June 19, 2003
The Aesthetic Imperative

Virginia Postrel has written an article at Wired about the next killer app: aesthetics. She argues that companies can not rely on price and performance alone to set them apart. Instead new products and services must appeal to the senses and emotions of customers filling and satisfying legitimate needs.

... And all of us must give up the cultural baggage we've inherited from the romantics, who set art against tech, and feeling against reason; from the modernists, who treated ornament as crime and commerce as corruption; and from the efficiency experts, who valued function while disdaining form.

We must abandon our prejudices regarding the sources of economic value. The production of wealth comes not simply from labor or raw materials or even intellectual brilliance. It comes from new ways to give people what they want. By matching creativity and desire, the economy will renew itself.

Link:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.07/view.html?pg=1

Posted by crusay at June 19, 2003 12:48 PM