Thinking Differently
Letter from the Editor
In 1997, Apple unveiled their new advertising slogan of “Think different.” At the time, it was perceived to be a response to IBM’s slogan, “Think.” This sort of advertising move took a lot of guts at the time. In 1997, IBM was the big kid on the block and Apple was trying to recover from several years of failed products and shrinking market share. The results? Well, would you buy a smartphone from Apple or IBM? How about a new laptop? Exactly.
The real point of sharing this anecdote is that thinking differently is hard. If it was easy, it wouldn’t be so profound when it happens. But when it does happen, we are all taken aback. Part of us wonders why we didn’t think of that and part of us wonders how anyone could’ve thought of it in the first place. In the same light, thinking differently doesn’t mean destroying the system entirely. Apple didn’t want people to abandon computers for abacuses, it simply wanted consumers to think differently about what a computer could and what role it played in our lives.
Sigma Nu itself is a product of this process. Hopkins, Quarles, and Riley didn’t want to close down VMI for what they viewed as abuses and injustices from their classmates. They did however think differently about what Honor meant to them and what role Love and Truth should and could play in the lives of men. Again, it’s not about abandoning the car on a trip, it’s about turning the wheel to change your direction.
And that’s what Sigma Nus have been doing since 1869: thinking differently. Whether it’s thinking differently about storytelling on the movie screen (spears pages), thinking differently about what kind of hair products men want and how they want them delivered (longhairs pages), or thinking differently about what it means to be an excellent chapter on your campus (awards pages), the Legion of Honor is thinking differently every day.
It is our hope that in the following pages you’ll find your own inspiration to think differently and when you’ve finished that we hope you’ll take a cue from another famous advertising campaign and “Do It.”
Fraternally Yours,
Drew Logsdon (Western Kentucky)