There are words and phrases that make my skin crawl. “Premium” is one such word, when describing anything other than gasoline but in particular food. “Product” is another. Put them together and you get awful people saying things like, “This is our premium product,” which is not how normal people would describe anything they are about to eat. I am reminded of Kraft and their “pasteurized cheese product” to describe Kraft Singles.
Now we can add “good enough” to the list of phrases I detest.
I hear this phrase from students, but I also experience it from students. I see it in their work and submissions. I hear it in their voice. Sometimes I know and even tell them, “Hey, that’s a good idea, but probably not worth the time and effort for a 50pt job.” And, so, too, it goes for professional work where the costs, time constraints, or other factors (usually a manager or client) sorta get in the way.
But what happens if, as is happening in the industrial economy of today, that scale and speed of work increases so much that care declines alongside it as it almost certainly has to? As care declines, the natural supports of our human economy focused on professionalism, care, concern, love, empathy, and learning also decline?
This has an obvious tie to AI, but it’s not just that. I saw this trend with Canva before that and, all manner of other templates before that. The idea being that if you weren’t capable or “didn’t have the time” to do something you could just use a template. Whether it’s for a birthday party, a resume, or a PowerPoint slide, it hasn’t matter. “It’s good enough.”
Reader, I am here to tell you how much I disagree with this sentiment. Because anyone who has ever been on the hiring end of a position knows how many “Chronological Resume” templates you see from Microsoft Word. It is hard to distinguish those people, no matter the words on the page, when you have a stack of hundreds.
In my line of work I end up stuck on the receiving end of people’s Canva templates, primarily for events. And this is a shame, because these pre-made templates all have a certain look to them that is generally indistinguishable. They also come with a certain fashion that comes and goes quickly, probably because when they start using or recommending certain font styles (like the fat, bubbly, Gothic fonts fashionable now) we see them everywhere so fast that they quickly tire.
Those are problematic enough, but not deal-breakers or even noticeable by most people. What is noticeable is the lack of care. “Hey, we’re having this fundraiser/lunch/talk/event/thing, here’s a thing I filled some text boxes in on. Put it on the website,” is a common phrase in my inbox. And I immediately ignore it.
Why?
Because this tells me no one’s thought about much of the experience for the customer or recipient. The most common example is the presence of a QR code and no URL. This “flyer” will inevitably end up on Facebook, where no one can scan it. And tapping it just makes a useless thing larger and still useless.
This template-driven format also suggests the least amount of thought about the event, for there is rarely any consideration of how to support sponsors, encourage why someone should attend, or the benefits for the event on the back end. Like having AI write for you, the lack of design thinking is simply a lack of thinking. This, increasingly, is what I view my job as: thinking about these small details that go beyond what something looks like, but literally how an event plays out.
I am even more annoyed by this with documents, pages, memos, manuals, email campaigns, messages, ads, and all manner of posts full of useless stock fluff, terse or corporate language, or, actions and activities and service with the care that can only be extended by getting to a point and thinking, “Good enough.”
For real improvement, this needs to come from people directly. Local control, study, and harmony working together to reduce reliance on external dependencies and large corporate interests. We need to substitute ourselves into conversations so we aren’t just abstractions, but, real people with real goals and vision to use our time and energy well in all that we do.
