Tag / culture

by Nathan Coumbe

Excuse me: Is that emergency button made in China?

There’s a blue emergency call tower halfway along a walking trail I frequent each week.

If you’re being attacked or having a heart attack, you smack a button on it, and it immediately calls emergency services and shares your location with them so they can find you—fast.

When I walked by it the other day, I noticed they’d added something new to it. It was a big sign, probably a square foot in size.

And on the sign, printed in big block letters, were the words, “Proudly made in the USA!”

I thought about that sign for the rest of my walk. I just kept thinking, “Who was that for? What was the purpose of that new sign?”

I don’t think it’s for the person in trouble. If you’re being chased by an axe murderer, would you check the tower for a “Made in China” stamp before you pressed the button?

I doubt it.

And if it were manufactured somewhere else, would that really deter you? Oh geez. Made in China?! Gross. I’d rather this guy just kill me than press the button.

It’s not marketing. No one who sees it has any need (or ability) to buy one and stick it in their front yard, so where it’s made doesn’t factor into a buying decision.

Is it supposed to inspire confidence in people like me who walk past it every day? I already know most things aren’t manufactured here, and they typically work just fine.1

The only answer that seems to fit is that it’s for the people who installed it.

It’s a flag. It’s performative patriotism—not for any user of the tower, but for whoever approved the purchase, or whoever installed it. It’s a tribal signal. To paraphrase Seth Godin: “People like us install things like this.”

The sign isn’t communicating with us. It’s communicating about someone else.

  1. In fact, I’ve had such horrible experiences with American-made brands (see: any American car) that it might actually be triggering the opposite effect the sign intended. Now I’m thinking, “Man… Would that thing actually work in an emergency?” ↩︎
by Nathan Coumbe

You can’t lead everyone

Which means one of two things:

1. You must either improve your leadership abilities so that people will follow you where you want to go.

    Or, if you already have the skill…

    2. You must find the right people willing to go on the journey with you. 

    The right skills or the right people—figure out which one is holding you back.

    by Nathan Coumbe

    Victims are required for change

    We need a victim to effect change, a victim whose outcome so outrages a vast majority of people that they clamor for reform.

    It’s not right, but it seems to be the only way to incentivize people to create lasting systemic change.

    by Nathan Coumbe

    Different People See Things Differently

    I’m a native of Mississippi, but I traveled to California numerous times as a teenager. Having been born and raised in the Deep South, I’d grown up saying “Yes, sir!” or “No, ma’am!” my entire life. 

    (For those of you not of the Deep South, “ma’am” is a contraction of the word “madam.” You know how us Southern folk like to throw a little twang into our speech). 

    In our culture, it is considered polite to use these phrases, and the epitome of rudeness should you not. 

    Then I traveled to California…

    You’re Being Rude

    On numerous occasions, people laughed at me for saying it. A friend of mine asked, “Is that something you just say in the South?” 

    I replied, “Yes, we use ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ whenever we speak to our elders. Or those we consider to be in positions of authority.”

    “Well,” she replied, “when you say it, it sounds like you’re being sarcastic…like you’re mocking my parents.” 

    I was completely floored. It never occurred to me that I might be coming off as rude. On the contrary, I thought I was speaking with the utmost respect by using “sir” and “ma’am”. 

    Why Did I Tell You That Story?

    It’s quite simple: different people see things differently. 

    If you travel to Spain, you are likely to be kissed on both cheeks as a form of greeting (at least before COVID-19). In the United States, our “bubbles” are too big for something like that. We’d consider that a severe violation of our personal space. 

    In some countries, it’s considered incredibly rude to “clean your plate.” Why? Because the cook will think you didn’t get enough to eat. 

    It seems bizarre, right? That’s because you see things differently. 

    Consider these differences when interacting with different people. Especially when traveling to different places. Or when in close contact with people of different cultures. 

    We All Have a Different Noise In Our Heads

    Different people see things differently. Because of this, they interpret things differently. What may seem like an empathic gesture to one person might come across as uncaring by another. 

    An advertisement might be funny and persuasive to one prospect and bawdy and offensive to another. 

    You might create a work of art that one person ridicules unmercifully and another describes as “a masterpiece.”

    When serving or communicating with different people, think whether or not your gesture will be well-received by the other person.

    If not, change gestures or tactics. 

    You could easily write it off. “That person is just being difficult and unreasonable.” Occasionally, that might be so. 

    But you can’t do anything about that. All you can control is what you do.

    And what you can do is treat different people differently.

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    by Nathan Coumbe

    Marketing isn’t evil. You are.

    Okay, so you’re not evil – I just wanted to get your attention.

    Our culture is so used to being “sold to”, to being bombarded with advertisements and brand marketing that we’ve been taught to believe that marketing, trying to influence someone to do something or change something or buy something, is evil.

    Marketing is a tool. Tools are not evil; they are morally neutral. Their capacity for good or for evil lies in the hands of the wielder.

    Would you ever call a hammer evil? Of course not: personifying an inanimate object with morality is preposterous. If you used the hammer to bludgeon someone to death…is the hammer guilty of evil or are you? Did the hammer commit evil?

    Likewise, if the hammer is used to put a nail into a wall to hang a picture for a little old lady in a retirement home, the hammer is not good, nor has it done good. The person using the hammer has used it for its intended purpose to do good.

    Marketing is not evil, but people doing marketing can be. Using marketing is evil if it is used to persuade people to do bad things or to do things that cause harm to themselves or others. Using marketing for deception is wrong.

    Marketing that creates beneficial change in the world is good. Persuading people to do something that helps themselves or creates better circumstances, even if they know they are being influenced by marketing, is good.

    Marketing isn’t good or evil, but what and how you market might be.

    Go market the right thing in the right way.

    (Who determines what the right thing is? That is a discussion for another day.)

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