One of the panels at NOEW 2015 was about culture, but it was less about company culture than about using information about a culture to design and market products. The presenters were from Peter Mayer, a local advertising agency that works with companies in the New Orleans region, especially to help them reach national markets. Their main point is that we’re getting messages all around us about what people care about right now. Social media, television, music, things people talk about – all of these feed into a narrative about what our culture is like right now. Cluster those obervations, identify a few key ones, and then you are on your way to having a good idea of what products you need to market and how.
Conpany was an ongoing issue at the conference, because entrepreneurs want to make sure that they build a culture that fits from the start. There wasn’t a lot new in that discussion, except that it was a discussion of entrepreneurs embedded in New Orleans, a city with a distinctive culture itself. Historically, New Orleans has been a closed culture, with families attending the same schools, joining the same krewes, and living in the same neighborhoods for generations. The rebuilding and population changes after Katrina broke up some of the old walls. New Orleans is now open to change, and that makes it attractive.
Culture is a funny thing. On the one hand, we are all human beings. On some level, we all want the exact same things, and it is easy to over-estimate the importance of background or education. On the other hand, culture determines how we treat each other and how we fit in, and so it determines the relationships we have. Startup culture tends to be scrappy and a little rough, but that can’t continue, especially not is it is rough to the employees.
One reason I love being a writer is that I love noticing things and sharing them with others. I like to think this makes me culturally sensitive, but who knows. Still, we can make better decisions if we pay attention to what is happening around us.
