消费决定存在

    许多人都记得小学时大人们常说人如其食。这句话显然会让很多人在多吃一块甜甜圈之前三思一下，怕变成虽然美味、但圆嘟嘟的副食。但我们所买的东西呢？他们又到底表现出我们什么样的问题呢？

    迈克尔•施拉格在《你希望客户成为什么样的人》（Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?）中表示，我们所选择的产品，无论是智能手机，饮料，还是航空公司，都在我们身上留下了强有力的印记。无论我们是否意识到这一点，它们都在改造我们。【这本76页的电子书已经由哈佛商业出版社（Harvard Business Press）出版。】

    在后Siri时代，我们发现自己在同电话交谈，而电话的另一头没有人。在星巴克（Starbucks），点杯咖啡已经成为一种语言体操，且在高峰时段常常也是超级耐心的等待行为。

    施拉格曾是《财富》杂志（Fortune ）的专栏作家，他同麻省理工学院斯隆管理学院（the MIT SloanSchool）数字商务中心（Center for Digital Business）的一位研究员认为，苹果（Apple）、宏达电（HTC）和三星（Samsung）这类企业不仅仅在提供既是电脑又是电话的闪亮玻璃显示屏。“他们的创新不仅让顾客不同凡想，也改变了他们的行为。”

    施拉格说的有道理，但我觉得他有点过分吹捧这个观点。在城市街道或办公室走廊里，你肯定会看到一些可怜虫摇摇晃晃地走着，脸都贴在手持设备的屏幕上了（呃，我这周肯定也是这样的。）施拉格说的没错，现代屏幕文化激发了强迫行为；但事实上，在21世纪消费电子时代之前，人类就有强迫症倾向了。

    施拉格让自己的读者来设计消费者可能想要使用的产品。他还恳求他们来决定，自己到底想要消费者成为什么样的人，并将这种企业-消费者要求称为大要求（The Ask）。

    施拉格写道：“商业的真正目的是以有利可图的方式改造消费者。”他认为，从这个意义上说，产品不应该只是商品。相反，它们应该近似于艺术。这一观点让我想起了文学评论家刘易斯•海德经典之作《礼物》（The Gift）中的一段话：“最伟大的艺术提供图像，让我们借其想象我们的生活。”但海德认为，一旦这种艺术进入市场，就失去了令它如此强大的一些品质。

    许多人似乎都觉得iPad很神奇，但它真的帮助我们以一种新的方式想象我们的生活了吗？这对任何企业来说都是个沉重的任务，苹果也不例外。说到苹果，史蒂夫•乔布斯也许是这种经营方式的开拓者。施拉格写道：“乔布斯希望消费者像自己一样，痴迷于数字技术的设计并注重细节。苹果将自己的消费者培养成了设计鉴赏家。”

    Plenty of us remember hearing in grade school that we are what we eat. It certainly made many think twice before snagging that extra doughnut for fear of turning into a rotund -- albeit delicious -- elective food. But what about the things we buy? What exactly do they say about us?

    In Who Do You Want Your Customers to Become?, a 76-page e-book from Harvard Business Press, Michael Schrage argues that the products we choose -- be they smartphones, beverages, or airlines -- leave powerful marks on us. They refashion us, whether we realize it or not.

    In a post-Siri world, we find ourselves talking to a telephone ... with no one on the other end of the line. In a Starbucks universe, ordering a cup of joe becomes an act of linguistic gymnastics and -- all too often, during rush hour -- supreme patience.

    According to Schrage, a former Fortune columnist and a research fellow at the MIT SloanSchool's Center for Digital Business, companies like Apple (AAPL), HTC, and Samsung are not merely offering shiny glass screens that double as computers and telephones. "Their innovations are training their customers to behave -- not just think -- different."

    Schrage has a point, but I think he oversells it. Walk down any city street or office hallway, and you'll surely spot at least a few poor saps tottering along with their faces glued to a handheld screen (I've certainly been one of them, err, this week.) While he's right that modern screen culture encourages compulsive behavior, the fact is that human obsessive tendencies predate 21st century consumer electronics.

    Schrage asks his audience of business readers to design products that customers might want to use. He also implores them to determine exactly who they want their customers to become, referring to this company-to-customer request as The Ask.

    "The real purpose of business is to profitably transform a customer," Schrage writes. In this sense, products shouldn't simply be commodities, he argues. Instead they should border on art. This idea recalls a passage in The Gift, a classic work by literary critic Lewis Hyde: "The greatest art offers us images by which to imagine our lives." But once that piece of art enters the market, Hyde argues, it loses some of the qualities that made it so powerful to begin with.

    An iPad might seem magical to many of us, but does it really help us re-imagine our lives in new ways? That's a hefty mandate for any company, even an Apple. Speaking of Apple, Steve Jobs was perhaps the grand poobah of this business approach. "Jobs wanted customers to become as design-obsessed and detail-oriented around digital technology as he was," Schrage writes. "Apple trained its customers to become design connoisseurs."