Sweet kicks!

While scanning the portfolios in Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind, I came across one activity that sounded both entertaining and creative. On page 94 he suggests that the readers "Participate in the 'Third Industrial Revolution'"; in this case, go online and design something original and unique, specifically, Vans skate shoes or a pair of Nikes. Since I had already been to the NIKEiD website (yeah, I played high school basketball and so spent some time browsing various athletic-type websites) I decided to check out the shoe designer at Vans.com. The shoe I picked was the Vans slip-on, which I already own a pair of that have a blue and green chair design (that gets mistaken for dinosaurs sometimes), and I used to have the original black and white checkered ones as well.

Here's a link to the slip-ons I designed.

So, you might be asking yourself, why does it matter that any ordinary person can go to websites like these and design their own personal version of a particular product? Think back to what Pink said about creating products in an age of abundance: it's no longer enough to make something that's cheap and functional, these days it must also be aesthetically pleasing and meaningful. In the case of these personalized Vans sneakers, before you even begin to pick out the colors and designs you want, it asks you how many pairs you would like to order. To me, this says that, for example, three friends could go online and design a shoe that they all agree on, purchase three pairs and each would derive some sort of joy from sharing a unique pair of vans with his/her two best friends. On the Nike website, you can create a customized basketball shoe for an entire team, and even have a personalized, stitched monogram on each pair of shoes. This was something I thought was great when I played basketball because I though if I had a pair of shoes with my name or nickname on them they would be more special to me than some other shoes that anyone else could buy.

I totally agree with Pink that there is an innate human need to own things that are unique - nobody wants to show up at party wearing the exact same dress as someone else. Hell, I'd rather have someone create a custom gown especially for me if it didn't cost a fortune. It makes us feel like individuals when we have the opportunity to obtain items that we can put our own personal touch on, or at least happier with the material things we choose to surround ourselves with.