How do we say "Hello?"

I'm thinking about the infrastructure and inventions that represent institutions, corporations, cities.

For example, try interpreting the BART ticket machine at SFO for the first time, and you don't speak English.

Thank goodness for the airport cleaning woman who has taken it upon herself to help foreign newcomers cut through an institution's inefficient UX.

"Where are you going, sweetheart?"

Watch a dozen other confused, English-speaking travelers listen in, intently.

She's the real welcome to San Francisco.

Tim Wu's engaging book, The Master Switch, hints at the story behind this interaction.

"Again and again in the development of technology, full appreciation of an invention's potential importance falls to others—not necessarily technical geniuses themselves."

The ticket machine at an airport is an opportunity to say "Hello." A chance for a city to introduce itself.

Today the invention struggled, but a cleaning woman made it all work out in the end.