Strategy
9

Not Everyone Thinks the iPhone is the Bomb

Posted by John Saddington on Mar 1, 2009

japanesehatetheiphone

In fact, the truth be told is that the Japanese hate the iPhone and it doesn’t surprise me one bit.

I lived in Japan for nearly 4 years and during that time my eyes were opened: I saw technological advances there that still have yet to make it stateside (and this was more than a decade ago…!). Besides humongous cultural divides, the Japanese people have extremely complex and super-high standards.

Lesson to be learned here: What we find attractive technologically on the web and even how we use web technology might just in fact offend other cultures. Even our near-flawlessly perfect desire to serve the world with the best intentions might just be stopped because we chose to engage with them on AIM instead of the obviously-superior iChat application.

[That was just an example, but it works.]

Have a good Sunday night read (or early Monday morning read) here for a full glimpse of the iPhone conundrum in Japan that Apple is facing. It’s a good and simple reminder to be wise about what and how we use.

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John Saddington

John is the Chief Editor @ The 8BIT Network and Senior Blog Junkie here at ChurchCrunch.He enjoys Triple-Tall Americanos, developing Wordpress Themes, and a few other Random Things.

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9 Responses to “Not Everyone Thinks the iPhone is the Bomb”

  1. Daniel_Berman
    Monday, March 2, 2009 at 4:06 am

    This leads me to wonder, is anyone in the process of creating a Global Christian cultural archive to avoid such paux pas? And are there any web software/social networking platforms which have found universal acceptance across a majority of the world's cultures? This might give us a hint as to lessons learned along the way.

    Reply
    • Aaron
      Monday, March 2, 2009 at 4:05 pm

      What John is trying to say is, unless you own a Panasonic P905i, you're not going to have enough street cred with the Japanese community to be able to deliver the gospel. :)

      Reply
  2. Aaron
    Monday, March 2, 2009 at 3:57 pm

    Great jab at AIM. ;)

    Reply
  3. Daniel_Berman
    Monday, March 2, 2009 at 4:38 pm

    And I understand. What I am wondering is, how do we keep track of this?

    Reply
  4. Aaron
    Monday, March 2, 2009 at 4:56 pm

    Daniel,

    I believe John used the iPhone in Japan as an analogy (because it's
    been a frequent topic of conversation among people in-the-knew
    recently) to describe what is culturally acceptable (and promoted)
    some places is not in others. If anything, the Gospel is a universal
    truth. How we choose to present it to people is the crux of this
    conversation.

    To best answer your question, I don't believe any of us could possibly
    keep up with all the cultural differences between ours and others (or
    others and others). Therefore, spreading the Gospel is best served
    through individuals who work in those fields and are familiar with
    those cultural differences.

    If you go on any mission to a foreign country, you'll probably talk
    with your group about some dos and don'ts before you arrive at your
    destination (as you probably should). In respect to Christianity,
    mission work, etc, if you're looking to keep tabs on multiple cultures
    and those differences, you'd have to invest a lot of work and maintain
    a large database of those differences and how they apply in whatever
    context.

    Sounds like a new start-up for John, to me. ;)

    Reply
  5. Daniel_Berman
    Monday, March 2, 2009 at 5:19 pm

    A very perceptive reply! Have you traveled overseas?

    Reply
  6. Aaron
    Monday, March 2, 2009 at 5:27 pm

    One trip to Capljina, Bosnia-Herzegovina.

    (Wanted to go again this year but decided to take the honeymoon period
    seriously instead.) :)

    Reply
    • Daniel_Berman
      Monday, March 2, 2009 at 5:43 pm

      wise move, I sent you a link on twitter, your wife might be interested in. Its something my wife started just before we got married about 1.5 years ago…

      Reply
  7. Jim
    Wednesday, March 4, 2009 at 11:25 pm

    my head hurts from reading the comments section

    Reply