify rather than to render a true picture? Is an ‘iDentity’ nothing but an old masters painting where the young person is his or her own portrait artist? Isn’t time to break this superficiality and inspire young users to find new routes rather than to re-enter those worn routes of ’self-fiction’ and ‘who cares’ attitude. Young people do not have a free choice: they will take what we give them.
Inculture Media Insight
Mobile phones and laptops are today the everyday essentials we do not want to leave home without. Compressing time and space has become an un-reflected act. The resulting transparency and accessibility dissolves the boundaries between public and private domains and constantly integrates new realms of discourse. A workspace is no longer necessarily a designated place in an office, a school or at a university but a comfortable sofa at home, a table in a café or a bench in a park. Airplanes and trains are equipped to allow us to work and be connected while travelling. We pass through landscapes and fly over mountains and cities but perceive and navigate the world through our technological devices rather than our senses. Our social relationships are increasingly sustained and nourished by our digitally extended selves rather than by personal encounters.
People and brands
Read my new blog text about people and brands written together with Jacob Östberg at The Brand-Man.
Anthropology and brands
Read my blog texts about anthropology in a brand context at The Brand-Man.
Food behavior
Food is a cultural and contextual matter and when you have the luxury of making choices on what to eat, “good food” is one of the most flexible, negotiable and unfixed phenomenon we ever came across. Consumers either go for quality or mass production, homemade or prefab, or both; you go for soul or the general idea. At one occasion one either chooses ecological or locally produced, the next time cheap canned without story or localization. It’s a non-logical process depending on what currency you use in that certain moment. Read the report about ecology vs locally produced food Inculture wrote for Skånes Livsmedelsakademi 2010 or see the film here!
Public Service-dagen 2011
Talked about children and youth today at Public Service-dagen. Take a look (in Swedish).
Social Media Week NYC
Inculture will participate in Social Media Week New York on Wednesday 9th february, 9 AM (New York time). The session is named “Social media around the world“. Freddie Laker will moderate a roster of on-stage and videocast social media enthusiasts. Through first-hand storytelling and demos, these panelists will discuss how they incorporate social media into their daily lives; introduce us to social media sites, apps, and trends that are popular in their home countries, and discuss the impact that these tools are having on culture. You can see the session by clicking here!
The perfect home or the perfect me?
If I buy that new remodeled kitchen aid, I´m sure I´ll bake more bread. And if I move to that area close to the art museum I´m sure I´ll go there much more often. And if I get that pituresque little house I´ll finally be truly happy! Recognize these thoughts? Striving for something better is a human quality, which constantly helps to improve and reinvent oneself. But what if you suddenly only start to reinvent your surroundings instead of yourself? In the play ”Ljust och fräscht” (Lindström & Schyffert) those topics are discussed and they couldn’t be more accurate. In an ongoing study Inculture is analyzing this strive and longing for a perfect home, including the perfect you. See for example IKEA’s kitchen report.
A new year – time for CCOs?
Grant McCracken suggests that every company in the future will need a Chief Culture Officer, someone who carries the ethnographic way of thinking straight into the heart of the company: makes it part of its strategic thinking. To make this happen is not solely up to the companies, it is up to us as ethnographers to communicate our theoretical and methodological professionalism and their relevance for business development.