When a company comes out and tells you something is new and wonderful and will completely change how you live, work, and breathe, you want to believe it.
Even though you’re sitting there quietly giggling.
Yes, of course we’re talking about Windows 11.
When Microsoft launched the latest lexicon of its looking glass, the company and its people made some extraordinary statements.
Here’s an example from the company’s creative director, Christina Koehn: “We’ve got these four squares. They represent Microsoft. They represent Windows. They represent Surface.”
I still don’t know what the fourth one represents, and it’s been hurting my mind for some time.
Another statement that created a melting sensation in my head was from someone Microsoft described as its brand manager. He said that blue is “the color most people associate with Windows.”
Sir, that’s not a good thing.
And how about this: “We’re moving from a house of brands to a branded house.”
I was holding out a lot of hope, however, that Microsoft would finally bring eternal clarity to my soul. I waited for an entirely new exciting message that would bring everything Windows together in one eye-opening, joyous explosion of understanding.
Here’s where I’ve been enduring cranial conniptions. When Windows 11 finally appeared in the world – to loud and prolonged applause – the company claimed that the software “brings you closer to what you love.”
I had no idea what that meant. Especially as the first Windows 11 advertising extravaganza enjoyed all the enlightenment of late-night Twitter.
But regular readers will know that I’m an extremely patient sort. I want to be closer to what I love. Though, to be honest, I’m already quite close to what I love. My wife, sports, wine, and novels in which at least one person gets murdered.
As if hearing my plaintive plea for clarity, Microsoft recently released another ad, one that I was eager to study.
It features a “collective of designers,” and each uses Windows 11 to do “different things.” Could that be because each of them has a different role within the organization – I mean, collective?
The theme, however, is that this collective can work together “from pretty much everywhere.”
Is that specifically because of Windows 11? Could they not have done that with, say, Windows 10? I only ask because my wife’s a Windows person, and she’s was working remotely long before Windows 11 emerged. I feel sure she wasn’t alone.
But let’s get to the core here. How is Windows 11 bringing these people closer to what they love?
Is it bringing them closer to collaboration because they love collaboration?
Is it allowing this collective not to collect together very often because they don’t really love each other?
But wait, there they are, three of them collecting together at the end of the ad.
I felt closer to despair as I was watching this ad. I want to know how Windows brings me closer to what I love.
I found hope. At the end of this ad, one of the collective – or perhaps a professional actor – intoned: “With Windows 11, we’re just doing it better.”
Now that’s a tagline I can understand.
That’s a message I can get closer to, even if I won’t end up loving it.
