Desperation and Arrogance in the WIRED Exchange

I'm a fan of Wired in the same way that I'm a fan of In Style magazine. I like to thumb through the pages looking at pretty pictures, occasionally reading an article but I never really do much with the information. In Style tries so hard to be fashionable. Wired tries so hard to be smart. Anyway, one of my fave areas of Wired is the Exchange at the very back of the magazine. It's sort of in in-flight mall rag for readers and it's full of equal parts optimism and arrogance.

We have Rosetta Stone to teach you the Chinese language you'll need to compete in the New Global Economy. There are summaries of the 5000 best business books so you can annoy your colleagues by parroting back business mantras from Jack Welch, Seth Godin, and Guy Kawasaki. And just so it's not all about the art of the deal, we have an e-book on Delivering Happiness - a path to profits, passion... oh wait, I guess it IS all about the art of the deal. Well who better to learn how to live a life of happiness and passion than from the CEO of Zappos. Optimism is here also in the form of protection - advanced air purifiers, identity protection, biomorphic desks that "adjust to your lifestyle" so long as your lifestyle is sitting at a computer all day.

And we have odd bits of arrogance. Turn your photo into large scale canvas art. What better way to contribute to the culture than by blowing up my Facebook photo into a huge wall hanging. For those who really believe in their own specialness, you can send in a scrap of skin or hair to DNA11 and have them convert it into a custom portrait - your DNA markers for all to see. Riddle me this - isn't it ironic to have an ad for a special wallet that purports to keep your identity safe sitting just below an ad that has you send in a DNA sample?