I couldn’t resist this lovely shiny rabbit this Easter. It reminded me of the work of the artist Jeff Koons, who takes something small, and by making it massive, and changing the material, he challenges our perception of that thing by taking it out of context.
How many times have you watched The Antiques Roadshow and someone has brought in something that has been knocking about the house forever, but it looked odd, so they thought they’d bring it along? Once it’s separated out from the chaos, taken out of context, and given attention, is liked and deemed of value by someone else, it becomes special. It is regarded in a new context, and its perceived, and actual value, changes.
The internet created a level playing field for people in business, anyone could be on it, and you didn’t need a bricks and mortar office. Best of all, you could be found equally as well as anyone else if you put in the effort. No one knew how big, or small, your business was, so it was tempting in the early days for a very small business, a consultant or freelancer to ‘big-up’ and use ‘we’ and ‘our’ instead of ‘I’ and ‘’me’.
That’s all changed. The odd, and quirky is favoured. We don’t want big, we want small (even if you are big, like Starbucks, we want you to feel small). The personal touch is valued. And that’s not hard, because we are all people – of roughly the same size, we just get together in different sized groups, into companies of people.
‘People buy from people’, that’s why there is such a push to humanise large businesses. To make them feel intimate. And that’s why Instagram and Snapchat are doing so well, because large businesses want you to feel special, the centre of their universe, and with Social Media, there’s nothing more personal than using your phone to connect, and nothing more addictive than feeling liked and loved.
I’m not big, I’m small, and yes, you are the centre of my universe (especially when I am working with you on a project!).
