Needle, Meet Haystack

These days, it’s hard to believe in fate.  While ancient civilizations once mused about keepers of a loom that wove together the strands that represented each mortal life, those of us in the modern world turn towards more rational-seeming thoughts of free will and choice.  Rather than conceding our lives to a predetermined plan, we now carefully select our options to go down the roads of our own choosing.  Though there may be many roads less traveled, thoughts of what could have been populate our minds with growing infrequency as we continue further down the paths we take.

The thing that is left unconsidered is the people who are on those roads.  Dozens, hundreds, and even thousands of individuals who we will never know in the slightest because of anything from the decision on where to go to college or what to buy for lunch one day.  Friends, lovers, enemies, teachers, bosses – so many who could have shaped our lives in different ways (and vice-versa) that we will never encounter – it’s daunting just to think about it.

But lately, I’ve found the roads all converging.

With the niche communities sprouting up all over the Internet and the lack of privacy meaning that real names are used, I’ve stumbled upon dozens of people who I would have never met had we not found something in common online.  Like Ashley said a while ago in her guest post, there’s a new culture of people who form online relationships that can be just as involved and fulfilling as those made in-person.  In essence, the Internet has given us access to parallel worlds where we made different choices and had different relationships.

If you’re lucky, you’ll click with these people and will be able to find lots of new friends and contacts.  The internet gives you a chance at a second life (although I’m not referring to Second Life) with those you might not have even noticed if you were walking down the street.  All of a sudden, the people you could have met are the people you have met.

And if you’re really lucky, they might happen to live near you, so you can take those relationships and move them from the digital world to the analog one.  But if distance is your only problem, that’s something that can be easily fixed thanks to one of these.

Meeting people and making new friends is easier than ever, thanks to the Internet.  A social circle can expand to include some who might have remained strangers otherwise.  When all of the possibilities a life could take that would lead away from these groups and into a blissful state of ignorance about their very existence, well, it almost makes you want to believe that fate is still around.

What do Apple computers, Betamax tapes, 8-track tapes, Prada sunglasses, and Beanie Babies have in common?  If your answer was, “they’re all boxed up in my basement,” that might be true, but it’s not the answer we’re looking for here.  The thing that they all have in common is that while they may have been innovators when they first came out, they all toe (or fell right over) the line between becoming legends and footnotes.

Steve Jobs probably wouldn’t like you to remember this (in fact, he’d probably prefer you distract yourself with something shiny), but there was a time when Apple was doing very poorly with its finances, almost to the point of bankruptcy.*  And part of the reason that it was getting trounced so thoroughly by the PC had to do with the company’s business plan and corporate practices.   Basically, Apple charges developers to create software for its systems, then takes a percentage of the profits, much like it does with iPhone apps.  But when other operating systems offered free development without taking a hefty chunk of product sales, many companies stopped making Apple software entirely.  In fact, this is why analysts are predicting that Android phones will overtake the iPhone to establish a permanent dominance in the smartphone field.

Basically, this is what happened to Betamax – Sony kept such a tight lid on restricting who could do what with the tapes in terms of sales, complimentary products, tape content and manufacturing that they eventually lost out to lower-quality VHS cassettes.  Sony has since learned from this mistake to become the winner in the High Definition Optical Disc Format War with their Blu-Ray format, which handily defeated the HD DVD.

What Apple did to almost kill its business (and is still doing, to a degree) and what Sony did to the Betamax are the same thing: they kept too much control on their brands, placing too many rules and restrictions on what people could do with what they were given.  Rather than encouraging experimentation, development, change and growth, they created a series of rigid standards to protect their core products.  By attempting to control every aspect of the flow of information, they closed more doors than they opened, leaving room for competitors to step in.

You cannot control the flow of all information; doing so will result in an exodus of some of your biggest supporters.

8-track tapes, now a punchline that goes along with shag carpeting, wood-paneled TVs, and swingers’ parties, offered portability at a time when the only other way to control the music that you listened to was through a record player.  Good sound quality, innovative packaging, and (limited) track selection made them a hit with consumers…until the cassette tape came along.  Smaller, cheaper and more adaptable, cassettes solved the issues that buyers had with the 8-track, leading to its demise.

8-track tapes were set up for failure from the beginning: there was no way that they could adapt quickly enough to competing products like cassettes.  Both the manufacturing and functionality were more limited, leaving the format out in the cold to die.  By keeping their brand and product stagnant, the manufacturers of the 8-track tape lost the race before it had even started.

