Inspired Real Estate For Today

A Sneaker advertisement in the latest issue of Vanity Fair magazine  (June 2007) captured my imagination.  Coverse brand of sneakers to be exact.  A Sneaker Ad about Healthy Cultures and Creativity.

Healthy Cultures...the definition  according to Converse:

"Healthy Cultures Nurture Creativity.  They help breathe life into the people who live within them.  Offer an array of perspectives to agree with, to fight against, to expand on or challenge."

"A Healthy Culture Welcomes Dissent.  Listens for the sound of new voices.  Supports original imaginations."

"Healthy Cultures are full of artists.  When hope dies, so does creativity.  When culture is lost, so is the Future."

"Indifference is the enemy.  Nothing is inevitable if you're willing to think.  Nothing is unattainable if you're willing to fight."

The ad which highlights the worldwide initiative to eliminate AIDS in Africa asks a question...How can we use our creativity within the context of culture to be an agents of change?  This was a fitting entry for Converse to feature in Vanity Fair's June edition which focuses on Africa and is Guest edited by Bono (U2). 

So, why is a sneaker company talking about Culture and expanding the definition way beyond the normally accepted boundaries of geographic location, socio economic statistics, politics and commonly acknowledged people groups?  Well, perhaps it is because the Internet has exploded the barriers that used to define culture into oblivion...forever!

Culture is rapidly morphing from a place where one participates within the more limiting contexts of physical or emotional space to include the abstract equivalent  in virtual reality and on-line communities.  Recognition of this reality links health and environment together in a manner that re-defines the rapidly expanding role of the artist and creativity.  

The artist...aka the writer & the contributor, are recast in roles that highlight the importance of dissent and the clarion call of the "unique voice" offers a vivid refinement of the definition of health.  The meaning  of the old adage..."birds of a feather flock together," shifts delivering new insights into how the modern day flock emerges.

• "Healthy Cultures breathe life into the life into the people who live within them.  Healthy Cultures offer an array of perspectives.  Nothing is inevitable if you're willing to think!  Indifference is the enemy."  (Converse Ad - Vanity Fair 2007)

The articles in this issue of Vanity Fair re-imagine global relationships.  Bono interviewed by ABC News (you can watch the interview below) indicates that our relationship with Africa as a continent will be the true test of whether we believe in equality.  Can we get beyond the limiting prejudices and widely cast images that are a sad caricature of a vibrant and eclectic continent of people whose wealth of humanity has much to teach and inspire? 

Bono's genius is his ability to bring seemingly disparate groups of people together in recognition of our common and therefore powerful humanity.  Hence, 20 magazine covers for this months issue feature combinations as inventive as Barak Obama and Muhammad Ali, George W. Bush and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Bono and Condoleezza Rice  and Oprah Winfrey and Bill & Melinda Gates.  "Healthy Culture Welcomes Dissent.  Listens for the Sound of New Voices.  Supports original imaginations.  In this case perhaps we could add...Supports incredible combinations."  And why not?

Sneakers are what we wear when we're exchanging the limiting constraints of formal wear shoes to be more comfortable and more flexible. Sneakers are what we wear when we really need to be able to be flexible, to move, walk...run and play.  Sneakers are shoes in which we engage with the world...not simply tippy toe through it.  Sneakers are what we wear when we need to move with the freedom of our entire body!  Next to our bare feet, sneakers are the closest thing to healthy footwear that most of us possess.

So, is your Physical, Relational and Virtual culture healthy?  Are you a Sneaker Warrior?

To watch Bono interview...click here.