Culturematic: How Reality TV, John Cheever, a Pie Lab, Julia Child, Fantasy Football . . . Will Help You Create and Execute Breakthrough Ideas

A hard book to describe. If you are interested in a breakdown of how things of great success come to fruition in the world today, check it out. I was very happy that the kindle Text-To-Speech function was enabled on this book as I often use that when driving.

A good idea, but like a lot of the 'cultural phenomena' books, after about the fourth chaper you feel as if you're reading the same thing over and over and, guess what, you are! It's really a short idea, a chapter in a larger book, that's been stretched to make a whole book.

In his last book, Chief Culture Officer, Grant McCracken made the case for why firms must pay attention to culture to succeed. In this book, McCracken outlines a method for doing this effectively. He defines a Culturematic as a tool for cultural innovation. They are basically tests - you answer a "what if..." question, try it out, discover what works (and what doesn't), and then unlock value from what you learn.The idea is deceptively simple, but profound. You may read the descriptions of the book and say "but I'm not interested reality TV, fantasy football, ROFLcon etc." It doesn't matter. What McCracken describes is an experimental approach to innovation that applies more generally than might be obvious. Experimenting is at the core of any successful innovation effort, and the tools described in this book can be used in much wider contexts than those used as examples in it. In that, it is a good companion to  Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries .The ideas in this book will be useful to anyone interested in innovation, design thinking or those running organisations that have a strong connection to culture (be it low or high). On top of that, it is well-written and fun to read - an added bonus. Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries

In Culturematic, McCracken introduces a methodology of creativity. By following his methodology, you create a "Culturematic," a thought process* that creates intriguing new concepts. McCracken gives countless examples of recent pop culture phenomena he believes originate from Culturematics.The methodology for creating a Culturematic is simple, if unclear. Using examples pulled from the book, the methodology is: 1. Test the world: Ask "What if..." or "What if I..." (e.g. What if I invented a professional sports league?) 2. Discover Culture: Your "what if" should reframe culture and produce new culture (e.g. Lonely Island starts with "What if I prematurely ejaculated to an insane degree," ends in Jizz in My Pants skit.) 3. Unleash value: Profit! (e.g. Think about all the money made by Julie and Julia food blog, or Supersize Me)To his credit, McCracken immediately seems to realize his methodology is vague and unhelpful. As such, he spends a significant portion of the rest of the book attempting to clarify what following these three steps actually entails. Such clarifications include: -Culturematics have no desired or definite outcome when born. -Culturematics are not posturing in anyway (except incidentally). -Culturematics reframe the world in a way that makes it more organized, more tangible, or breaks previous distinctions (such as between art and science). -Culturematics have something like an emergent order (and as such, you should go out in the world and experience ideas unrelated to your own). -Culturematics work from native curiosity and excitement. -Culturematics should focus on small ideas that can grow, rather than on big ideas. -Culturematics shouldn't conform to taste, social rules, or genres. -Culturematics should result in small scale projects that can fail without much consequence.These clarifications, of course, don't really connect to his Culturematic methodology. Instead, they're just good tips for being creative, said better elsewhere.McCracken then attempts to show how you can apply the Culturematic approach to yourself (by being a spectacle or curator, for instance). He does the same for various creative mediums, and then concludes by discussing how corporations can employ the approach. (I believe another review discusses the corporation part more.)There are numerous problems with the book, as should be evident here. McCracken has clearly stumbled upon an idea. Unfortunately, he has trouble conveying it clearly: his linguistic invention of the "Culturematic" fails to illuminate, as do his countless examples. Even worse, the lack of clarity does not result from his idea being so novel as to defy easy description; rather, other writers have already said it better. (See, for example,  Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content  for content generation, and  Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear  for what content tends to influence others. Secondarily, I'd recommend the blogs Barking Up The Wrong Tree, Brain Pickings, or even Inc.com.)In short, don't buy this book; buy those others.-------------------------------------------------*McCracken also uses Culturematic to describe people and entities embodying this thought process. Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and ContentWords That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear

I bought this as a gift for my daughter and she is enjoying reading it. Not my style of reading but works for her.