If you cannot adapt quickly, you’ll soon go extinct.  People crave innovation.

Clothing and other fashion accessories, like handbags, can be forged somewhat easily.  While the brand names might attract a hefty price tag, the truth is that the mass assembly of these items is done at a few specific places.  In fact, a few specialty companies make most of these products for almost all brands – especially sunglasses.  So in addition to making the real things, they make the cheaper knock-offs too.

The larger the manufacturer, the larger the business of fakes.  In countries like Morocco and China, where many specialty companies house their operations, some streets are lined with replicas so close to the real thing that you have to look carefully to spot the differences.  While this is a good way for consumers with less disposable income to achieve their luxury brand desires, it costs the companies millions of dollars in sales.

It doesn’t matter how distinct the look of an item is; since the manufacturing of the original and knock-off products happens at the same locations, it’s easier for those involved to make the replica when they’ve got their hands on the original blueprints.  While legislation to protect designers from forged fashion has been an industry topic for years, it’s difficult to determine an appropriate response.

A few luxury brands, like Armani, have come out with spin-off brands (Exchange, in this case) to appeal to people in other income brackets.  However, this comes at the cost of brand degradation - the spin-off can cheapen the original brand.  But as long as there’s a market for knock-offs and designer names at a discount, the problem will persist.

If you make something well, someone else will always try a way to make it cheaper.  Trying to compete on their level makes your original brand and items look worse.

Trends for kids seem to go in waves: they’re popular at first, then the market becomes over-saturated with similar products, then they become uncool, then, as adults, the original consumers bring the trend back in a wave of nostalgia.  Everything from tie-dye shirts to snap bracelets to Hush Puppies have had at least one resurgence, while others, like Tamagotchi, Tickle Me Elmo, and pogs haven’t been so lucky.  But perhaps one of the biggest and hardest “thuds” to be felt by a trend comes from Beanie Babies.

A craze if there ever was one, the small beanbag/stuffed animal hybrids once went for tens of thousands of dollars each for the rare editions, despite only costing consumers $6 or so each.  At one point, a teacher of mine took time for the class to call around to local stores to find out which (if any) of them had the toys in stock.  And although they were successful due to low supply and high demand, an over-saturation of clones and fakes caused the market itself to implode.  Much like the tulip mania of the Netherlands, the market for the toys almost overtook the toys themselves.  Beanie Babies that once commanded the GDP of a small nation now were only worth their original retail price.

Though one may assume that the company that produced them ended up doing quite well financially, the fact that they still produce the bean-filled fluff things almost a decade after the boom faded speaks to the company’s attempts to revitalize the line.  Although “cut and run” may not seem like the best business plan, Beanie Babies are far from their halcyon days of having magazines and conventions devoted to them.  Rather than admitting defeat, the company seems to holding out that one day, they will come back into style, reviving the trend.  But in the meantime, they are continuing to saturate the market with their own products, earning and manufacturing far less than they once had.

Not all brands are eternal; some burn bright and fade fast, while others die a slow death.  Failure to recognize when a brand is deteriorating can lead to more losses than gains.

Whether you’re branding personally or professionally, there is always the risk of it ending.  Sometimes, it’s through internal decisions and practices, external influences, or an unfortunate combination of both.  But by learning from the mistakes of those that failed before, we can learn how to save and sustain the reputations that we build.  It’s unfortunate when something loses its appeal, but in the cycle of business and life, one must learn when to keep something out on display, and when to move it to a box in the basement.

* Skim the Wikipedia article for further details

Every month, the baking club at my office elects two members to prepare baked goods to commemorate the birthdays of all of their co-workers for that month.  As the only male (and the newest) member of the baking club, I knew that my first production had to be a good one.  And for my first time making a cake, I think I did a pretty decent job.  But this isn’t a story about a two layer devil’s food concoction with milk chocolate buttercream frosting and a dark chocolate raspberry ganache.  No, this is about the other baked goods that one of my co-workers consumed for his birthday this month.

This is about the cherpumple.

The bastard dessert offspring of the turducken (chicken inside a duck inside a turkey with stuffing between the layers), the cherpumple is a pumpkin pie baked inside a spice cake, topped with an apple pie baked inside of yellow cake, topped with a cherry pie baked inside of white cake.  Obviously, the whole thing is frosted.  It looks kinda like this (that’s the most appetizing image of one I found; they put the pumpkin/spice cake layer on upside-down though).

