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-This declaration appeared in this week's Design Week, here in the UK, and I understand that it is intended to appear in design magazines across the world. I'll make my comments in a separate post, but for those who haven't seen it, here it is in its entirety. (FTF2000 follows)
(...) - I strongly applaud the sentiments expressed in the declaration forwarded by James. I have three categories of potential client. For anyone involved in producing military technology or services, I will never work. Commercial companies not in the above category get charged and receive good service - though I have other ethical sifting criteria which sometimes apply. Charities and other good causes are treated similarly to companies, but on a different price structure; some even get my work for free.
My view of information design I find to be embedded within a larger ethical matrix: it's about empowering people, but looks to the broader political situation within which those people are situated. Thus I would not want to empower killers or rapists, racists, sexists or spammers.
(How much more PC can a Mac user get?)
A while back we had some discussion here about what it meant to be an information design "professional". The subject of professional ethics came up, though I consider that in most professions which have a standard of "professional ethics", those ethics are at a level below what I would consider to be appropriate for the development of a better, more caring society. Take lawyers, for example. (Please, take them al!)
My personal ambition is that having developed my skills in designing print and Web documents and my ability to teach those skills (and I think I have), I should in my declining years be able to use those skills in the service of such organisations as UNCTAD, UNHCR, WHO, FAO and similar. In such work environments, I hope I would be able to make a better contribution to society, and also gain some good reasons why not to kill myself.
Can this community give me hope that there is a reserve of people willing to use information design skills to stop us killing ousrelves, each other and the planet?
- My personal ambition is that having developed my skills in
>designing print and Web documents and my ability to teach
>those skills (and I think I have), I should in my declining
>years be able to use those skills in the service of such
>organisations as UNCTAD, UNHCR, WHO, FAO and similar.
>In such work environments, I hope I would be able to make
>a better contribution to society, and also gain some good
>reasons why not to kill myself.
While I applaud your sentiments, I do wonder at your enthusiasm for the big bureaucracies of the quasi-governmental sector. UNHCR, for instance, has recently been slated for its mismanagement, internal politics and inability to respond adequately to the recent crisis in Kosovo. I would say - based on my own experience with this sector, over the years - that this is no surprise whatsoever, that these things are endemic to such organizations. Sure, good design - like many other forms of good management practice - could make some difference to their effectiveness, and to public perceptions. But surely you know what bodies like this are like as clients?
But the point I raised in conjunction with the manifesto was somewhat different to this. Which is that there is a creeping commercialization and consumerism infiltrating this sector. As voluntary organizations are persuaded by the likes of Andersons and McKinseys to appoint 'professional' chief executives (with industry-stength remuneration packages), re-jig their governance procedures to reflect a commercial executive, and replace idealistic volunteers with salaried workers, they are increasingly adopting the very practices the manifesto damns. 'Advertising, marketing and brand development' have become the communications tools many third sector organizations now adopt by choice - bombarding us with direct mail, tacky mail-order catalogues, glossy magazines and high production values advertising.
On your last point, I can think of a number of very good reasons why not to kill oneself - Housman's 'to see the cherry hung with snow' comes immediately to mind. None of them, I have to say, involve either the United Nations or information design... [At the risk of endorsing what a (Brazilian) subscriber to another list described to me as 'easy-cash pop sub-literature' - but, what they hey, the 'brat' of the InfoDesign Cafe has no pride- Paulo Coelho's new novel 'Veronika decides to die' makes a very good case for choosing life.]
>Can this community give me hope that there is a reserve of
>people willing to use information design skills to stop us
>killing ousrelves, each other and the planet?
Here, for once, I have to come to the defence of all the people who spend their lives designing insurance forms, e-commerce sites, VCR manuals and any number of other 'information products' that are 'inessential at best'. Information design is *only work* - it pays the bills, is a reasonably satisfying challenge to one's abilities, and has a marginal kind of usefulness. Which is more than can be said for many forms of employment. But once one starts to define oneself, and one's own worth, by what one does, one is on a very slippery slope.
Information design can't stop us 'killing ourselves, each other and the planet'. That requires us to acquire a degree of insight and psychological maturity that is - quite rightly - totally outside the scope of information (or any other kind of) design. It's a challenge we're called to personally, at critical stages of our lives - not because someone sticks up a poster or a web-page. The unhappy history of twentieth century propagandizing is enough to show that one can't engineer a real change of consciousness through mass communication.
