As a serious student of archaeology, I was expecting to decode Mayan text and unearth priceless artifacts. Yet somehow, I stumbled upon one of the most ancient truths of humanity: the importance of persuasion, and …
Read the full story »Human insights and observations.
People and the way we do business.
Design, art, music, and all things man made.
Food, meal culture, and the social trade with every dish.
There is a rivalry between New York City entrepreneurs and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. The California crowd boasts the most and some of the biggest venture capitalists in the country with a flurry of entrepreneurial beehives …
What kind of strange culture would spend a day in the rain waiting in line for BBQ? Apparently, it is the New York City foodie tribe and the event was the 7th Annual Big Apple …
Seek opportunities to hang out with intelligent industrial designers. They have the ability to ask, “Does it have to be this way?” to every medium and every situation. Robin Peng of Design Engine was the …
In each red envelope there’s a dollar bill
A little hope and a little will
A friendly wish an obvious gift
Some reciprocity, some generosity
After going through a number of interesting posts from Grant McCraken, I got to one of his older posts written in December 2007 entitled Understanding The Whole Consumer. He mentioned how parts of a consumer’s …
I am strange, and I know this not just because my mother told me so, but because I carry a parasol with me whenever I plan to be out in the sun all day. But …
My husband and I were invited to an evening dinner at a friend’s apartment in Manhattan. I thought this was a kind invitation from a friend to join them in their home and not much …
Brad Feld (VC and blogger extraordinaire) recently wrote a post about faces. His first few paragraphs took me back to my college Biological Anthropology class and how powerful faces are to human beings. Brad’s friend …
The wonder of the Dessert Truck, which is often parked across the street from the St. Mark’s Hotel in NYC, reminds me of Prometheus taking one of the gods’ greatest gifts and giving it to …
Imagine a middle aged, community leader that has gone out into the wild world for years…to bring mammoth meat home to his family, clan, and tribal nation. But now this chief is faced with an …
Most people think modern societies are materialistic—we prize our possessions too much. But after working on a fun design-anthropology project on the co-evolution of medium and content, I realized we don’t appreciate our stuff …
Some cultures come with an expiration date. Sometimes intentional, more often not, these movements are never meant to last. One of the starkest examples is the formation and demise of cults. It usually starts
It is so easy for people to take the way they see the world for granted. This fact is even more painfully obvious when the subject is sight and blindness. Human beings are so heavily …
Something significant occured in Berkeley, CA in 1966 that continues to affect students, thinkers, and visitors till this day. Was it the famous riots on Berkeley campus? The establisment of the People’s Park? Or, perhaps …
