Chief Culture Officer...I fear for Detroit.

Ahh...consolidation over quality or cool. A great read as usual from Grant McCracken on the lack of innovation within the walls of GM. And they're certainly doing no more to solve the problem today than they were yesterday.

"There was one competitive opportunity remaining, the place were theAmericans could beat the challengers.  The real chance for Detroit was design, to make cars that vibrate with the cultural moment as deeply and profoundly as they had in the 1950s (McCracken 2005).  Harley Earl was that man.  It is impossible to reckon the skill with which he spoke to (and for) the culture of the post-war period.  It is impossible to calculate how much money he made for General Motors. 

What Detroit needed was a man or a woman in every C-Suite who understood what was happening in culture.  It needed someone who understood what was happening in the minds of boomers (and why they were so deeply wedded to German luxury cars), in youth culture (when the muscle car culture was back with new and strange differences, and why cars like the funny, boxy little Scion was flourishing), in the life, the heart and the mind of the soccer mom (for many of whom the mini-van felt like the end of everything and especially their youth and their joy).  Detroit needed a senior executive who understood the consumer, and the American feeling for mobility in every sense of the word."

Read the whole thing here.