Michael Wesch is one of my personal heroes. Beginning with “The Machine Is Us/Ing Us,” he’s brought a fresh, thoughtful perspective to the social media that are (re)shaping our lives. His “A Vision of Students Today” is the strongest critique of the educational system you’ll ever see in under 5 minutes.
I had the fortune of meeting Michael when he spoke at IDEA 2007. He’s a warm, smart, passionate guy, and was readily able to contribute to the discussions of information architecture and new disciplines.
Michael recently spoke at the Library of Congress, and gave an hour-long talk titled An anthropological introduction to YouTube. In doing so, he’s shaming the professional anthropology establishment, as he’s doing more to spread anthropological thought and discourse to a wide audience than entire university departments. He also shows that rigor can be fun.