Memory in Motion

I’ve been thinking about a single word lately.

Culture.

It’s everywhere.

We talk about company culture. Internet culture. Creative culture. Food culture. Startup culture. Sports culture. Organizational culture.

The word has become so common that we rarely stop to ask what it actually means.

For a long time, I thought of culture as the environment surrounding a business. Something organizations responded to. Something marketers hoped to understand. Something leaders tried to influence.

Lately, I’m beginning to wonder if that’s no longer true.

The more I listen, the more I wonder if we’ve started expecting culture to work backwards.

Brands hire creators hoping they’ll create culture.

Organizations turn to AI hoping it’ll generate culture.

Leaders launch initiatives designed to build culture.

Perhaps we’ve started trying to outsource culture.

As if culture can be commissioned.

Or switched on.

Or scaled.

I’m not convinced.

The more I think about it, the less I believe culture is something we create on demand.

I think it’s something we carry.

Not individually.

Collectively.

Culture moves through stories.

Through rituals.

Through language.

Through ideas that continue to travel long after the person who first said them has left the room.

That’s why I don’t think culture can simply be generated.

AI can generate content.

Creators can create moments.

Campaigns can capture attention.

None of them decide what lasts.

Culture is what remains after the moment has passed.

It’s what people choose to keep.

Perhaps that’s why so much content disappears so quickly.

It was seen.

But it was never carried.

Maybe we’ve confused visibility with significance.

Reach with resonance.

Attention with belonging.

The organizations that endure seem to understand something different.

They don’t chase every conversation.

They create ideas, behaviors and experiences that people willingly pass to one another.

Not because they’re told to.

Because they matter.

Maybe that’s always been the job.

Not to manufacture culture.

But to create something worth carrying.

Because memory has a funny way of moving.

From one person to another.

One generation to the next.

One story to another.

Until, eventually, it no longer belongs to the person who first created it.

It belongs to everyone.

Perhaps that’s what culture has always been.

Memory in motion.