Connections

Location: The overpass on Victoria Street, near Bruce Street

Description: A two lane highway with collector lanes and a train on an overpass above it.

Story: We get tea from China, games from Japan, cars from Germany, and the list goes on. Of course, this was happening centuries ago, primarily with trade between Europe, China, and India. But now we're pushing further than before, bringing the best from all around the world to your front door.

This is great for consumers, because in theory they'll get the best quality item for the lowest price, especially with bigger ships and aircraft being creating, cutting down on shipping costs. But this means the larger companies can undercut the local shops, and outsourcing becomes more common; customer service becomes more of a problem, and consumers become less human while corporations become faceless.

Inefficiencies creep in when you have to report to your manager's manager about a local problem. No longer can you fix a problem yourself, but instead it needs to be documented and filed so there's a record. The company suffers as a result and gets bloated.

The consumer pays in the end with either too many options or too few. Where they could easily discern the best, they now need to research and compare features as well as find out what those features do. And marketing starts to work against you, not informing you about the produce but selling you an experience, a dream, or just destroying the competition.

Everything changes quickly too. With more competition there's a drive to build things better and get them out quicker. Sometimes the improvements are small, with only a handful of changes, but there's now a desire to have the latest and greatest. It's a problem for physical objects because you need to buy a completely new product, but for software it's perfect as the user only needs to download a patch and they're ready to go.

Luckily we're going with more and more software. We're moving away from products and trying to do more with less. Instead of ten different electronic devices, one to play poker, another to track your appointments, and a third to use as a pager, we're merging them into one smartphone.

Consumers want Swiss Army Knives, not toolboxes. Employees want the power to do what needs to be done, not bureaucracy. Companies need to stay lean and work as if they were many, small entities, not one behemoth. Each and every one of us is a person; it's time that companies started working with us on that level.