I recently read about Nametag day on the Awesome Foundation’s website, which was a project where nametags were given out in New York City on the street on June 1st of this year. For the project, teams of four to six volunteers went to busy parks and intersections with a sign and handing out nametags. People passing by were told, “It’s nametag day, would you like a free nametag?”
Thousands of nametags were given out, and participants who sent in pictures and messages found that they got into more conversations with others on their commute, met their neighbors, and felt different while walking in the city.
Maybe you’ll get in a conversation, maybe a dozen — about someone’s awesome shoes or nice haircut, or a topic in the news. Maybe you will meet a neighbor. Or maybe you’ll just go through your day looking at our city of eight million people a little bit differently.
I sent a message to the team behind Nametag, to find out how many nametags were given out. For now I can report what they have on their website, between 30,000 – or up to 200,000 were given out.
On the blog of the site, I read about Scott Ginsberg, who was involved with the project, who believes that, “Everyone should wear nametags, all the time, everywhere, forever.” Ginsberg has been wearing a nametag 24/7, for the past 4,600 days. (even to bed!) His social experiment started as a fun experiment but later evolved into an urban legend, world record and cultural phenomenon. Ginsberg has traveled to hundreds of cities, a dozen countries and four continents and reports that he has met tens of thousands of people by being the guy who wears a nametag. He has a video channel, and has written a dozen books about social interaction.
As a spokeperson for Nametag Day 2013, he shared some of his insights which include the ideas that nametags promote:
The End of Strangers
The End of Exclusion
The End of Social Conflict
The End of Dishonesty
The End of Disengagement
The End of Incivility
The End of Neglect
You can read more about his ideas, and about Nametag Day on the project blog and website.
Mark your calendar – Nametag Day for 2014 is set for Saturday June 7th. Get your nametag and sharpie ready…
Image Source:
nametagday.com
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