Conrad Taylor wrote:
> My personal ambition is that having developed my skills in
> designing print and Web documents and my ability to teach
> those skills (and I think I have), I should in my declining
> years be able to use those skills in the service of such
> organisations as UNCTAD, UNHCR, WHO, FAO and similar.
> In such work environments, I hope I would be able to make
> a better contribution to society, and also gain some good
> reasons why not to kill myself.
>
> Can this community give me hope that there is a reserve of
> people willing to use information design skills to stop us
> killing ousrelves, each other and the planet?
One more enthusiastic "yea"!
But how? Just self-discipline? Awareness? Forming groups? My personal ambition - that matches the ambitions of the ID group at the university of oslo - is to arrive at ID theory and practices to design verifiable/sound info and provide easily/widely/freely available info in specifically three areas plus one: Education, law and health + what we call "power structures". We are academicians (I heard that "boo"! :-). What we can offer is what we know best: Research, techniques etc., i.e. the scientific foundations, a better understanding. We are few. Our definition of ID does not necessarily match the graphics designers' definition. Our backgrounds are mixed but primarily mathematical/formal (mostly computer science), spiced with philosophy, drama, linguistics, drafting etc. If anybody still thinks we may be of some value with respect to ID used for purposes above, we'd definitely like to be of help.
- About the manifesto posted here last Saturday by James -
It's due for publication / has already appeared in Adbusters, Blueprint, Emigre, Eye, Items, and I think other magazines. Essentially an updating of the 'First things first' manifesto of 1964, written by Ken Garland (an information designer avant la lettre) and signed by a gang of fellow graphic designers, photographers, etc, in London.
I find this re-working of a well-known text jarring. Where the 1964 statement was an organic product of a small group of mates/colleagues, the 1999 update has more the flavour of people on the international graphic design circuit parading their consciences - in the first place by e-mail messages. The 1964 statement was actually published as a leaflet, and handed and posted around. The 1999 document exists merely as an item within a number of magazines. Somehow it all seems too easy, and too nothing. Certainly it says something about changes in communication over the last 35 years.
This is said by an oldie, who grew up with those anti-advertising assumptions,who has known the 'First things first' for 25 years or so, and who was in fact taught by Ken Garland - and was drawn to graphic design and typography just because it did seem to be a useful and honourable activity, with real content (something advertising has little of).
There *is* a lot to say about how advertising and the larger pressures of commerce figure now, and how it has changed since the (now) rather innocent days of 1964. I don't feel that a manifesto is the right form for it - unless, maybe, it draws in some youngsters who hadn't thought about this before. But already the messages from James and Conrad to this list have said more, more pointedly, than is said in this statement.
- Very grateful thanks to Robin Kinross for providing the background to the manifesto posted here by James Souttar. I have now also read the original text of the 1964 manifesto, `First things first' (in "A Word in your Eye", Ken Garland, published 1996 by the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication at the University of Reading, UK; no ISBN.)
(Does this later manifesto have a title by which we can refer to it?)
I find that now I've been able to re-read the recent manifesto with Robin's eyes, as it were, I also find it somewhat questionable, inadequate and paradoxical. For instance, criticism of big money and the power of advertising, done by placing an advert in lots of magazines; how much did that cost? I hope the space was donated, because I'm sure many of us can think of socially useful information design projects which could do with that sort of money.
It all comes down to the money, perhaps. Maybe the advert (sorry, manifesto) can be read as saying: who can we invoice for doing socially useful design work?
At an individual level, one solution is: you don't have to. If there is a reasonable income that is coming in from commercial work, one can donate some of one's skills, time, and access to equipment. I guess a lot of us do that, on the quiet.
In my case it's easy to find this kind of voluntary work because my life vector has moved from social action to information design, so my social milieu is full of people involved in small projects that need a designer's help. Other designers may simply not meet this sort of `voluntary client' -- would it help to set up some sort of introductions agency? In Britain, one would approach a group like the National Council for Voluntary Organisations with such a proposal.
There is merit in designers and other communication experts coming together in a publicly visible way to foster forms of design practice that address problems of poverty, illness, injustice and environmental degradation. But talking about the world's problems isn't enough; as Marx said, the point is to change it.
One would need an organisational infrastructure, funding, and some concrete projects. OK, for a little fantasy, I'm now imagining that George Soros has just agreed to sign a big fat cheque to further these ends. What could we dream up?
# commission a team of font designers to create computer fonts for school use, in a range of character sets e.g. Yoruba, Vietnamese, Punjabi and then give them away for free with a `copyleft' licence...
