Redeeming creation one byte at a time
Blessed are the uncool, for they will own PC’s
This has been a really hectic week for me given that school startup happened this week and several rather large projects wrapped up at work, oh, and I also redid a bit of Accounting 168.
One thing I noticed though is that making a concentrated effort to read has really helped me feel productive on days that it just seems as though I live on the Computer/Network. It’s really a refreshing project to make reading a priority (all my reader friends out there are laughing right now).
Sometime soon, I’ve got to get a list of the books that are on my shelf from Urbana (many of which are of InterVarsity Press’ new inprint ‘Likewise‘). On top of those, there have been a couple of other recomendations that I’m going to take up like ‘A theology of the body’ by John Paul II.
I’m currently going through my friend Paul Grant’s book, ‘Blessed are the uncool’ and I have to say it’s really quite good. A further review will come, but essentially what he’s doing is deconstructing the idea of ‘cool’ culturally and what cool’s ultimate purpose is and the problems that come with it. It’s made me rethink how I see some pieces of technology, for example, and how cool markets itself in the IT profession rather effectively by exploiting my demographic’s need for ‘the new’.
For example, Windows Vista has been running on my desktop at work for a few weeks now and I’m finding that I dispise it in the worst way. Typically, I like to try it new Operating Systems on my desktop prior to releasing them to others or preping for supporting them and Vista has taken over that spot. The thing I’m finding is that it’s actually harder to do normal tasks and that I’m turning to my XP box more and more just to do basic things. ‘Explorer’ is ridiculously cumbersome and there is no easy way to access network drives. Ultimately, it will be the future, but it’s not MS’s best Operating System by any stretch.
But here’s the thing, it looks cool. That fundamentally disturbs me. What disturbs me even more is reading reports of the countless features that were evicerated from the OS in order to make it out the door in time. Preferrably, I would rather have a better functioning product than a new paint job.
I’ve always believed that as a Christian I’ve longed excellence (and often I fall short, but that is another story), but reading Paul’s book really has helped clarify where quality is often replaced by cool.
Apple’s efforts to do quality are often opressed by their desire for cool. A good example is the XServ RAID, which I’ve talked about ad nauseum on this blog but still remains woefully undermarketed by Apple. The thing is that it’s probably one of their stronger products by far, including the iPod. It’s too easy, it seems, to market cool rather than quality or even mask the two together.
It must be harder to market functionality, because to me Apple just puts out a lot of flash. The do have some nice products, the iPod and xServe, but people need products that just work. I do have trouble with the PC from time to time, but I can still put in my own parts and customize to my needs. This makes it geeky and very cool to me.
I would imagine that companies will start to go back to function rather than cool, as they see that people want something that works more than anything. This is really the reason why the iPod took off.
My 22-year-old has an elegant saying that sums it up for me. He says; “I hate… features!” He just wants things that are made as well as they possibly can be, and that do what they were made to do as well as they can possibly be done.
In computer software that is almost the antithesis of cool. To the extent that the OS or the application jumps up between you and the content and says; “Here I am!!! Look at meeee!!!” it is putting cool over function. It’s as if the company wants you to watch a little advertisement for it everytime you attempt a task with their product.
I think there’s something else going on. Apple has been a real leader with their insight that beauty belongs in the office. Their aesthetic happens to lean toward minimalism – simple lines, no more buttons than necessary, etc.
Check out The Substance of Style. Virginia Postrel explores the relationship between beauty and commerce – at the intersection of real human need. (There is another intersection between the two at the level of fluff.) But people need beauty in a very real way.
I don’t disagree, but it reminds me of your post on NAS that you just did. Apple often shoots themselves in the foot by ignoring the market that has long put technology in the office by drawing these lines between the cool people who run macs and the John Hodgemans of the world that just don’t get it.
But in excluding that market, they prevent themselves from gaining a real foothold in corporate America and realizing that vision of beauty in the office that you mentioned.
As an aside, I had heard that Apple is actually dropping those commercials because most people identify with John Hodgeman rather than the Apple guy (wasn’t he on Dodgeball?).
I wonder if SEB had anything to do with it. Probably not, but just about every single poster on his Apple commercial post sided with John Hodgeman, including me.
But I did laugh at a couple of those commercials…
Yeah, I certainly identified with the John Hodgeman character. Wanna sell me computers, here\\\’s a tip; mocking your intended customers is a bad strategy.