I’m NOT a PC…
…and I’m not a Mac either! All the TV advertising will have you coming down on one of two sides; no room for compromise. Then there’s the question of phones. Are you an iPhone, an Android G1, or a Blackberry? Surely there’s no room for compromise there either. The world in which we now live forces us daily to make choices; to favor one thing over another. To make one product a winner, and another a loser. And it’s mirrored in the whole of American society. Even in sports. No American sports game can be a draw; there’s always overtime or an extra innings needed to decide a winner. Back one thing or another, but don’t come down in the middle.
Why am I forced to make these kinds of choices daily? Why can’t we just all get on? It starts in school (actually it probably starts well before then, but I’m not even going to go there!), when we choose ‘our friends’. Discrimination is a huge part of society. Some call it ‘choices’, but really it’s discrimination packaged up in a different word. Surely I’m not guilty of that you say, but you are. We prefer to shop at one store over another. We only buy gas at one station. We choose our work colleagues carefully and we support one team over another at weekends. We discriminate.
Now, I’m not actually saying this is a bad thing! I’m just calling it what it really is. Obviously something that’s built into our psyche. Heck, even my cat prefers to sleep in a warm spot in the bedroom rather than next to the fridge!
When I first came to the USA I noticed a huge difference in the TV commercials that were aired here as opposed to in the UK. The UK preferred to use comedy wherever possible and always played up a product’s values as best it could. It never ‘bashed’ a competitor. America on the other hand, used comparative commercials and ‘bashed’ the competition with happy abandon. I’ve lived in the USA for over thirteen years now and so I’m used to the style used here. There are times when I don’t like it but there are also times when it’s definitely useful. In my heart though I would just simply like to be given the choice. Maybe that’s a conditioned thing too.
So, where am I going with all this? Choices and technology. For me it’s always about the technology. Thirty years ago TV commercials only pit the likes of cleaning fluids off against each other. Now it’s PCs and Macs, iPhones and Blackberries, Xboxes and Wiis. Consumer electronics are now the cleaning fluids of thirty years ago. Where will it end? Maybe before I die it’ll be cloning cats or space flights to Mars, or holographic vacations. What now seem like unimagined luxuries will end up being the staples of choice (or discrimination). Why is that important? Well, as soon as something becomes a staple of choice, the bottom line is that it doesn’t really matter any more. It’s no big deal. Seventy percent of people will choose one thing and thirty percent will choose the other (or whatever the ratios are). But bottom line, you’ll get what you want. It’ll be pre-packaged and do what it’s supposed to (mostly). And another choice will have been made.
But technology is really all about the time BEFORE something becomes a staple choice. So, when you go out on Black Friday and buy all those items at hugely discounted prices, just remember you’re not buying technology. You’re buying the results of technology. Technology lives on the bleeding edge. Technology doesn’t pervade people’s living rooms. Technology is something that the few invest in for the good of the many. In actuality very few of us understand real technology. All we understand is consumer electronics (or the current flavor of the day). In the end whether I’m a PC or a Mac doesn’t matter. Either way I’m just buying cleaning fluid.
PS. If you have 30 seconds to spare, watch the video below… 