# build collections of clip art and photographs useful for teaching health, sanitation etc., in consultation with communities worldwide -- and give them away as well
# set up a virtual ad/design agency staffed by secondees or interns, maybe meeting in the form of a summer camp, to be partnered with teams from voluntary organisations (NGOs) seeking input into solving communication problems
# ....
# ....
I could go on, but won't. I'll just end with the observation that any such project would have to learn a lot of politics. Example: you won't solve problems of deforestation in Sumatra by finding more effective ways of of explaining to poachers that they should stop illegal logging, and to poor peasants that slash-and-burn agriculture is bad for the environment.
There's also lots of scope for the kind of action-research that Naci's gang are proposing (in education, law and health). As usual, I was coming at it from the craft angle because it's my angle: I make things, and explain how things are made. But there's room for the craft types and the academicians, and for joint ventures between us too.
If anyone's got any practical proposals, count me in...
- Conrad wrote:
>I find that now I've been able to re-read the recent
>manifesto with Robin's eyes, as it were, I also find it
>somewhat questionable, inadequate and paradoxical.
>For instance, criticism of big money and the power
>of advertising, done by placing an advert in lots
>of magazines; how much did that cost? I hope the
>space was donated, because I'm sure many of us can
>think of socially useful information design projects
>which could do with that sort of money.
I showed - well, copied - this and the other posts on the topic to Rick Poynor, who acted as mediator/editor for the new 'First Things First' manifesto (that's what it's called, Conrad). He replied:
" I'd be grateful if you could enlighten your colleagues so that this silly misapprehension goes no further. In the case of Adbusters, Emigre, Eye, AIGA Journal, Items and Form (if Form has in fact published the manifesto) the text, plus in some cases my article, was quite unambiguously published as editorial copy because the editors were committed, at least to some degree, to its message. Blueprint chose to publish the manifesto as an editorial insert at its own expense.
If your correspondents know of a more effective way of disseminating this text than the media, I'd like to hear about it."
- Conscience repeats itself -- or: what's to become of change, when the people that do it, don't?
I can not believe the rear-view mirrored manifesto. It's not its positioning in 'the' 'media' (Poynor), even when it is only a privileged professional segment of it, it's not the self-congratulatory-yet-mea-culpa tone ('to some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse' -- hey, you wish you could), it's not even the proposed out of the blue (chip) Umwertung Aller Werte ('we propose a reversal of priorities in favour of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication - a mindshift away from product marketing and towards the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning')...
The pathology of the pamphlet is in its complete denial of choice, and therefor an insult to those people who choose -- here it says: the industry made us do it and look what we've done, in combination with a last-effort-urgency alarmist heroism, largely in praise of designer conscience and power to overthrow a social-political consensus agenda, and ultimately install 'a new kind of meaning'.
Meanwhile, in the real world, alternatives _are_ plenty. Move to the edges and bring that expertise and competence and some skills. These first-things-firsters have access to institutions, media, corporations, means of production, money, support networks, etc. (even when for 'action' traditionally you didn't need such apparatus), yet all that their collective effort brings about, is a yellowed cry in the dark of consumerism, published in their favourite zines.
'A new kind of meaning' is not produced, only the commodities have changed.
(it changed 1964 'cat food, stomach powders, detergent, hair restorer, striped toothpaste, aftershave lotion, beforeshave lotion, slimming diets, fattening diets, deodorants, fizzy water, cigarettes, roll-ons, pull-ons and slip-ons' for 2000 'dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles').
It's not the products, stupid, it's the information! Some 'new meaning' enhancing chances: in 6 years the (formerly mass) media have given birth to a network of some 800M-and-counting documents, of which still only a minor percentage is explicitly commercial. This network explodes the possibility space for any kind of cultural interaction, on a local and global, private and public scale, and it is in prominent need of information and communication skills, embedded in streetwise and honest engagement, with an open eye for and back coupling of 'real' issues. The Internet/www is not InfoArcadia, nor has it anything to do with egalitarian or democratic opportunities. It is a real contemporary power structure like all the others. Yet is is open, young, amorphous, shared, and it (still) routes around censorship.
1964 saw the birth of McLuhan's 'Understanding Media'; to call it an 'irony' that, 35 years after, 33 professional communicators have to panic over their (peers') decadence, would be an 'unprecedented' understatement.
- I too felt pretty irritated by what Jouke Kleerebezem called 'the rear-view mirrored manifesto'. . .
