Has anybody heard of the “Corporate Anthropology Center”? “The Global Hub for Cultural Business Anthropology”? They offer “Training and Certification – Consumer Research and Database – IntraCorporate Services – Competition Analysis” etc (extremly business-like rhetoric!).
They claim to have been in business since 1979, but a google-search returns no results, the website seems to be new, lacks a title and looks quite unprofessional (one page with lots of text, no menue). The domain was registred only one month ago and is owned by Sally Austin.
Curious me, I contacted the site and received a quick reply. The site is a new one and indeed is under construction, the person in question, Sally Austin, is an anthropologist with experience in both the film industry and technology. Spoke at a Morphs Digital Frontier convention in SF in the 90’s I verified. Field work in Australia and French Polynesia, couldn’t verify. BA from University of South Florida in 1980, verified. Corporate work started in 1979. Did study on Trauma Fatigue after the Northridge earthquake, lots of corporate work under nondisclosures (we all know how those work, sued if you disclose, hard to get referrals that way). Seems she is seeking to unite the field and have a central location to market corporate anthropology globally. Kinda a good thing all in all for the rest of us. Looking forward to seeing the site up and running. She seemed surprised that anyone had found it already. surprise huh?! Anyone else know about this?
Checked out the site and I find it to contain great information although still in the rough. It plainly states that the site is under construction. What intrigued me the most is the obvious experience in corporate field anthropology. Reading the content and ignoring the format brings worthwhile knowledge, a “how to” of the dicipline. Read it before trashing the site everyone. I haven’t contacted Austin as yet.
Thanks for the comments. The website has undergone some development recently. First a new note “Site under construction”, now a new menue and navigation bars. It seems the site hasn’t been launched yet officially.
The format is a problem. To have the influence its content warrants, this site needs a complete visual redesign. Compare, for example, the beautiful job that’s been done on Savage Minds, one of the most visually readable and attractive sites I know of.