Last weekend, the birthday boy got one of his very own.  He brought in a slice a couple of days ago for lunch (“It’s too big to have as a snack – it’s a meal itself,” he said) and was unable to consume the whole thing.  So he shared it with me.

Now, I’m no stranger to ridiculous, odd, or unnecessary foods.  As one of the first people on the Internet (that I know of) to eat the mythical quad-down and live, I’ve apparently built up a bit of street cred.  So without hesitation, I took the carb-laden, sugary monstrosity and properly devoured it.  Five minutes later, it sank to the bottom of my stomach like a sack full of bowling balls being dropped from a helicopter into a lake 200 feet below.

As I scrounged for Tums in the break-room, I pondered the existence of novelty foods within this scope – items like the foot-long cheeseburger, the macaroni and cheese quesadilla, the New York pizza burger, or the fried cheese sandwich.  Why does it seem like every fast food place is just stealing ideas from This Is Why You’re Fat?

The answer, near as I can tell it, is because of two things: what food is, and what food isn’t.

Food is a utilitarian item that’s turned into entertainment and spectacle, sometimes even art.  We all need to eat to survive, but we play with flavors, combinations of ingredients, the appearance of the dish, and the overall execution.  We lionize our consumption through TV networks and shows devoted to food and cooking, even though they offer recipes at best, and mind-numbing food porn at worst.  And the way to keep food interesting (because the palate craves variety, after all) is to increase the ridiculousness.  Eating the quad-down and the cherpumple gives me stories to share with people.  Consuming fish eyes, fried alligator, rattlesnake jerky and yak sausages provides me with unique experiences and memories.  So creating ridiculous food items that we know are bad and unnecessary are another way to do this.

Food, however, is not a universal constant.  Unlike music, movies, books and TV, there is a line between the expensive “good stuff” and the meals of the unwashed masses.  Some people pay thousands of dollars for a single meal of opulence (or just a sundae) because they can; others pay as little as possible to have enough food to get them through the week because they can’t.  Food cannot be universal across class and economic boundaries, because then it loses the spectacle, the wonder, and the art.  So it’s compensated for by creating unholy monstrosities, replacing expense and exclusivity with revulsion and availability.  In this way, the line is removed: people can be just as impressed at one’s eating a meal at French Laundry as they would be at hearing of someone eating a seven-layer burger.  The fat and the grease lubricate the wheels of fascination, tying the highbrow and lowbrow together.

While the cherpumple angrily thrashed against the walls of my stomach, I wondered why I had been so excited to eat it.  Wouldn’t I have been just as happy proclaiming the success of the cake that I had made myself instead of adding this matryoshka of horrors to my foodie resume?  Was I attempting to reconcile the highs and lows of my eating career?  Was this some deeper message that stood as an example of the recession’s affect on out palates?  Or was I simply channeling George Mallory, eating it “because it was there”?

Maybe it was all of the above.  Or maybe I just can’t pass up a free slice of cake-pie.

You may have seen those cheesy commercials for Match.com or eHarmony or some other online dating site bragging about how many relationships they start online.  And I thought it was a bunch of crap.  Until I found out that it’s actually true (articles here and here) and impacts friendships as well.  But why does this work?  Because of one simple fact, best summed up by the late, great George Carlin:

Sometimes, a little brain damage can help.

We’ve all got fears, insecurities, skeletons in our closets, baggage, issues, problems, worries, oddly-shaped moles, and several metric tons of crazy and history, all pent-up and waiting to be released upon the unsuspecting masses, sometimes in the form of friends, family, pets, or significant others.  We don’t want to put it all out there at first, because we fear being rejected for being our “true selves.”  So we keep things inside, not telling those closest to us about how we actually sorta-kinda like watching Spongebob Squarepants reruns, or how we may have once faked a sprained wrist to avoid revealing that we’d hugged a cactus.*

So we’ve got all this brain damage that makes us beautiful, unique, possibly helmet-worthy snowflakes, and we crave a way to get it out there.  In the past, this was apparently done by smoking heavily, drinking a lot, and having affairs.  But now, we have the Internet.

