Kevin Rustagi

                 

Click here to download:

The_Philosophy_of_Shiny_Things.zip (19896 KB)

Photos of Shiny Things to which I've contributed: LaserKard (my new product - shipping soon! - the white on the right side is the flash's reflection), the arcade machine my friend and I rebuilt after high school, the yoyo from 2.008 (Design & Manufacturing II), clock that I built using a waterjet, the toy from 2.00b (toy product design), modular backboard from 2.009 (Product Engineering), Mother's Day gift, robot from 2.007 (Design for Manufacturing I), The Guitar Knives' (my band's) recent show

Over the past several months, I have been slowly constructing my latest philosophy on life.

Behold!  The latest and (perhaps) greatest philosophy to come out of the venerated halls of MIT.  A few friends of mine encouraged me to write it down.  Fundamentally, it is the theory that well-done and well-finished products and experiences have an exponentially higher value than the (though extensive) work put into them to make them 'shiny'.

The Philosophy of Shiny Things:

1) People like shiny things.

Think about something shiny.  It doesn't have to necessarily be physically shiny.  What I mean by shiny is that it has a certain well-finished quality to it.  It could in fact be a matte finish.  Shiny things often happen to be optically shiny though.  It could be a great work of art, an awesome building, or fireworks. 

Whatever it may be, if it is shiny, people tend to be naturally attracted to it and also generally want to keep it.  Apple products are a great example of something shiny.

2) You don't talk about fight club.... just kidding... 

Classic line from a great Brad Pitt, Edward Norton thriller, potentially something shiny, though not actually included in the philosophy of shiny things.

2)  Shiny things make people feel good.

Think about the last time you felt something shiny.  Take a new car for example.  Anyone who's test driven a car with a leather interior knows what I'm talking about.  Feeling that leather (matte, but still shiny) just makes you tingle.  If I was a neuroscience major, I might provide some explanation of electrical signals flowing through nerve axons allowing for the release of dopamine and endorphins, but I'm not, so I won't. 

Invariably, as far as I can tell, running into shiny things (as long as they're friendly) allows one to feel shiny themselves.

3) Shiny things must be truly shiny to qualify as shiny things.

A fake Mona Lisa- almost shiny, but not quite shiny.  One of those Holllywood sets, again, shiny, but only surface -shiny.  Wood veneer, almost shiny - but then you see the seam.  Not quite.

Things that are truly shiny:  the Iphone, Porshe automobiles (I heard a quote the other day that I feel epitomizes the notion of shiny things - "There are only two types of guys in this world - those who have a Porsche, and those who want one."), the Tesla Roadster, La-Z-Boy Chairs, Nikon DSLRs, The Sydney Opera House, The Taj Mahal, and the list goes on.

4) People will pay a lot for shiny things.

Diamonds are forever, and they are also always shiny.  The same goes for gold.  Though economics would have us believe that supply and demand drive the price of these precious gems and metals, I would argue that it may be simply because they are shiny.  Science tells us that diamonds and gold do have special properties, namely being the hardest stone and also fairly untarnishable, respectively.  However, those traits are only secondary to how shiny they are.

This points to the notion that people somehow equate monetary value with shininess.  For those that wish to defeat my argument with claims of iron pyrite and fake glass engagement rings, I would point out Tenet 3.

5) If something is shiny, it is universally shiny, without regard to geographic or chronological locale.

The magician David Blaine is famous for having traveled the world over demonstrating his unique form of street magic to many people who do not speak English.  His tricks are still shiny.  I made 70 of my laser cut business cards (see entry below) to take to China.  I gave them out during business meetings with vendors.  A very business card - driven culture, these shiny cards were very shiny there.

Though beauty is something that has been noted as subjective (ie. India and China prefer light skin, while America and the West view tanned as beautiful), one might still argue that beautiful people are often quite shiny. 

And who can forget that many cultures possess festivals that deal directly with lights.  July 4th, Chinese New Year, India's Diwali, Hanukkah, and many others. 

Conclusion: Though it may seem a bit facetious for someone who is supposed to be going to a university that values quantitative logic and reason so highly to be touting this subjective right-brain ideology, I strongly believe in this philosophy.

I stayed up most of the night before the robot competition last semester putting racing stripes on my robot precisely for this reason.  It seems that there is some sort of exponential value to to spending that extra 20% effort right at the end to finish a project to the highest quality, both functional and aesthetic. 

There is perhaps some large amount of value derived in that final push for shiny-ness.  I'm currently working on the packaging for my new product, Laser Kard (http://kevinrustagi.com/project-z) and shiny-ness is something that we pride ourselves on moving toward.

By shiny, I mean that something is well-done.  Attention to detail is everything in a global culture that moves as fast as we can imagine.  I find more often that as populations and product shipments grow larger in scale and mass, businesses and countries tend to approach situations from a much more statistical and probabilistic perspective.

Overall, I would say that such a quantitative approach is generally warranted and prudent.  However, I believe that in modern-day civilization, there is therefore an immense value to attention given on the individual level to each product and each person.  When I talk about something being shiny, what I'm really talking about is something that has a great deal of thought and attention put into it.  In a world where productivity is the name of the game, I feel that going the opposite direction and demanding quality is perhaps the only way to disrupt the wasteful cycle to which society has oft committed itself.

And really, who doesn't like shiny things anyway?

Recommended Reading: A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink - a unique study on how the right brain and design is fast becoming the weapon of choice among the world's crowded markets.