Metaphor has long been an interest of mine, and I've also been fascinated by Mary Douglas's discussion of natural symbols. So this article instantly caught my attention.  The idea that architects and engineers are closely studying natural models in search of ideas: obvious, once you think about it, but wow.

Some here might be interested in a brilliant conversation now underway on the anthrodesign Yahoo! list, under the subject heading, “Serendipity.” Arvind Venkataramani has just offered a provocative proposal,

The language we’ve been using so far is heavily driven by methodology selection and its cognates, so much so that participatory research is being treated as a method, not an approach (just like ‘lean=process’). I suggest that we need instead to focus on problem framing…

The following message from anthrodesign is cross-posted with permission of the author, Lynne Lohfeld. It should be of interest to anyone involved with applied or medical anthropology or the role that anthropologists can play in research teams with members from other disciplines. 

Adrian, I like the analogy you make with getting to deep understanding incrementally rather than in phases, because the latter suggests (to me) following a predetermined path in a…

This war stories series from the Portigal consulting company's website will keep you riveted. It would be interesting to hear what our colleagues or lurkers have to say.

Over on Dead Voles, Carl points us to a discussion on another site called "The Long Eighteenth Century." There the topic being discussed is Simon Gikandi’s Slavery and the Culture of Taste, a book that argues that the eighteenth century's obsession with creating a refined, autonomous, rational self was rooted in its opposite, the crude, submissive, sensuous other, the black African slave, whose labor also provided the wealth on which upper class bourgeois…