Poetry and Business: 2016

Jonathan Cook is a qualitative market research consultant specializing in the interpretation of the symbolic dimensions of consumer culture, with over 20 years’ experience connecting the tangible attributes of products and services with the emotions, metaphors, narratives, and rituals that motivate their purchase. As Big Data expands its command over the quantitative description of the market landscape, Cook advocates for a new movement within business to develop genuinely in-depth qualitative methodologies to provide rigorous inquiry and profound human insight that can equal the algorithmic output of automated data systems.

As the editor of the journal Poetry and Business, Cook bridges the ancient divide between materialism and idealism, providing much-needed disruption of the status quo in the realms of private enterprise and creative verse. Bringing apparent opposites together, and coaxing them into mutual appreciation, Cook seeks to provoke poets and executives alike to the deep introspection that makes meaningful innovation possible.