I found myself launching into a bit of a rant on Twitter yesterday. I fear this might become an increasing problem as I get older. The thing that set me off this time was an advertising billboard on an empty building near the Reading campus where I work proclaiming “flexible office solutions”.
There are two things that annoy me here. First of all, it’s just lazy copywriting. Why use a non-specific platitude like “solutions” when the word “space” would work much better?
There’s a second thing that troubles me, though, and that is that the obsessive use of the term imposes a world view that our lives are a series of problems that need to be solved. That, for me, is lazy thinking: I want my life to be enhanced and enriched, not just for the niggly problems to be taken away.
Despite the conventional “dragons’ den” mentality that seems to permeate deeper into our culture, great ideas and innovation aren’t only about solving known problems. What “dramatic solutions” was Shakespeare providing to Tudor Britain? What “beat rhythm solutions” did The Beatles provide to the swinging sixties? What, come to think of it, are the “problems” that the iPad, for example, solves?
I realise that I might be in the wrong industry, but all of this talk about “solutions” strikes me as being a bit of a problem…
mmitII 