February 22, 2006
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It's an article about online dating in this month's Atlantic. And it's very good. Warning! You may need an online subscription to read it.
Okay, so if you can't get in, go buy it. It's a great issue. Besides a compelling piece about America's new romance brands, there
are compelling articles about domestic politics, an essay on markets,
and a searing examination of Israeli soldiers and Palestinians living
under the claustrophobic shadows of "the wall," Israel's security fence. Written by
Ted Conover, it's one of the few pieces I've read that captures the
relentless harassment of Palestinians and the almost
equally-harassed lives of the Jewish soldiers who man the checkpoints. As human as all the figures are in this article, it's a monstrous situation. The article doesn't seem to offer a single way out
for either side. In truth, Conover seems more a portraitist than
an analyst, interested in the emotional fall-out of the fence, not the emotional and logistical inspiration for building it. Perhaps it's a failing of the article. Regardless, I found it gutsy, clear reporting.
Immediately after 9/11, Titus Levi and I were thinking a lot about the Middle East. Like a lot of people, we figured that while Bin Laden seemed about as interested in the Palestinian Muslims as he did in co-religionists in Thailand (perhaps less so), the situation between Israel and the Palestinians was a power-keg of easy manipulation by terrorists (like Bin Laden) or dictators willing to exploit them (like those in power in Iran or Syria using Hezbollah). Create some measure of co-existence between Israel and the Palestinians and you eliminate some of the pathology that galvanizes support for terrorism. Not all of it, but perhaps enough to turn a corrosive tide.
Quixotic as it was (and it was) we came up with the following idea. It grew out of an idea of an Israeli friend of mine, Yariv Chen, a former soldier. "You know why they're fighting over there?" he told me. "Because they like to fight. They may hate when they get hurt or even when they hurt others, but they're all lost in fighting. Israel, Palestinian, the whole bunch." Given the "they" included him at one time, I trusted his assessment, even if his solution was to build a red light district that surrounded the entire area ("the bullets and bombs would stop flying very quickly," he said with only half a smile). Our translation of Yariv's thoughts was not about sex. Rather it reminded us that violence is easy. Exciting. Kinetic. Peace is, at most, more abstract. Titus and I thought what might help contribute to co-existence was not cries for peace, but creating a vision of what it might offer both peoples.
We reached out to those we identified as the creators of pop mythology: media producers and marketing professionals. Along with social scientists like economists and anthropologists, the two groups, in our mind, might tap into existing rituals within local communities to create some idea of co-existence. To cut to the chase, the idea went live and they just floundered. The only reason for exploring it here is it captures two things recent posts have attempted to examine. Namely, the challenge of creating interfaces that provide ways to mediate individual and collective needs, desires, and expression.
In a sense, those interfaces are what are provided by both social institutions and brands, whether it's a Danish newspaper designed for a mass public (and yet is not inclusive of local Muslims) or an online dating site for lonely singles. And while the anti-logo movement might think me a total flunky for suggesting that brands are constructed to serve similar needs as social institutions (as opposed to simply make Wall Street and CEOs a lot of money), well, I won't lose sleep over it.
At the same time, having worked in marketing for the last ten years, neither am I naive enough to believe that brands function so positively. As my father once pointed out to me, "for all the blue sky strategies you share about what a brand like Apple or Starbucks can do for people... how's it usually end up? A 10 percent off coupon in the Sunday paper." On the other hand, how do bureaucracies in America end up so often? Without solid leadership at the top, a first rate government group like FEMA in the 1990s turns to a body in 2005 that isn't just inefficient, but criminally negligent.
Both brands and social institutions are bodies that exist to do more than drain our dollars or attention. They exist to mediate needs. Money is the collective symbol of trust which supports their formation, existence, and evolution. Money doesn't buy that leadership necessarily, but where it shows up suggests the power of intention. What's that got to do with our unsuccessful effort to bring peace between Israelis and Palestinians? The fact that we could raise neither enough passion, sympathy, or dollars suggests that we had not thought through the infrastructure of the brand/institution we were building. Since I've probably driven past the bridge of drowsy eye lids, and I'm starting to feel like a professor rather than just a blogger, I'll stop and continue tomorrow. But one last thought.
Think about this interface. Both the site (That's Capital) and this post. How I started it. The lead hinted at sex. I even pointed you somewhere that might be available... or not. There's logic in a tease. And good brands, institutions, and interfaces all leverage/exploit such methods. Consider the possibility that the difference between one that generates anger or delight is the difference between good and bad design of any interface, whether a social institution (like the Danish newspaper that published those cartoons insulting to Muslims) or a brand (like Chemistry or Nerve). One more tease. What if design included elements of human intention and commitment as well as just beautiful graphics or even usuable technology? There's a reason for asking which has to do with the importance of infrastructure... more later.
Jonathan Field
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