We share everything now: vacation pictures, stories, opinions, links to stupid cat pictures, random musings, advice…we share.  And in doing so, we reveal more about ourselves than we might in person.  Instead of seeing someone across a crowded room, making small talk, and then, over the course of several days, weeks, months, or years getting to know them, we just jump right in.  We get to know personalities before we get to know people.

There are some who share all their dirty laundry, from sex to literal dirty laundry, but who keep things like their jobs or their favorite colors private.  There are others who put together little vignettes and offer anecdotes without giving much of a comprehensive picture.  But we become interested in them because of who they are on that deep level that movies, TV and cliché-ridden books tell us we’re searching for.  With only a few minutes of reading, we gain deeper insight into the lives of others than some used to do in a lifetime.

Part of the explanation for why this works can be found in the fractured cliques of the World Wide Web.  People can gravitate towards niche communities – everything from general categories like sports and entertainment to the oddly specific, like the 1983 Denver Broncos or Timothy Dalton-era James Bond fan-fiction.  Whether they’re active or passive members of these communities, they get to know others from the inside out, forming deep social connections on a level that loudly proclaiming, “The Chiefs should never have won that season closer against Elway, and James should have gotten with Lupe, too!” in public would never achieve.

Getting to know others within these communities is easier, too.  There’s already an air of familiarity to the whole situation, and all involved have something very deep and personal in common.  In some ways, friendships created online can be stronger than those made in real life.  So shouldn’t we apply those concepts to our everyday, non-Internet lives?

While radical honesty wouldn’t be the best policy here, it wouldn’t hurt to be more open to others about your likes and dislikes.  Get involved with groups that share your hobbies.  Don’t be afraid to let your freak flag fly!  Being open and honest about what you like and enjoy is the best way to connect with others, and there’s no reason to feel weird about it.  After all, everyone’s got a little brain damage.  And believe it or not, that can actually help.

*THIS IS NOT A ROYAL ‘WE’ – I DID NEITHER OF THESE.

Do you remember when you first got the Internet in your home?  If you were like millions of Americans, you had snagged one of the quintillions of AOL discs*, installed the software, connected your computer to your phone line, and jacked in to the Information Superhighway.  Well, after several minutes of the most horrific screeches ever belched forth from a 56k/v90 fax modem.

You would be logged in to see a plethora of options, from news and chat rooms to email and Instant Messaging to weather reports, sports scores, and searches.  Oh, the searches.  The Internet was a new place, and as you would venture forth for your first sojourn into the World Wide Web, you might use Altavista, Yahoo!, AOL keywords, or even that newfangled Google thing.  All this information to explore with the click of a mouse or the tap of a keyboard!  It was truly a marvel of modern technology.

But what happens now?  You turn on your laptop, it grabs a wireless connection, and you’re online as soon as your OS has booted up.  You might head over to Facebook, Twitter, Gmail or some similar social contact site, then head to a news site, tech blog, webcomic or whatever.  If you need to look something up, you can always hit up Wikipedia or Google.  And that’s pretty much it.

And while that might not seem like a big difference, here’s the thing: it’s a huge difference, and a big part of the evolution of the Internet.

The online world used to be search-based; you would look up whatever you needed, testing the boundaries of what was available online.  It was still a static medium in that there was less user interactivity.  You would usually only have a web page if you were a developer, or (later on) if you created a Geocities page.

But as the Internet grew, and people figured out its possibilities and boundaries, it became much more dynamic.  Social networking brought with it an ease of personalized webpage creation.  New resources for sharing like YouTube, IMDB and Wikipedia made finding large quantities of information in one spot easier than ever before.  Social interactions have been forever changed.  The dynamic evolution created a shift, though: the Internet became destination-based.

Rather than consistently exploring, people now have a set group of websites that they visit, a group only expanded through referrals or links by trusted sites that are already used, or by friends.  Even as the scope of information has grown, the scope of attention has narrowed to the degree of selective ignorance.  We move around in niche packs, with fewer and fewer people expanding their views outward.

One of the largest destination sites is Facebook, which has tens of millions of users.  In fact, almost everyone I know is on the site.  Lately, there have been many criticisms of the site’s new privacy policies, causing a large uproar in the online community.  However, most people say that they won’t leave Facebook, as all of their friends are already on the site.  In essence, it’s an Internet-based catch-22.  You want to leave the site, but all your friends are on it, and they don’t want to leave because all of their friends are on it, and so on and so on.  As long as there are no alternatives, people will stay.

