Seventeen months into the recession now, I give opinionated economists a lot of attention, watching for some prescience, some indicator that the global economic cycle will indeed roll ’round to the lifting part once again. And well…it’s looking like we’re in for a wait. So what’s the best way to handle a long wait, apart from deep breathing and workaday endurance? I’ll tell you. Distraction.
Consumer electronics makers and retailers are here to help us with that. The recession has left them intent on convincing us that every product they’re offering is packed with value. I’m really enjoying this shift in messaging. No longer do they simply toss us a list of numerically-steroided specs. Now, we’re getting creative examples of all you can DO with this new camera, phone, software or accessory. Lensbaby is pitching us its new Composer lens by showing off an "Archive of Awesomeness." Olympus just put up a YouTube video of art students running around Philadelphia playing with every feature on the new E-450, a right-priced D-SLR.
This emphasis on inspiration reminds me of the real magic behind our childhood toys, the Legos, Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, and K’nex. Those building-blocks were all fun enough to fiddle with, but what really turned them into hour-chomping objects of industrious fascination were the photographs on the box. Pictures of moon buggies, cityscapes, ferris wheels, and a full Conestoga Homestead were proof that others had made it past stick-figures and lopsided shanties, and we could too.
In the same way, Canon’s given us an aspirational example of what can be achieved with its new HD video capture by posting a scorching-hot short film shot by pro photog Vincent Laforet, all on his Canon 5D Mark II. Adobe is in the game too, pushing its Photoshop Elements 7 software as a perfect Mother’s Day gift by offering free video tutorials about quick-fixing family photos, packed with "before and after" comparisons.
"UX" is industry shorthand for "user experience," and I think this new show-and-sell strategy is a marked improvement in our UX not only as we comparison shop and upgrade, but as we make do. I’m no fan of hard times, believe me, but I’d suggest that two slim silver linings of this recession are the flight to value and the collective discovery of how much more can be done with the toys already in our bin.
If the system remains the same and does not even evolve, failure is likely to happen. Change for the better is therefore required. The burden that the economic recession brought to us is intolerable. Right? And because of this, we often forgot to slow down and take a rest for a while. The author, philosopher, historian, and mathematician Bertrand Russell once wrote an essay called In Praise of Idleness, and we often forget the simple pleasure of writing a poem or doing crosswords in the paper, or reading someone’s memoirs, if it’s interesting enough. (The recollections of a business software engineer wouldn’t count – boring!) In modern life, we too often are caught up in work or whether or not to get an online payday loan, and forget to take time to do nothing.