is it just me or is everything nice around here?
by asi
* [I wrote this post few months back but didn't publish it for some reason until I saw Anne I Like presentation's title at interesting 2007 and thought it would be nice to re-write and hope for some interesting input]
hello nice people. It would be very difficult to pinpoint where and when this all niceness trend begun but recently it seems to be everywhere.
Suddenly everything and everyone around me is nice. this is the hour of the nice people!
so when has nice become such a prominent social currency? of course, nice people and stuff where always around but never before have I felt that being nice is so cool…
remember last saturday? well, you have to admit that apart from everything being so interesting, everything and everyone were so… well… genuinely nice!
hell, even porn becomes nicer… 
for me personally, the key agents and pioneers of niceness are the nice people from innocent. they not only epitomise this trend but they also put being/doing nice at the heart of their business and changed the way brands talk to their consumers. they made a very good case that nice people can do damn good business (it used to be the ‘sharks’ that did good business)
and now we have howies that seems to build a lovely business around the philosophy of the masters of niceness – we are what we do, and specialbike, threadless, folksy, flickr’s greetings when you log on, v water and plannersphere….
this is probably a classic case of false consensus effect (we tend to overestimate how the degree to which our own group’s behavior, attitudes, beliefs, and so on are shared by other people) or perhaps it’s all part of, or a positive side effect of the wellbeing/socially responsible/environmentally friendly cultural trend – after all you cannot be climate-friendly etc. without being nice, can you?
anyway, just a thought – any input is welcome.
peace.
F U Asi:) Nah…Good post mate. Being nice, funny, open-minded are all traits we like to see in our friends. With more brands adopting conversational personalities, I would assume a similar rationale.
hey adrian,
i might have written this post with just a bit of a cynicism but don’t get me wrong – I wholeheartedly welcome the niceness trend!
here’s to nice!
I wrote a post on why i think niceness has replaced the gordon gekko like cuntishness in today’s business climate.
basically, because of things like technology, more information on who’s done what, and the focus on retention of customers – there’s much less anonymity than before.
when everyone knows who you are and what you’ve done (and every time you act like a dick, it ends up on youtube) , it pays to be nice.
with regards to us plannersphere, with the whole blog thing, suddenly everyone knows someone in every single agency you might end up working for in the next 5 years. you just can’t afford to be un-nice to anyone.
my original post here.
http://www.deadinsect.co.uk/2006/07/niceness-part-1.html
that is top blogging my friend. i technoratied niceness before writing this one but couldn’t find anything relevant.
i LOVED the rats metaphor – brilliant.
where is niceness 2 ?
Great post Asi!