. . . but really because I think it's posturing and pretentious -- 'we are a very special group of people with particular powers to save the world, but here we are being misused by the industry that forces us to apply our precious skills to feeding people bullshit.' Poor babies!
Don't get me wrong -- I'm politically committed, and I don't endorse apathy. When we're involved in political causes and/or voluntary projects, it's good to have something useful to contribute. I think Conrad's ideas for establishing a platform to facilitate that are very good ones (and I admire Conrad for having translated his principles into action more than most of us).
But please spare us the grandiose delusions!
- Jane Theater wrote:
>I too felt pretty irritated by what Jouke Kleerebezem
>called 'the rear-view mirrored manifesto'. . .
Hi Jane, would you be so kind as to disclose who else felt irritated, and their motivation -- unless it will be published to the list, which would certainly enhance the discussion.
>. . . but really because I think it's posturing and pretentious --
>'we are a very special group of people with particular powers to
>save the world, but here we are being misused by the industry
>that forces us to apply our precious skills to feeding people
>bullshit.' Poor babies!
I certainly hope that it was clear that such faux heroism is exactly what I critique FTF2000 for. It is literally in their text ("The profession's time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best." ) Such generalism... You do not place yourself outside of complicity by typing that out...
>Don't get me wrong -- I'm politically committed, and I don't
>endorse apathy. When we're involved in political causes and/or
>voluntary projects, it's good to have something useful to
>contribute. I think Conrad's ideas for establishing a platform to
>facilitate that are very good ones (and I admire Conrad for having
>translated his principles into action more than most of us).
Conrad is not among the signers, and I agree with you on the benefit of his suggestions. They make sense beyong the gratuitous manifesto. He and I may look for action in different corners of a practice though. Like we both suggest (and I am preparing some examples), there is plenty possibilities to give a conscience hands and feet, beyond an outcry like this 'manifesto'.
>But please spare us the grandiose delusions!
FTF2000 _is_ the grandiose delusion, in disguise: an admission of weakness.
- Jouke Kleerebezem wrote (among other things):
>The pathology of the pamphlet is in its complete denial of choice, and
>therefor an insult to those people who choose -- here it says: the industry
>made us do it and look what we've done, in combination with a
>last-effort-urgency alarmist heroism, largely in praise of designer
>conscience and power to overthrow a social-political consensus agenda, and
>ultimately install 'a new kind of meaning'.
Way to go, Jouke.
I was apalled by the pamphlet, myself, but it took some time before I realised what exactly it was that shocked me so. Thanx for the help.
Here we have a select company of extremely talented people, working (as far as I can tell) very successfully in 'the media-industry', 'information-design', 'design-education and -theory' and the like. Next week they will be meeting each other in Las Vegas (sic) and have a wonderful time celebrating their wonderful publications, events, companies and institutions (Eye Magazine, Mixed Messages, Emigre, 4x4).
Are we now to believe that these people are sorry that graphic design is gone to waste 'manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best'? (How essential are Emigre-pyjama's, two-thousand-page perks and interactive brand-manuals?)
And what have they done to stop 'it becoming, in large measure, what graphic designers do' in the last thirty years? Apparently, not enough. And what choices have they themselves made, other than withdrawing into a cultural elite that believes that high design plays a pivotal role in the construction of any meaning, whereas it is a but a small tool in the hands of the industries that use it to construct the world around us. And - as we know for some time now - use it to the benefit of their shareholders, not democracy.
In the mean time, the authors of the pamphlet have themselves become an establishment that is now trying desperately to dictate their anachronistic ideals of design onto a younger generation that has long moved on into untrodden areas between outright commercialism, anarchic individualism and dynamic communalism, where, as Jouke points out
>alternatives _are_ plenty. Move to the edges
>and bring that expertise and competence and some skills. These
>first-things-firsters have access to institutions, media, corporations,
>means of production, money, support networks, etc. (even when for 'action'
>traditionally you didn't need such apparatus), yet all that their
>collective effort brings about, is a yellowed cry in the dark of
>consumerism, published in their favourite zines.
The other thing that struck me about this 'yellowed cry' is the expected effects of it. What, to these brave pamphlettists, are the desired consequences of this call to their fellow-victims of capitalism? Do they seriously think that their colleagues, now enslaved by their ties to exploitative consumerism, will break their bonds, throw back the briefs in their clients faces and declare their loyalty to 'a new kind of meaning' (What kind of meaning, precisely? One kind of new meaning?)