This problem presents a number of issues, the biggest of which is not privacy at all: should everyone on the Internet all be using the same website to connect to each other?  After all, we make thousands of connections in our lifetimes, and it might be prudent to have one place to find people to stay in touch with them.  The solution of niche social networks would require some users to become members of dozens, or even hundreds of sites to keep up with their social and professional contacts (not to mention that the main social network building site recently announced that it will be switching to a pay model), which would get too confusing and convoluted.  But when the utility of a site (connecting to everyone) is compromised by privacy issues, where do people go?

The way I see it, there are three choices:

1. Regression: You can always go back to the older methods of communication: email, IM, phones, evites, in-person meetings, maybe even (gasp!) write a letter.  All of these are still solid forms of communication, and chances are that they won’t be passing your info along to marketers.
2. Lateral transition: Twitter is pretty up-front about its stance on privacy, MySpace is still around, and there’s been a video floating about on the net about how good ol’ AOL can make a comeback.  Facebook isn’t the only game in town, after all.
3. Search: Remember what I said earlier about the old pioneer spirit of adventure in the early dial-up days?  Go out and find new communities and services – there might be something better just waiting to be discovered.

The Internet is a wonderful, expansive, open world of communities, communication, and information.  So go out an play once in a while.

*I’m not gonna lie, you guys.  My parents had dial-up AOL service up until last year.  But don’t worry, they got better.

First off, I want to allay any suspicion or concern that this is turning into a fashion blog.  While I like suiting up as much as the next fella, I don’t think that I’m particularly inclined to start doling out advice on clothes.

No, this is about personal definitions.

For generations, jobs have been separated into that either-or category: either you’re a blue collar (manual/physical labor) or a white collar (office/mental labor).  Much like the white hats and the black hats of the Old West, there was no cause or reason for further delineation.  Either you worked with your head or you worked with your hands.  But then, a funny thing happened.  Industries started getting in on the act.

There were soon green collar jobs for alternative energy/agricultural/conservation positions.  I’ve heard of medical, volunteer and disaster relief work referred to as red collar positions.  And there might be some morticians or morgue operators who fancy their collars to be referred to as black.  The career wardrobe has begun to expand.  In fact, some people may have several different colors and types in their job closets.

Whereas careers might have been once defined by whether someone was working inside or outside (the simplest way of separating white and blue collars), now it’s a matter of specialization.  How are you using information?  Where are your skills applied?  In what way do your tasks fit in with the organizational hierarchy and operations?

It can all get so terribly confusing.

Pretty soon, we’ll have people defining their work with paisley collars, tartan collars, polka dot collars, popped collars and no collars.  Companies will make every effort to differentiate their work by giving their employees new collars.  But really, it’s indicative of a new trend in the working world.

The competencies and skills needed for many jobs continue to grow and expand to such a degree that they become overly specific.  Instead of becoming well-lopsided, people are becoming trained in specializations that ensure that finding a different career will become increasingly difficult for them.  In an age of high employee turnover, companies are fighting back by making their workers proficient in such small niches that they may not be employable anywhere else, even for competitors.

This specialized knowledge comes at a price, though.  If an employee does leave, they create a knowledge vacuum that can be difficult, if not impossible, to fill.  Or, to stretch back to the original metaphor, it’s like taking essential clothes out of one’s wardrobe.  Like socks.  Or underpants.

As much as we may strive for better definitions and comprehensions of our careers, there comes to be a point when things get too specialized and categorized.  Sometimes, it’s better to stick with the basics, for both employees and employers.  After all, it’s just a collar – not the whole shirt.

No one has ever asked me to speak at a graduation ceremony.  I have friends who did, but I can’t tell you much beyond a basic outline of what they talked about.  In fact, I never really liked the concept of the smart kids talking at the end; I always felt it would be far more interesting to find out what the dumb kids at the bottom of the class who barely squeaked by had to say.

That being said, when I started this blog, I was upset that I hadn’t done it a few weeks before, when it could coincide with graduation ceremonies (or at least those that I was aware of – I know people graduate in June but shut up I’m used to early May graduations).  So I’ve been holding on to this thought for the past year, waiting until now to try to put it into written form.  Graduating class of 2010, this is for you:

To the graduating class of 2010, I have only two things to say to you.  The first is a congratulations on your accomplishments.  The second is that after today, you probably won’t remember a single thing I’ve said.

