There is only one science of culture: anthropology.

What is Indicia Consulting?

Indicia Consulting is the result of combining experience in product marketing with an academic background. I have a unique perspective and experience a constant urge to problem solve. Indicia Consulting takes this worldview, shaped by exposure to anthropological theories and methods, to provide creative and pragmatic approaches for my clients. This is an anthropological consulting service creating business solutions for customer and client relations. This includes: service, research, development, and product marketing.

What do I work on?

Business-to Business connection

Customer Service

Education

Evangelism

Events

Hospitality

Internal communications

Retail

Spatial design

User Outreach

Who do I work with?

My goal is to work with small to medium organizations (or specific functions within larger organizations) to hone their competitive edge using resources that are already on hand. I help you identify, analyze, explain, and overcome business challenges in the areas outlined above. I provide customer-oriented solutions based on 'real world' data, empirically acquired.

Who does what I do (hint, nobody)?

Well known retail consultants like Paco Underhill, Faith Popcorn, and other 'cool hunters' famously use anthropological techniques to deal with business concerns. Unlike these other consultants, I don't just use anthropology, I live it and have done so for over fifteen years. Indicia Consulting goes far beyond offering cookie-cutter ethnographic approaches to marketing - I offer myself and my high energy, high impact, low investment process for initiating change in your organization. I believe that to achieve lasting results you need to change the culture first. Life is not a zero sum game - you don't need to win to survive and thrive, just fail less often! A profitable business, happy customers and employees, in a healthy environment is my definition of success.

Who am I?

I am an academic, author, researcher, teacher and now, consultant. I began my career working in Silicon Valley when, at age 18, I took took a job at Xerox as a contract software beta-tester. I was laid off on Halloween wearing a pirate costume. Humiliating enough for you?

The next several years were spent 'in the belly of the beast' at Arques and Lawrence Expressway (oh you know where I am talking about!) with much of that time working in marketing. At the same time I got my degree in Cultural Anthropology at San Jose State University (home of the Silicon Valley Cultures Project, which I have nothing to do with but just thought I would mention for kicks). At the time, my advisor told me to go to law school, as I would make a 'fabulous litigator.' I ignored this wise advice, and instead dedicated myself to making the world a better place. At least until I could no longer pay the electric bill. In 1996 I left Silicon Valley and ventured south to get my Master's and Doctorate in Cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Riverside. I got high honor's on my Master's exam, and completed my doctorate in near-record time - the fruit of my labors, a bouncing baby book, Engines of Ideology: Urban Renewal in Rostock, Germany 1990-2000, is available from Transaction Publishers.

My writing has also appeared in the Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, Anthropology of Eastern Europe, Streetnotes: Ethnography, Poetry, & the Documentary Experience, and Adjunct Advocate. My contribution to the edited volume, Beyond Berlin, will be appearing from the University of Michigan Press in March, 2008.

Before, during and after graduate school, I worked at, consulted with, and volunteered for a number of well-known corporations and organizations. A partial list includes:

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