Beauty and Business

The idea of thinking of something about something bigger than me always fascinates me, and I mean that both literally and figuratively. Literally, I mean that outer space fascinates me, and figuratively, I mean researching philosophical ideas. These two loves are captured pretty well within a couple different movies: Contact, Moon, and Angels and Airwaves' Love to name a few.

The one that tops the list for me is the movie Interstellar. Between it's beautiful cinematography and exploration of big ideas, Christopher Nolan ties the whole movie quite well. But perhaps the most important thing for me is the music of the film. Check out this YouTube video about the music of Interstellar:

Somewhere in the middle of the video, the composer, Hans Zimmer, shares that he was approached by Nolan with a very high level, vague idea of what he wanted music for. That paper Nolan shared did not at all include the fact that this would very much be looked at as a science fantasy film once completed. Without this knowledge. Zimmer wrote the titular piece of the film based on the relationship between father and child.

The music is beautiful. Yet what is probably more important that at no time does it feel like it doesn't belong there in the film.

This is because the music captures the essence of the movie and not the expectation its genre sets.

Now, if Zimmer were to have written some upbeat tune along the lines of Sesame Street, that music would feel totally out of line.

Far too often, this same thing happens with business. It very much plays along the same lines as the memory categories we analyzed a couple blog posts back. When we think about business, our minds instantly run to desk, spreadsheets, staplers, and formal wear. The show The Office and movie Office Space capture these essences really well. When I think about the scenes in those pieces of media, I do not think anything is beautiful about them.

And my question is... why not?

Let me use an example here. Say you're composing an email to a distributor requesting some basic office supplies. Let's look at three examples of what that email might look like, starting off with Exhibit A.

Exhibit A is probably how an old textbook would tell you to write an email. Be "professional", which to them means use a boring, worn out font, speak like a robot, and pretty much leave all emotion at home.

So let's go onto Exhibit B.

So Exhibit B here tries to break the mold of doing things the "professional" way in a couple ways. Specifically, it ditches the font for a different one, and it lists the items out in a bulleted way. In this person's attempt to break the "professional" mold, they did one thing right but another thing totally wrong. The thing they did right was breaking out the bullets, but the thing they did wrong is by choosing the most God forsaken font on the planet: Comic Sans MS. (Why that font hasn't just been burned at the stake is beyond me!)

The problem with Exhibit B is that it tries to break the mold but doesn't do a good job of doing so. And because this person thinks that breaking the mold is enough, then they probably will keep writing emails this way the rest of their life.

Finally, let's look at Exhibit C.

Exhibit C breaks the "professional" mold completely. It ditches the "professional" speak, chooses a clean but appropriate font, and even adds in a little color to the email signature. From an aesthetics point of view alone, this email just looks nice. (At least, it does to me!)

Ask yourself this question: does Exhibit C look unprofessional to you at all?

I hope you said no because I believe it remains well within the lines of a professional mindset.

Who said we needed to check our personality at the front door of the office building? Sure, we don't want to drag in all our dirty laundry, but it is the beauty that comes out of our uniqueness that makes things memorable and personable. To that end, beauty is something we should aspire to in all of our work, even at the office.