Problem-less Solutions

Some prospective blogposts grind to a halt. Maybe six weeks ago, upon seeing a minibus emblazoned with the words "Family Solutions", I'd started to write about how that made me wonder what was being implied.

Further tailgating had revealed that the bus belonged to a nursery company offering creche facilities and after-school clubs. I thus started to pontificate about the positive evocations of helping the family and of being part of the family; the negative connotations that associate the word solution with process and profit; and then rightly abandoned the post. Or so I thought.

Then I inevitably heard that hateful, fatuous "Don't bring me problems, bring me solutions" cliche to which I've alluded before and a penny dropped. The nursery's clients would never characterise themselves as problem families, but if your marketing frames them as dynamic, collaborative, problem-solving families, they'll happily buy into that story regardless of the implication. It's a principle that can be applied universally.

The twenty-first century mindset of rush, confusion and neurosis is so ingrained that if you build a solution, the consumer will all too willingly magnify and validate the problem, even if it doesn't actually exist.