Crazy or Cool - the reaction
From Mod Mania
When a user of a traditional product decides they wish to modify the usability to suit their current requirements they are choosing to break through a barrier either intentionally or un intentionally erected by the manufacturer. Is there a reason the manufacturer left out the adaptive qualities to place a stranglehold or guide for the unwitting consumer into its narrow market? When said mod is shown to an external audience what makes a mod crazy or cool? Is it in the finish or the idea?
First impressions last, this is the case when a viewer recollects a memory from a far and distant place and suddenly that is what your mod is about. This is the way the easy sell consumer thinks. Looking past first impressions a viewer with even limited knowledge will dissect what the intention was and how it has come to fruitation. The above reactions determine whether your mod has created a product or re worked an existing product to perform a task other than the original one outlined by the creator.
To the everyday consumer he/she needs to see how it compares to another item. This is not through stupidity it is simply they are used to comparing side by side what something looks like. You can take a mod and make it a product by shaping what the viewer sees, they may not even want or need it but if it looks like it is a part of them they will buy it. The consumer wants what the consumer gets, cater to the market and the market caters for you. Does this process make a mod cool? Or does that fact that the mod enables the product to perform the foreign task make it cool?
If you take an idea and display it to a viewer with no preconception of what the existing product is that moment defines to them what said product does. The viewer with limited knowledge has a basis for assessment, they look at how a mod has changed or enabled the user to extend the functionality. To define a product as new it needs to reach further into crazy cool territory to break into a new market sector. The finish of the mod does not have to be of top shelf standard but rather has to accommodate the general population.
To achieve crazy cool status is simple yet complicated, be in the right place at the right time with the right mind. The cross over from mod to product happens in an instant yet can take decades. A task you wish to perform may sound crazy yet shaped in the right fashion and packaged to meet the consumer demand breaks into a new definition of product. Modifiers may not realise the potential of their mods until the place it in the hand of someone outside their circle, the audience has the final say.
