This Focused Performance Weblog is a "business management blog" containing links and commentary related primarily to organizational effectiveness with a "Theory of Constraints" perspective. TOC is noted for its applications in Project Management and Multi-Project Management (Critical Chain) and Operations Management (Drum-Buffer-Rope), as well as in Marketing, Strategic Planning and Change Management (TOC Thinking Processes). If you are on an archive page, current postings are found here.
Friday, September 20, 2002
•Needing the Unnecessary -- The democratization of luxury is compelling, especially when considered in the context of defining and segmenting markets. Amongst the discussion of Pashmina, Martha Stewart, and Michael Graves' partnership with Target stores, one paragraph really got my attention -- "In the older culture, my dad’s culture, the limited production capacity of the economy sharply reduced aspirations to material comfort. In the modern world, my culture, much greater material satisfactions lie within the reach of even those of modest means. Thus a producer culture becomes a consumer culture, a hoarding culture becomes a surplus culture, a work culture becomes a therapeutic culture. Because what you buy becomes more important than what you make, luxury is not a goal; for many it is a necessity." I guess the question is whether more is less or less is more. Twitchell ends with - "Instead of wanting less luxury, we might find that just the opposite -- the paradoxical luxury for all -- is a suitable goal of communal aspiration. After all, luxury before all else is a social construction, and understanding its social ramifications may pave the way for a new appreciation of what has become a characteristic contradiction of our time, the necessary consumption of the unnecessary."
Since my work is focused on helping organization increase markets, capacities, and capabilities, I guess it's a good thing for me that most people believe the dictionary and think that more is more. The trick is to remember that on the production side of the equation, very often less IS more.
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