Not that I blame you.  I only remember vague things about some of the speeches I’ve heard at graduations over the years; someone read The Giving Tree, someone else talked about Legos, and I think one dude bastardized the Gettysburg Address so it was about school and dreams and future accomplishments.

A lot of people would tell you that you should follow your dreams, that you’re going to change the world.  And while there’s a statistically tiny chance that this might be true for one of you, the rest of you graduates probably won’t do much.  In fact, some of you will fail at life.  Hard.

And now here’s the part of the speech where I talk about resilience.  But if you’ve seen any movie in pretty much ever, you know that you have to fail in order to get back up.  Sometimes, you need a montage.  A wisecracking sidekick can help.  Also, explosions.

Where were we?

Oh yeah, so most of you right now are brimming with potential.  And most of you are talking to the people seated around you, or texting, or surfing the web on your iPhones, or tossing around beach balls because hey, you just want your name to be called so you can walk onstage, get your diploma, and move on.

And move on you will.  In three years, hell, in three MONTHS, you might find yourself drifting away from some people who, for the last four years, have been closer to you than your own family.  And sure, there’s Facebook, Twitter and all those sites to keep you connected, but you will drift apart.  You’ll lose friends without noticing.  And one day, when you’re in the bathroom reading the classifieds section because you find the personals hilarious, you’ll suddenly wonder, “Whatever happened to…”

I’m aware this is all terribly depressing.

Then again, if you’re one of the millions of people looking for a job right now (and you probably are), or if you’re one of the millions of people terrified of the coming onslaught of student loans (and you probably are), or even if you’re just now realizing that a specialization in ancient Sumerian pottery wasn’t the best choice (okay, only a few of you might), you’re used to bad news.

For the past few years, people have been talking about how shitty the economy is, how bad the employment rate is, and how difficult things are going to be for each year of graduates.  And you’re probably sick of it.  You will break the mold.  You will be different.  You will not find yourself back living with your parents as you struggle to find any sort of work that actually has relevance to what you want to do with your life.

But like I said before, most of you will find the opposite to be true.

So enjoy the little things.  Don’t be afraid to try new things.  The great thing about a lousy economy and a bad employment rate is that you can do a whole mess of stuff with a lot less riding on your success.  Take that trip you always wanted to go on.  Learn a new skill.  Go back to school so you can avoid the real world for a little while longer.

What I’m saying to you is this: you don’t have to fix everything.  Sure, you can try to help, but don’t lose sight of yourself.  You’re young, fresh, wide-eyed and ready to change the world.  And if it doesn’t turn out so great, you have years ahead of you to recover from it.  And even if you don’t change the world, you might be able to help a few people along the way.

I don’t expect any of you to remember any of this.  I don’t plan on being stopped on the street 15 years from now by one of you who says, “I really appreciate what you said at my graduation.”  I do expect you to go out into the world and try to do something.

But right now, I expect you to all pat yourselves on the back for making it this far.  So welcome to that “real world” you’ve been hearing so much about, graduates.  And good luck.

My father, for the past 3/4 of his life, has not been completely clean-shaven.  And not only that, but his facial hair has remained in the same style, outliving fashions of the hippie, disco, yuppie and day-glo eras (his sideburns, sadly, cannot say the same – mutton chops, Dad?  Really?!).  His van dyke has, besides going from black to gray to white, remained unchanged throughout the years.  No matter what else changes in his life, there is one immutable law: my dad will have his beard and mustache.

In fact, my mom has never seen him without it.  For the past 30+ years, she has never seen him without his facial hair.  His sister doesn’t remember what he looked like without it (not counting in childhood, before his beard could grow to its permanent resting place).  In fact, much like Jesus Christ between ages 13 and 30, there is a gap of time in which there were no photographs of my dad at all.  It’s as if he left the land of pictorial remembrance, and when he returned, his beard and mustache came with him.

I don’t think that my father will ever, for the rest of his life, put razor or clippers to the hairs above, below and to the sides of his lips.  He will forever be a bearded man.

Dad’s facial hair decision echoes a trend that has existed in cultures and workplaces since the dawn of mankind: if you find something that works, stick with it.  And while there is wisdom in this concept, there’s also a great deal of foolishness.