And then what?
Jouke also wrote:
>It's not the products, stupid, it's the information!
Maybe I don't entirely agree here: It's the bonds that designers forge with makers of things, suppliers of services, inventors of ideas and traders of commerce that makes their work either worth-while, harmful or 'inessential at best' (the same dangerously apologetical undertone, even here).
I too was 'raised in a world in which the techniques (...) of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most (...) desirable use of our talents'. My own father worked in advertising. I thank heaven I never needed to blame anyone, let alone a whole world for keeping me from finding my own way in design. If I could, anyone could.
- Jouke says:
> Hi Jane, would you be so kind as to disclose who else felt irritated,
> and their motivation -- unless it will be published to the list, which
> would certainly enhance the discussion.
Actually, Jouke, I was under the impression that _you_ were irritated. I was _agreeing_ with you! . . . and I liked your term 'rear-view mirrored manifesto'
What irritated me, just to clear up any ambiguity, was the original manifesto, FTF2000 or whatever it's called (even _calling_ it a manifesto smacks of sententiousness.)
As for Conrad, I was referring to his contributions to the debate. Perish the thought that I'd accuse him of being a signatory to the original manifesto; I'd rather stay friends with him.
It was the original signatories and their ilk that I was asking to spare us the grandiose delusions. Maybe my oh-so-British sarcasm led to the misunderstanding.
As a postscript, could I recommend the copying-and-pasting of names when replying to messages. That's what I did to yours, Jouke, so I'd be sure to spell it correctly. My name is spelt as shown below. ;-)
- thank youJane Teather (got that right) for your clarifications.
I would appreciate it when the Café regulars let me know (either here or directly at jk@ciw.net) if they think I got some right here too:
http://www.ciw.net/idie
and please spread the meme if you cast the DIE with us.
- Jouke Kleerebezem wrote:
> I would appreciate it when the Café regulars let me know
> (either here or directly at jk@ciw.net) if they think
> I got some right here too:
>
> http://www.ciw.net/idie
Yes, Jouke, I think you got some things right in your `Enough is enough' message at that URL. But I'd also like you to consider some networking that can encourage the *democratisation* of design and innovation practice, not just finding a new role for `professional designers'.
Something shared by both the two `First Things First' declarations *and* your own is a concern with the sort of relationship that should exist between *the designer* and society. In some contrast, I am interested in the place of *design, innovation and communication skills* within society as a whole.
I'm not denying that it's useful and valuable that some people should develop their expertise in design, innovation and communication, and make a living by practicing those skills (ideally for the good of society); but I would wish to add, as an adjunct ambition, helping as many people as possible to be more articulate communicators in various media, more visually literate, and more involved in designing and creating their own lives -- rather than living life choices and ingesting informative (?) communications that have been designed for them by others.
In his statement, Jouke writes:
> People are litteraly dealing
> with the affordances of new technology and
> new communication media. It is in their
> potluck improvisation and natural
> acceptance of vital possibilities that the
> designer can engage professionaly. They
> are traditionally left in the intermediary
> position. Yet in the emerging many-to-many
> relations between producers, industries,
> 'brokers' and commerce, corporations,
> governments and (educational) institutions,
> consumers and users: designers have to
> re-position themselves.
(This passage could do with some re-working in the interests of disambiguation. I'm assuming the `their' in the second sentence refers to people [at large], but that `They' in the third sentence refers to designers?)
It is true that technological possibilities and affordances have changed since the 1960s, but I don't think that all of the changes in culture and communication have been positive ones. I count the Internet as a whole (and maybe InfoDesign- Cafe in particular!?) as positive, democratising and empowering, but the people for whom it is empowering -- the likes of us -- are not a particularly disadvantaged lot. Meanwhile, much of the rest of culture and communication is going in the opposite direction. In Western societies, they are dominated by the brand giants, and the "men with the megaphones"; and designers are often helping to engineer that domination.
---------------------------------------------------------------
THINK...
1: How many schoolyard games do the children know how to play? How many people will sing at a party? How many make their own cards for birthdays or Christmas? Invent their own recipes for soups? Knit jumpers and sew dresses?
2: How many children want the latest Sony Playstation game? Need to buy the latest release by Snoop Doggy Dogg? How many people send Hallmark Cards at Christmas? Eat at McDonalds? Need to be seen wearing Nike shoes, Gap chinos?
