Does the Story of Geneva Belong to Rolex?

When I was in college I read children's books to small groups of children at the public library. I was depressed about the state of the world and this restored hope for me because I could see the joy evoked by the stories I read elucidated in the smiling faces of the children. Doing that tiny bit of public service turned my depression around and turned that period into one of the best times of my life.

Why do I mention that now? Because sharing something that interests you with someone else is not only therapeutic for both parties, it's also key to the sharing of human values. A great deal of marketing, which I've been involved in most of my life, involves hijacking this same natural human interaction in the service of selling people things that they otherwise would not likely feel that they needed.

I'm not trying to sell watches on this channel. But I am interested in sharing my love of how these "objects with meaning" are made and how they derive their meaning. To do so it's necessary to strip away the hype and get down to the essence of what they actually are.

Based in Geneva, Rolex is a non-profit foundation that brings billions of dollars of income into the Swiss economy each year. It gifts hundreds of millions of dollars (after conversion to Swiss francs) to the city of Geneva in grants for the arts, including schools, individual artist patronage, architecture, and infrastructure. Its history and its values are intertwined with the history and values of Switzerland.

If this video is not for you I totally understand. Please just skip over it. I'll do more to get out and make videos about watches, watchmaking and Switzerland in the near future.