Once a method or practice has been shown to work consistently, it becomes ingrained in a culture.  Personally, we call them “habits.”  Professionally, they’re “operating procedures.”  Sure, they might not work all the time, but if they work for the majority of cases with little or no incident, there’s no real cause for concern.

And this can be fine – innovation is not essential to success.  But then, how do we know we’ve chosen the best methods?  How do we know that what we’ve become accustomed to is the best choice?

I’ve asked Dad at various times to shave off his beard.  He won’t do it.  After what I can presume to be much trial and error in his wilderness years, he found something that works for him.

So the only real way to establish a habit or operating procedure is through trial and error.  It can take a long time to determine the best method, but once it’s done, it at least seems like the best way to do things at the time.  But if it starts losing effectiveness, that’s a clear indication that one must innovate.

My dad’s facial hair hasn’t reached that point – it hasn’t lost its luster, even after decades of sameness.  Still, I can’t help but wonder how he would look without the beard and moustache.  But as long as it works for him, it’s not a mystery that really needs to be solved.

Each generation defines itself not only by its politics, pop culture, fashions, slang and innovation.  From the white picket fences of the mid-50s to the McMansions of the early 2000s, the striving and successful created the ideal aspirations that served as the benchmarks of achievement for their eras.  So what is the American Dream for the Gen-Y/Millennial crowd?

The recession seems to have shifted the focus away from material possessions to personal fulfillment.  Where once a loft decked out in the latest desirables from the IKEA catalog (circa the beginning of Fight Club at the turn of the century) would have been a noble goal, Millennials have warmed to the idea of boomeranging back to Mom and Dad.  A new car may have been the symbol that one had arrived during the Dot Com Boom, but now it’s based around Facebook and Twitter friends.

The collapse of the housing market has made many wary of obtaining their own homes.  Soaring unemployment rates have made job whoring to pay the bills socially acceptable.  Digital communication has forever changed the way that people interact.  And the American Dream, once a tangible obsession with material things, has undergone a metamorphosis.

Millennials aren’t looking for solace in the same things that their parents, grandparents, and even older siblings had.  Instead of focusing on the external, the dream for Generation Y is internal.  Though it’s still developing, their American Dream, their hopes and aspirations, are more personal.  Concerns about keeping up with the Joneses are mitigated – it’s all about personal definitions.

And those definitions might lead this generation into a dream that no one has ever had before.

Sometimes, you come across people who are looking for utilitarian relationships.  Whether by design or subconscious proclivities, they choose not to be friends, contacts, acquaintances or relations of any sort for a reason other than getting something out of the transaction.

While this is a natural and common occurrence, there’s a subset of this group who only associate with people because they want experiences.  They’re called Tourists.

This clip from Parks and Recreation explains the concept perfectly*.  Basically, a Tourist is a person who enters someone’s life for three reasons: stories, vicarious living, and social leverage.  And once they have what they wanted, they move on.

Tourists may still have real social contacts and deep interpersonal relationships with people, but they cultivate these particular relationships out of a desire to raise social proof.  Social proof, if you’re not aware, is a demonstration of higher value through example.  So a picture with a celebrity would be social proof, as would a story about doing something out of the ordinary (to most people, anyway) like para-sailing over the Grand Canyon or giving a presentation to the Google Board of Directors.  We use social proof as a way of evaluating someone’s worth, and Tourists attempt to exploit this tendency.

Much like social media collectors, Tourists collect stories and experiences to increase their concept of self-value.  However, it can be more difficult to spot one.  Here are a few common traits of those suffering from Tourist Syndrome:

• Name-dropping
• Conversation monopolization
• Taking a barely tangential conversation topic and turning it into a personal story
• A high degree of interest in one particular story that you are telling them (it seems almost like an interview)
• A lack of conversation topics beyond personal adventures
• One-upmanship

The worst thing about Tourists is that they become highly contagious.  One conversation is all it takes to pick up Tourist Syndrome and go off creating (and seeking out) adventures and stories.  While this is good in small doses, it belies a lower concentration of self-esteem and personal depth.

The best way to cure Tourist Syndrome is to relax and just enjoy yourself; one can feel forced or compelled to act in a certain way to achieve maximum quantities of social proof.

It’s easy to fall into the habit of becoming a storyteller.  And in many cases, it’s a good thing.  But obsession with having good, if not the best, stories can lead to awkward situations and a degradation of one’s personality.  Just remember: the book of your life doesn’t have to be an action story.

* I also stole the term from this clip.