UBUNTU

South Africa is a great country with whole different history, folklore, mythology, culture, norms, values, and behaviors than other countries in the world. As a result of the previous, as result of their way to see life, they have developed a philosophy called UBUTU.

UBUTU can be defined as humaneness- a pervasive spirit of caring and community, harmony and hospitality, respect and responsiveness- that individuals and groups display for one another (Mangaliso, P. Mzamo, (2001) Building competitive advantage from ubuntu: Management lessons from South Africa, Academy of Management Executive, vol 15 no 3, pag 24) This philosophy also implies that “a person is a person through others” this means that a person becomes a person only through his or her relationship with and recognition by others (Mangaliso, P. Mzamo, (2001) Building competitive advantage from ubuntu: Management lessons from South Africa, Academy of Management Executive, vol 15 no 3, pag 24).

This philosophy and the statements and behaviors around it have several implications for companies and organizations. Understanding the whole thoughts can be the key for the success of a company in southern Africa and this model can be applied to every place of the world.

As in every new country you want to move your company to, in South Africa it is important to understand their culture and it is very important to be aware of the influence the UBUTU philosophy has in people belonging to this culture. We know that there are some aspects we have to keep in mind when treating with other cultures, because we are not all the same. In this case it isn’t different. As the social level is so important to them, managers should treat them as persons, not as parts of the company`s system, to communicate with them, to hear them, to give importance to their problems, and to understand their behavior through their ideology.

In organizations around the world, this philosophy can be applied in order to reach better relationships between the individuals and improve the working environment. The postulates of the UBUTU philosophy can be adopted as general rules of behavior towards others in organizations. Treating others as you would treat your own family, feeling part of the community and caring for them as it was you, communication, choosing carefully the words you say, taking time to make clever decisions, solidarity and social harmony as key points for increasing productivity, thinking rewards and punishment must be shared because all the members belong together and are part of the same, and recognizing the importance of age, of wisdom, of the wisdom acquired through time can be determinants of better working teams and in result of better organizational performance.

Image taken from: southafricaproject.org

Flowers paint your life with beautiful colours.

Image taken form: blog.hola.com

Businesses have to look for new ways to be remembered by customers. Sometimes the brand isn’t enough and they have to link it with sounds, pictures, colors, and metaphors in order to be related to those things. Music, promotional songs, colors and metaphors give information of the brand or the products sold by the company.

Creating metaphors isn’t an easy job. In order to reach the impact you want in customers you have to study their values, attitudes and tastes to make them feel familiar or identified with your idea.

Trying to create sensations and emotions that result from a brand experience, music, songs, mottos, metaphors, and even smells are used. In Colombia we have some clear examples of the previous. Tennis, the clothing brand has a specific smell and they give out air-fresheners in shapes of hearts with this characteristic smell. A clear example of music is Pilsen. No matter where you are at when you hear that sound you know it`s theirs. Internationally, Nike has one of the most known slogans in the world: Just do it.

Metaphors are very useful when you are trying to position a brand because it gives you the possibility to make a comparison between two things that can share a characteristic. They make easier for the reader understanding the message or something about the principal idea. In this way you can talk about a characteristic of the product you are trying to sell using something everybody knows as reference.

In this case I decided that I want to export flowers to northern countries where they don’t have the quality, the quantity and the variety we have in Colombia and in other tropical countries the whole year. The metaphor I would like to use in order to position my product and my brand is:

“Flowers paint your life with beautiful colors”

Through this metaphor I want people to perceive that flowers provide colors to any space, that even in winter when everything is grey and cold, flowers can make any place, any room of their houses warmer, happier, colorful.

We associate colors with happiness, joy and spring. All the beautiful things and moments are usually associated with many vibrating colors and that is what I am trying to take advantage from through this metaphor.

Other`s Blogs.

Reading other's blogs is very interesting because you can see how they approach the same task you had in a different way. Even though we all had to write about the same topic, we all came up with different ideas and examples.
I chose 5 Blogs I thought were very interesting and I posted my comments in them:

• The first Blog I commented in belonged to Sara Baena (http://miragemblue.blogspot.com/). I liked this blog because it was very organized and attractive for the reader. I chose to comment in "Business implications of cultural differences" because I agreed with her ideas and I thought she developed them in a clear way.

• I commented in Daniel Velasquez's Blog (http://danvelis.blogspot.com/) in the publication belonging to the Pygmalion effect because I liked very much the examples he gave about expectations and I agreed pretty much with everything he said.

• I commented in Mónica Giraldo's Blog (http://monicagiraldoc.blogspot.com/) because I liked very much the video she published at the end of the text about the Pygmalion effect. I think it was an interesting comparison between water and human beings and how words can affect us both.

• I liked Yveth Weissenborn's Blog (http://yvett-eafit.blogspot.com/) and specially the publication about the Pygmalion effect, because I found shocking a picture she has at the end. This picture tells a story about elephants that can be applied to humans as well. It shows us how not only other's perceptions can affect our behavior, but also our own perceptions towards our selves.

• The last Blog I commented in belonged to Maria Mercedes Agudelo (http://mariaorgcult.blogspot.com/). I liked the video she posted abut the Pygmalion effect because it shows how through a real example, an experiment, the Pygmalion effect occurs in real life.

References: Image taken from http://centrolenguaportuguesacc.blogspot.com/