Today, I was struck by the significance of how one lists his/her phone number. I have the rare fortune to work with "traditional" businesses (consumer goods/retail) and "new economy" firms (i.e. Internet/software/people with no money but a great dream). As a result, I have noticed a trend that is spectacular in its psychological significance while completely insignificant in any other context. I call it "Morse's Choice" in honor of Morse code, which uses only dots and dashes to communicate a message (and which is analogous to all binary forms of communication including all software).
What is interesting is that among e-people (anything related to bits and bites), employees of ad agencies, and designers, the long adopted "-" between a phone number's digits [555-555-5555] has been unceremoniously displaced by the period "." [555.555.5555] Really! Go to just about any design firm's website on the planet and note that their contact information has a profusion of dots.
Why do I care? I'm not sure. But, it's fascinating that what probably started as one Internet company's plaintive plea to be different has slowly been adopted by the "creative elite." [Just for the record, when I founded my first Internet company, CMplan.net, not only did I use a period in our contact information, I included another in the name.] So, what's the underlying message? Being different, particularly in the most mundane ways, can create interest, allure, and even envy. We all have in our nature a visceral response when something taken for granted is suddenly changed....
"What's with that?....Why did they do that?...It was obviously intentional!....So, is that better?!? Am I missing something?" At that moment, chic is born.
I recently read an article in the WSJ about the popularity of handbags made of transparent plastic. If that is not the best example of the ability of this phenomenon to suspend better judgement, I don't know what is. I can't imagine my [male] wallet being revealed to all, let alone the content of a lady's purse (having rummaged through my wife's on occasion in search of the car keys). I assure you, no woman would choose to "edit" her handbag's contents for the world to view, unless her insecurity about missing "what's in" had not invaded her psychy.
Change makes us notice. If we don't understand it, but have no basis for disputing it, we usually assume that those that made the change know something we don't. Therefore, they must be smarter and the change is something (someone) to which we should aspire.
In the end, we are not particularly complex creatures. We all want to matter and we all want to be different...but, not too different. Perhaps substituting a dot for a line is the perfect solution. Tell me what you think at 602.952-8181.
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