I was in New Orleans earlier this week to attend an IEEE editorial board meeting. I landed at 11pm on Sunday, and my meeting was at 11am on Monday, and I was flying out at 5pm on Monday. So, my only free time to see New Orleans was Monday morning before 11am. My colleague/friend from Singapore was also in town for the meeting, so we got up early and went to Café Du Monde for their piping hot beignets and chicory coffee... Yummmm!!!
After we finished our delicious beignets and coffee, we went to the shop across the street to buy touristy souvenirs. Since my colleague and I are both of Asian descent, we got into a big, rowdy fight over who will pay. We raised our voices, threw our elbows to block each other out, and vigorously waived our credit cards... each of us hoping that one of the two shopkeepers would take our credit card and put the fight to an end.
The shopkeepers were two little hometown ladies who probably spent their entire lives in New Orleans. They just sat there with stoic looks on their faces, watching the two of us as we took turns jumping around making our arguments and duking it out. They sat very still and quietly as they watched us, with just their eyes shifting from me to my colleague and back as we made our points. My biggest argument was that I'm from the US and my colleague is from Singapore, and since we were in my country I was the host and I should pay. I thought this was a really good argument and I was sure I had the fight in the bag.
Finally, the referees, I mean shopkeepers, had to declare the outcome. One of the little ladies spoke with a booming southern drawl, "The man pays!", or more accurately, "The maaaaaannnnnn paaaayyyyyyyzzzzzzz!". As soon as she said it, the other woman started nodding her head in violent agreement and said in an equally booming southern drawl, "Yeeesssssssss. The maaaaaaannn should paaaaayyyy!". I was stunned. I tried my arguments one more time, but I realized it was pointless and I had to declare defeat. My colleague won and paid for the t-shirts. They wouldn't even touch my credit card.
I was absolutely stunned at the simplicity and decisiveness of the answer. I grew up in a small town in Western New York, but since then I spent 10 years in Boston and now 10 years in Silicon Valley. I have a decent salary and some management authority, so naturally I insist on paying for things quite often, and I often win. So, when the woman boomed "The man pays!", it really caught me by surprise and reality hit me like a ton of bricks! I suddenly realized I was in the south. I suddenly realized that much of the world is not like me and my Silicon Valley friends and globe-trotting colleagues. And I suddenly realized how much of an anomaly I am compared to much of the world.
Then, I began to wonder... what kind of mobile and media technology would these people actually use? What kind of user experience would it have to deliver to be useful to the two little ladies in the little shop? What kind of service would it have to provide? How much, or more accurately, how little would it have to cost for them to buy it? Hmmmm....
Tags:
New Orleans,
Silicon Valley,
man pays,
experience,
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Posted
05-31-2007 9:47 PM
by
susie.wee