Desperately Seeking Status

"It never hurts to remind yourself of the business you’re really in: providing your customers and clients with status." This rather bold statement comes from a summary of this Trendwatching Report on Status Skills, which at the end mentions Make.

Let me first admit that the topic of status is one that makes me uncomfortable, enough so that I was prepared to dismiss the report. I tend not to think about status: yours, mine or ours. I'm surprised when I run across people who do, the kind of people who walk into a living room or conference room and instantly begin to assess the value of the people there, based on wealth, education, job title or achievement.

I've done a little bit of acting, and once a director asked each of the actors to think about his character's status in relation to the other characters in the play. Do you look up to someone? Do you look down on someone? Do you regard someone else your equal? I was actually surprised at how easy the exercise was to do. The activity helped to make sense of the characters, particularly as the director asked each of us to think specifically how we'd approach each other based on that status: what we'd say or do, or not say or do. I was impressed that this exercise was a kind of tool that could reveal a lot about the relationships in a group of people. Still, it was something I would have to force myself to do.

Back to this report, which goes on: "all you have to do to keep a finger on the status pulse, is listen to what consumers boast about, or find out what leaves them in awe." Again, I don't think of myself as having my finger on this kind of pulse. Yet the following paragraph made me think twice:

"In economies that increasingly depend on (and thus value) creative thinking and acting, well-known status symbols tied to owning and consuming goods and services will find worthy competition from 'STATUS SKILLS': those skills that consumers are mastering to make the most of those same goods and services, bringing them status by being good at something, and the story telling that comes with it."

I have written in regard to the re-emergence of DIY that being able to make something is satisfying to yourself, and doubly satisfying when you can share it with others. This is the basic idea behind the success of Martha Stewart. Why bake a pie when you can buy a perfectly good one at Safeway? Because making a pie reflects your own skill and when someone compliments your work, you feel good about it. It's also a better conversation, leading to a discussion of how you made the pie, where you got the ingredients, what recipe you used. The conversation would end rather abruptly if you answer: "No, I bought the pie at Safeway." I saw the same thing at Maker Faire. People naturally like to talk about the things they make: it's comfortable and satisfying. It's also not the same thing as talking about yourself, which especially for guys is not a pleasurable thing.

Yet I tend to think that creative people do things to please themselves first, and in doing so, they hope it pleases others, rather than the other way around. If I don't like baking, then making a pie just doesn't make sense, even if it will impress my friends. Better to shift to something I like to do and feature it rather than figure out that which will be most pleasing to my friends. "Being good at something" must have its own intrinsic value, apart from what other people think about it.

That's probably what I don't like about this report's emphasis. It places the extrinsic value of these activities ahead of what they mean to the individual. "Scratch your own itch" remains a powerful explanation for why we do things. Creative people try to satisfy themselves, and in doing so, sometimes, they satisfy others. This tends to make them non-conformists, seeking alternatives that the mainstream would not choose. Yet no one can deny that we seek the approval of others as an affirmation of who we are or what we have done.

Finally, this reminds me of a book called "Status Anxiety" by Alain de Botton, the author of the wonderful "How Proust Can Change Your Life." He defines status anxiety as the uncertainty about what others think of us, that our own self-worth depends upon holding the attention of others. "Blessed with riches and possibilities far beyond anything imagined by ancestors who tilled the unpredictable soil of medieval Europe, modern populations have nonetheless shown a remarkable capacity to feel that neither who they are nor what they have is quite enough."