The Compliment Machine

A “Compliment Machine” in Washington, D.C., is stopping people in their tracks. There may be a lesson here for us to learn.

Stand on a busy street corner in a major American city and you’ll hear a lot of sounds, from the passing of traffic to the footfalls of people walking by quickly and purposefully without engaging in eye contact. You might hear snippets of conversation and a bit of music from the al fresco diners at the corner café, a request for some loose change by a homeless man or the loud banging of a construction crew renovating a building across the street. These are sounds you get used to if you spend any time in the city.

But if you were standing at a corner of 14th Street N.W. in Washington, D.C., a couple of summers ago, you might have heard a sound that would make even the most streetwise city dwellers slow down their frantic pace and lower their lattes for just a second: the positive sound of a compliment. Ding-dong, a chime cuts through the noise, followed by a pleasant voice saying to a passerby, “You create a brighter future.”

First question: Where did that come...