"Designing Our Own Graves" thoughts

Designing Our Own Graves

by: Dmitri Siegel

2006

Prosumerism is a new word; I’m not entirely sure if this was a made up term by Siegel himself, or was termed from some other published work. (Eh… well-established individuals have this entitlement to name something.) Not to imply that I hate Siegel myself, but the term is intriguing and thought provoking.

It is true that, lately, there have been ‘DIY’ books around. The thought of being able to do something that takes time and skill is attractive. And just by buying and reading this book (of knowledge) will get me to achieve this skill? I’d buy the book.

That convenience is surely attractive to a lot of others.

With that in mind, consuming books on ‘DIY’ (by the way, how do you pronounce that or do you just say ‘do it yourself’?) and producing from that book becomes prosumerism. Though, I feel the ‘consuming’ part is more prominent than the producing part.

What seems to be a general rule, producing takes a lot more time and effort than consuming. DIY books are initially products.  So “Designing Our Graves” is probably an overstatement. Sure, designers are sharing their secrets and skill, but it’s not like the consumer is going to steal the designer’s job. Most of the time, people are just happy about half-assed results after reading a DIY book.