The Consumer Edge: Direction?

[Abishai100]

You turn on your television one day and notice an offbeat ad for Old Spice after-shave. The ad features a child sitting in front of a laptop while saying, "In today's business world, presentation is everything."

You love the ad. You realize it works. Isn't this child exploitation? No. Why? Because the business world is indeed all about presentation today. The 'face' of companies represents the efficiency of contract-forging, and how clearly a company is able to advertise its product as relevant to modern life reveals how quickly it can establish mercantile contracts with consumers.

In the old days, it was all about process and administration. Why was Microsoft so successful? Bill Gates realized that the new face of business was improvisation and presentation, not simply process and administration.

How American companies keep pace with this new trend will affect how the US competes socially with the European Union, because, as we know, the EU is all about the power of teamwork presentation.

I would contend that the American is doing rather well in this new market (e.g., Wal-Mart, McDonald's, Duracell, etc.).

How do people see differently?

 

[Abishai100]

American Urban

It would be a good idea to consider ways to pump some life into the economy with more ground-up methods, which seems to be the podium approach of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

For example, the U.S. city of Boston, Massachusetts boasts a vibrant multi-cultural social scene, a stellar educational environment, and a rich sports following. Boston is a great hub for consumerism-oriented culture and mercantile-based optimism. Perhaps this explains why there are so many enticing restaurants and bars in Boston.

Instead of looking for ways for the wealthy to invest, we could look for ways for the middle class to build upwards using the tools already available thanks to historic infrastructure (e.g., urban canvas).

Boston is traffic-heavy while being cash-fertile, drawing us away (hopefully) from those 'cynicism cliches' about capitalism in general (e.g., "The American city is a sewer-drain for pirates").


Legal Sea Foods (Boston)

Boston Travel Wiki

 

[Abishai100]

Toys

Two symbolic items in the development of media storage technology (in the consumer electronics industry) are the compact audio cassette (a simple and small mobile magnet-tape device encased in plastic and holding audio recordings), invented in 1962 by Philips, and the laser-disc (an optical disc medium storing primarily video but also audio data on a very thin plate), marketed widely in 1980 by Pioneer.

These two 'toys' reveal a new age interest in mobile devices and data/media storage.

Before the iPod and the Blu-ray came the compact audio cassette and laser-disc.

Understanding how 'consumerism relics' fit into the history of markets can help us evaluate the 'applied science' of design pedagoguery, which can be useful when trying to defend the 'human spirit' of capitalism.




Compact Cassette

LaserDisc