What drives the work of the world’s leading management thinkers?
That was the question posed at Thinkers50@BUQuestrom: Passion & Purpose, a live virtual event held at Boston University Questrom School of Business on 20th April 2023. Co-sponsored by Thinkers50, Passion & Purpose sought to uncover the motivation behind top management thinkers: what directs their research? What keeps them awake at night and gets them out of bed in the morning? In a fast-paced ideas jam, 14 thinkers each had 15 minutes to present their passion and purpose.
Thinkers50 2023 Radar member Marcus Collins, swung the audience’s attention towards the curious case of cultural consumption. Consumption, contended Collins, has very little to do with functional and utilitarian benefit but more to do with psychological and social needs. Culture is the big influencer of human behavior; we consume because of who we are, not because of what things are. And to become more aware of the cultural factors affecting us, Collins said, we need to think like comedians. Comedians observe and watch people to discover something they did not expect.