---------------------------------------------------------------
That gives you an idea of how I see the spectrum of creative involvements, from being a creator to being a consumer. It is based on the differences I observe between being a young adult in Glasgow (Scotland) in the early 1970s, and the behaviour and expectations of young adults now.
Of course, we all want to be consumers sometimes, and I don't decry it (I can't sew well, for instance; and I'm happy to use an Apple Macintosh rather than invent my own kind of computer!). The question is, where the total balance is struck in people's lives; and what sort of norm the culture promotes.
`Madelaine D' recently shared with us the experience of her son Leo as he and his native Australian classmates learned by communicating with and teaching each other about their study subjects. This reminded me that, 2 or 3 years ago, the UK "Information Design Network" which is probably best known here for running three Infomation Design conferences in Cambridge, England, also sought to promote an appreciation of Information Design in British secondary schools (for kids aged 11-18, that is), by running a competition for examples of good information presentation in visual form. Unfortunately the initiative was never followed through, but I think it has some potential, especially if it could be supported by educational material for the school teacher.
Has anyone else any information about similar initiatives to support information design by school students?
You may recall that I mentioned my favourite local twins (N&N) whose recent school homework has asked them to perform what are in effect information design tasks backed by research; I am helping them with both the research and the design/production. Situations like this are wonderful opportunities to help children to learn how to analyse, and how to present, research & conclusions in visual form. I'm engaging with this at a one-to-two level, but what if we could volunteer to help the teachers at a classroom level? Or with their lecturers at teacher training college, so that they have some techniques to promote to trainee teachers -- that they can pass on to their students?
If any of the signatories of the `FTF 2000' declaration would like to make themselves available to teach information design for free in either schools or teacher training colleges, I think that would be a great idea! Personally, I think I could offer up to ten such teaching days per year for free, so long as out-of-pocket expenses could be met. Does that sound like a reasonable model for contributing to social aims; one which other InfoDesign-Cafe subscribers would like to emulate?
This may be a bit presumptuous of me, but I'm going to suggest that Jouke gets the fame, the glory and the work (ha!) of collating any responses to this suggestion...
Bless'd be, Conrad
- >'Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and
>imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents,
>hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and
>heavy-duty recreational vehicles.'
Thinking about the declaration this moring, I noticed something I'd completely missed before. Did anyone else pick up on the fact that in the list of the 'inessential at best' there is *nothing* from the hi-tech sector. Is it just me, or is there actually something quite significant about this omission?
Surely, though, this sector is one of the very worst offenders in encouraging 'vanity' impulse purchases, which subsequently hardly see any use. One only has to think of all those Palm-Pilots sitting in drawers around the globe, gathering dust. Yet there's not a whisper here that there might be something wrong with a society obsessed with digital technology, yet seemingly incapable of using most of it for more than the first hour after it comes out of the box.
Complicity or conditioning?
- >use. One only has to think of all those Palm-Pilots sitting in drawers
>around the globe, gathering dust.
What evidence do you have that they are all in drawers James?
The Palm Pilot is so recent, and [it would seem] so popular, that I cannot believe large numbers have already become disenchanted with them. All the people I know who own them are regular and enthusiastic users.
- Roy:
> What evidence do you have that they are all in drawers James?
None, of course. And I ought to declare a prejudice against 3Com - ironically, as it happens, because I disapprove of their exploitative and salacious advertising. [Also, they claim to be a 'wired' company - but when someone posted a wicked, incisive and funny pastiche of their campaign on the internet, they made idiots of themselves by using some very old-minded and heavy-handed methods to try and stamp out his site.]
But these kinds of appliances do all end up in drawers, don't they? I have for a long time had a keen amateur interest in the 'psychopathology' of gadgets - the things we're convinced will change our lives, that we doggedly try to use to resolve the cognitive dissonance of spending so much money, and that are inevitably destined for the garage sale (or the 'appliance graveyard'). There are so many examples of this in the hi-tech sector, but relatively few exceptions - mobile telephones being the only one that readily comes to mind.
The problem here isn't the advertising and promotion, but the richly fruitful attitudes that it taps into. Technology is the patent medicine of our time - 'Silicon Snake Oil' (as no less a person than Clifford Stoll described it). It's not good promotion that sells it - we're so ready to hear the message that we do most of the selling ourselves. And I guess that this comes back to my objections to the manifesto - that there's no point shooting the messenger. If you want to do something about consumerism, you have to tackle the problem at the roots. And one of the most vigourous and energetic roots is the widespread belief, spawned of Enlightenment thinking, that salvation lies in a technological fix.