My recent post about gender and management style was rather scattershot. So let me try to put a scope on this thing.
With the economy evolving unpredictably, it seems clear—inasmuch as anything about the future is clear—that women will be the guiding force in those changes. According to some measures, women now own about 40 percent of the businesses in the United States. They have become predominant in colleges and law schools. And they may soon make up a majority of the work force.
These trends will naturally have a real impact on the economic evolution. But to conjure up magical visions of how our economy will be transformed into a peaceful matriarchy where macho is a dead man is to assume that women all think and act the same. And that culture and human behavior can be transformed deep and fast.
For all the progress that’s been made, large swaths of American society are still male-centric and female-adverse. A lot of us fellas still look upon women as an alien race shrouded in a mysterious fog of hormones and wacky impulses. We still haven’t quite gotten over the “cooties” thing.
And there are women who seem to also conform themselves to playground stereotypes. A good female friend of mine has this knack of earning, almost everywhere she’s worked, the fierce, inexplicable ire of one other female co-worker. My friend’s theory is that she (my friend) seems to threaten the office’s queen bee—the woman who thinks she’s the top of the pecking order, even if she’s not a top manager. Office politics, male or female, typically partake of such curious hormonal dynamics.
More thoughtful people note that what’s needed is a blend of male and female in the household (help out with the cleaning, dudes!) and in management. Men and women certainly are different in some fundamental ways, but ultimately we all want the same things out of life.
And we’ll get them if we work together, respectfully, looking upon each other as fellow humans, not alien beings.
Some other future-oriented topics:
• Check out the fabuloso new Web site for Select Comfort. It promotes the company’s beds, but it’s more of a kind of public service site—indirect marketing, if you will. The site was developed by Northeast shop Sevnthsin, one of several strong newer firms in Web design. (To name another: Eighthourday. A sample of its work: the delightful new site for Warehouse District floral-design studio Bastian Skoog)
• Bastian Skoog, Sevnthsin, and other creative types are the subjects of Andy Santamaria’s blog. Follow his adventures into the future of the Twin Cities creative class.
• Local ad agency Modern Climate created a special image embedded an otherwise standard Best Buy circular. You can’t see it unless you look at the ad through a Web cam. Here’s more about it. What’s the current version of the phrase “it’ll blow you away”?
The Best Buy/Modern Climate ad is an example of something called augmented reality. Here’s a particularly intense example, developed for a French brand of Wrigley’s gum. What’s French for “it’ll blow you away”?
I haven’t the tiniest clue how augmented reality works. But it’s pointing to something intriguing. Whatever that turns out to be.
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