David Shah . Futurist

On November 4th, I went to the lecture, "Attitude: Why you need it to survive in today's market," which was a special presentation hosted by Parsons and Pantone, featuring marketing consultant, international designer and futurist David Shah.  The night was filled with very interesting material on social trends and how they will shape the environments, services and products we will face in the next decade to approach.

First, Shah began to speak on how our society today has become what he titled a "desire economy" and how luxuries have moved from something of a treat to a necessity.  His studies have shown that people use shopping as a way to compensate for their long hours of work and stress.  In return, the shaping of retail experiences changes.  We now feel we deserve a lot of stuff, and retail stores have now moved to selling dreams and aspiration to meet the needs of that everyday shopper.  This may soon shape the way specialty shops and boutiques stock their shelves.

Second, his lecture lead into the fact that Americans suffer from what he labeled as "C.W.S." or celebrity worship syndrome and how that has also shaped the products we buy.  For example, consumers want to wear and have what celebrities have, and want to be famous just like them.  He pointed out the example of nightclubs and how the VIP lines are always longer than the lines consisting of the "regular" crowd.  He posed the question to the audience, "Which line would you rather stand in, the regular line, or the VIP line?"  I feel that this lifestyle would have a great impact on the type of products that are offered to consumers.  Many want to have stuff that sets them apart from everyone else, something that will exert fame onto themselves, so in return, maybe products will become of more value and importance. 

Lastly, he went into how we can make products more efficient by first; having them, if possible, impact on all of our senses such as taste, smell and touch.  The benefits must be emotional, where the user will become attached to it.  A great example of that would be this Powerbook G4 that I am using to type this paper right now. First of all, the computer itself is very tactile and it seems that the keys fit into your fingertips perfectly, not to mention the way they press is very comfortable and doesn’t make that loud keyboard noise that many keyboards tend to make.  

Next he pointed out that the speed, efficiency and simplicity of a product will have great impact on its success.  The removal of chaos from a product is key and adding value to it will eliminate the concern of cost, because if someone values a product, it doesn’t matter how much it costs, if the consumer values it, they will buy it.  His research added that adding detail to products is also essential.  That comes from not only the design of it, but also the business side such as marketing.  Even though his presentation was cut short due to time constraints, he ended with stating that universal design was another important aspect.  Instead of designing for one group, design for everyone.

The quality of products will greatly be impacted on the social trends he shared with us.  Products, services and environments I feel will become more catered to us, and what we feel we deserve will be a reflection of that.