A few weeks ago I attended C3 affiliate Grant McCracken's Chief Culture Officer Boot Camp in New York. The boot camp was a day long session on McCracken's new book Chief Culture Officer, which you should definitely check out.
McCracken makes a very convincing case for a Chief Culture Officer (CCO) within the corporate structure. McCracken argues that culture deserves a seat in the C-suite. After all, successful products and services need to be both economically and culturally valuable.
The CCO herself is not simply a pop culture buff or a cultural know-it-all. Quite the contrary, McCracken's CCO is a trained professional who knows how to monitor culture, how to think about culture, how to act on culture, and how to work with corporate culture. McCracken's book gives practical applicable advice on how to think about the CCO's job, so I won't detail it all here, but I know that quite a few informal CCOs left Boot Camp ready to revolutionize their work environments.
Throughout the boot camp (and throughout the book) McCracken gives examples of how to approach cultural phenomena from the perspective of a CCO. With an anthropologist's eye, McCracken uses concepts like organic food to provide actionable insight into consumer behavior. Again, I don't want to give too much away, but I highly recommend trying to catch any future boot camps. In the meantime, check out the book.
