Planted:
Status: seed
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Intended Audience: Software designers, product managers, creative coders.
There is a feeling you get returning home from a vacation. Cooking in your own kitchen. Using your own shower. Sleeping in your own bed. A feeling of familiarity, comfort, connection and ownership. A feeling of home. It comes from being in a space created by you. For you. In contrast to your hotel room. Created by someone else. For someone else. For a persona. A simpified version of you. Digital spaces are also created by someone else. For someone else.
This wasn't always the case. In the past, the popular music player Winamp allowed users to skin it. To change how the UI (User Interface) looked and sound. Users could make their own or select from a catalogue from user created skins.
When I was young. I loved StarCraft. A science fiction strategy game. Set in the Milky Way galaxy. Where Terrans (humans) are at war. At the time, Windows 98 was the standard operating system. While searching online for StarCraft content. I came across a Windows StarCraft theme. It changed the wallpaper, desktop icons, color scheme and sound effects. When Windows loaded, instead of hearing the classic Window's chime. A robotic voice would say "Welcome Back Commander".
My desktop went from a sterile office cubical to a Terran command and control room. Allowing me to experience StarCraft in a different way. This is where I belonged. I wasn't a working professional trying to optimize my workstation for productivity. I was a kid who wanted to command armies in space. Personalization changed the desktop from generic to a space I wanted to be in. Fostering that sense of familiarity, comfort, connection and ownership.
Signal
The desktop theme served another purpose. When a friend visited, we would both sit at my computer and goof around on the Web. While doing so, they would see my desktop was different. They would see I'm unique. Special. I'm too cool for the default. An expert with computers. I know how to "hack" Windows and change things. That I'm into StarCraft and a expert at that too. The theme was an opportunity to express myself. To signal.
Someone doesn't buy a Lamborghini because they want to shave five minutes off their commute. They buy it to signal they have money, power and style. To attract a mate. To get attention. To make themself feel better than others. Humans have a functional and emotional need to signal. An expression of self to show off and increase social status. People signal through what they wear, where they gather socially, what they do for a job, their hobby, ...
Signalling is as important to people in the digital world as it is in the physical. Evident in games where players can buy skins. Skins change how a player's character and equipment looks, sounds and animates. They don't give any advantage. They are purely cosmetic. Purely signal. Gaming Skins is a $50 billion industry. The price for a single skin can reach $1.5 million USD.
Personalized Signal
There are two types of signal. Signal you buy and signal you create. The former generic. The later personalized. The generic communicates the same, one-size-fits-all message for everyone who has it. The personalized is authentic. Communicating something more meaningful. Twitter provides opportunity for both. Through the blue checkmark and the profile image. Anyone can buy the checkmark. Identical for every user who has it. Communicating they have disposal income to spend to make their profile more exclusive. In contrast, the profile image is personal. The user can put anything within the 48 x 48 pixel circle.
Personalized Signal has Impact
A long time ago I watched Star Wars: Clone Wars series. A thing that stood out was its use of personalized signal. Part of the story focuses on a squad of ARC (Advanced Recon Commandos) troopers. "The best, the elite" - General Kenobi. They undertake high-risk, high-value missions. In the beginning, the squad looks the same as all other clone troopers. As the story progresses. They complete mission, gain reputation and mark their transport.
This is similiar to nose art. Decorative painting on the fuselage of aircraft. Practiced since World War I. It started as a way to identify friendly units. Later evolving to express individuality against the constraints of military conformity. Strengthened by the practice never being offically approved. They depicted sweethearts or actresses from back home. Predators through the shark-face motif. A record of successful missions flown using bomb iconography as a tally. Some communicated their role in notorious missions. Like the B-29 Superfortress Bockscar. Who dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, Japan. Its art depicting a train boxcar nuking Nagasaki.
These artworks immortalize the crew's hometowns. Evoke memories of home and peacetime life. Act as a threat. Earning themselves a name in the minds of their enemy. A source of pride. Serve as bragging rights. Provide a kind of psychological protection. Emotionally fulfilling. All authentic stories of the air crew and the aircraft they fly. Personalized signal. All with impact. Which would you remember, Airbus A380 or the Adam's Eve?
“What the world craves is Authenticity”
Digital Space
My Tool
The world may crave authenticity but in the digital space. Tools and platforms restrict it. Apps are designed as public spaces. In contrast to how people use them. A personal, one-on-one experience. Personalization is an opportunity to move away from one-size-fits-all. From impersonal to personal. If we can put our mark on a tool. It changes from a tool to my tool. Creating a sense of ownership and pride.
Communication
We have been communicating all our lives. This can lead us to believe we are good at it. For most of us. The truth is we have been communicating poorly all our lives. It is one of the hardest skills to master. The online world makes it harder. A conversation in the physical world contains words, tone of voice, volume, eye contact, facial expression, body language and gesture. Online, most of the time we funnel this to text. We lose layers of information.
Personalization allows us to get more information into the funnel. Platforms that allow personalized signal erode anonymity. We gain more understanding of who we are talking to or who is listening. The Internet allows us to connect with anyone in the World. That doesn't mean much if you don't know who you are connecting with. We don't crave connection. We crave authentic connection.
Authentic connection requires authentic expression. Our uniqueness is an asset. It allows us to bring something to the table no one else can. The more we communicate this uniqueness. The more chances we get to find our tribe. To identify with specific interests. To be known for certain skills. To be approached for job opportunities to use those skills. To gain more time to explore and grow that uniqueness. To be more you.
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
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