I was wondering why it seems like there are suddenly so many foodies out there. Far more than there seemed to be a few years ago. In fact there seems to be more connoisseurs in general lately. Whether it’s film, music, electronics, or food, we seem less concerned with basic usability and more concerned with a deeper meaning. According to Daniel Pink that is because we’ve solved the everyday engineering problems of survival and are now focused on satiating some sort of deeper need. For example why buy the $2 toilet brush designed by Michael Graves at target over the $.50 one? Because we like the way it looks or who designed it.
The book is well written and very easy to read. I tend to dislike non-fiction books, but was actually able to make it though this one pretty quickly. There are plenty of interesting ideas such as… the computer is designed with the left brain in mind so it excels at calculation. Over time these left brain activities are the easier ones to automate. He gives plenty of examples of this such as accounting software, online legal help, etc. The subtitle of ‘why right-brainers will rule the future’ mostly points to this. With left brain activities becoming more and more automated people need to hone their right brain skills to get ahead. The thing i found most interesting though is peoples need to attach meaning to things.
Take music for example. Hipsters have created this entire subculture of indie music. They compare their indie cred with what bands they know, how early they listened to said band, and how many bands they’ve seen live. Hip hop similarly has street cred, with new listeners or new jacks being ridiculed by the guys who actually remember buying that first De La Soul CD (I mean tape heh) when it dropped. The point is we are the ones attaching this extra meaning as if it somehow makes the product better.
As a complete aside this ‘caring about product’ is a phenomenon created by corporations in the post world war 1 and 2 era because before that we solely purchased products based on need. After production became automated these corporations worried that they would overproduce. They needed us to ‘care’ about a product or let the product somehow define our lifestyle. This is the result. A nation of consumer posers who think this bullshit is more important it really is. Well where do i sign up? Give me my flat screen tv, designer jeans, and feature laden cell phone. After all it’s easier to buy an identity than to be a real person.
Posted on May 10th, 2008 by phaedrus
Filed under: books
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