Simon S. Tam's Blog, page 7

We’re Taught to Hate

I’ve been thinking about the South Pacific song, “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” which is partially responsible for spreading the idea that hate is taught.

You’ve got to be taught
To hate and fear, you’ve got to be taught from year to year
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught
To be afraid of people
Whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade
You’ve got to be carefully taught.

And while many peop...

Record of Wrongs

Conflict relies on a record of wrongs: recalling how/when someone has crossed us, the personnel file tracks infractions from an employee, uncollected debts are recounted. As such, we’re inherently taught to avoid certain people, to label them as unreliable or assume the worst of intentions, and to withhold generosity, forgiveness, or compassion. It’s reasonable: we want to avoid pain.

Yet, when things are flipped, we expect the opposite for ourselves: we implore our spouse to think of the man...

Keynote at Purdue University

Last night, I had the honor and privilege of sharing a keynote lecture at Purdue University. The event was hosted by the Purdue University Asian American and Asian Resource and Cultural Center, the Political Science Department, and the Brian Lamb School of Communication.

This was the first event where I shared my story in several months that was not hosted by a law school or legal affiliation. While I certainly enjoy discussing the legal aspects of my case, it was refreshing to hold that conv...

My OMG Moment at Tenx9 Nashville Storytelling

A few weeks ago, I got my “Moth moment:” I was able to share my story of performing at the Oregon State Penitentiary on the Tenx9 stage. Tenx9 Nashville is a Belfast-originated monthly community storytelling night in Nashville, Tennessee where 9 people have up to ten minutes each to tell a real story from their lives. You can learn more about them here.

You can listen to it below (begins at 14:00):

Simon Tam Keynote from Courageous Inclusion Conference 2017

My keynote speech for the 2017 Northwest Public Employees Conference, Courageous Inclusion, is available to watch on YouTube:

A New Kind of Stadium

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday.

To prepare for this big moment, the Minneapolis Super Bowl Host Committee spent nearly $500 million on it (mostly via taxpayer dollars). According to the New York Times, it was the seventh one built in the last 12 years, each constituting about $250 million each from taxpayers for a total of almost $1.8 billion.

Despite the optimistic projects, each Super Bowl costs the host city and states millions of dollars – in other words, it loses money. Significant mone...

Two New Projects: On Music and On Eating

This year, I launched two new projects that see to have little to do with what I normally do.

The first, is a daily called podcast – Music Business Hacks (launched today!). Yep, daily means I’ll have 365 episodes produced for Season One. This quick-bite podcast focuses on inspiration, information, and application for aspiring artists who don’t want to wade through hazy information about following their dreams. I cut through the clutter and focus on content relating to entrepreneurship, market...

Long Tails in Our Marketing, Long Tails in Our Minds

In business and statistics, there’s a concept called “long tail.” While it generally refers to a strategy of selling large numbers of niche products in small quantities each (the distribution curve looks like a long tail), it’s also a term that we’re seeing more of in the marketing world.

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Long-tail marketing techniques rely on technology that can target very specific audiences. Naturally, that includes new media marketing (especially blogs and podcasts), viral marketing, and keywords/search...

If it Looks Like a Rat…

There’s a viral video right now that apparently shows a rat showering like a human. It’s covered in soap, standing up, and rubbing it’s face, arm pits, and body. People are enamored with it because we love it when animals do anything that resemble human behavior – dogs driving cars, cats wearing sunglasses, etc. – our pleasure with equating anthropomorphism with cuteness is probably rooted in our ego somewhere.

But when you dig deeper, we know that much of this behavior isn’t “normal.” The a...

Culturally Competent Communications

There’s a growing trend in the intersection between diversity, equity, and inclusion work and marketing: culturally competent communications. I’ve even delivered a couple of workshops on the topic.

It’s related to other fields of cultural competence –  understanding and appropriately responding to the unique combination of cultural variables and the full range of dimensions of diversity. For healthcare, it ensures that patients are completely understood and offered the appropriate care. In ma...