In thinking about the trends of personalization and customization, I’ve been wondering if these (marketing and strategic) categorizations accurately reflect the way we live and if these categories are still useful in allowing reinterpretation and new application. These days, you’ll find computer makers thinking about allowing customization en masse through specialized product configurations, or shoe makers installing booths in their retail stores for consumers to style a new pair of sneakers. To be sure, teenagers and adults across the world seem to enjoy participating in this process. Personalization and customization allow for individual expression, and on an utilitarian level, they also provide owner-identification in a sea of mass produced goods.

But personalization and customization not only suggest a deliberate act, but a static and final one as well. Think about a custom-made cabinet or a personalized skateboard. The changes are made, then the objects frozen. Like green peas. One could, of course, have a new set of cabinets custom-made again, or remove the bumper stickers when political allegiances change. But personalization is nonetheless a series of monologues, during which the object is acted upon and left frozen in time. It assumes that the absence of a constant interrogation between the user and the object.

Perhaps that is why the way brands are personalizing and customizing their products have little differentiation between them. Almost every major brand from detergent to printers has advertising campaigns that are singing to consumers ad nauseum “it’s all about you.” You would be hard-pressed to find a commercial break that wasn’t made out of 10 commercials telling you that there is a great product that helps you to be you. In a way, the wave of “personalization” has reached a point of stasis where the message is starting to sound banal and contrived.

Improvisation, it seems to me, could be a more useful framework in designing consumer technologies because improvisation is essentially how we behave on a daily basis. We make changes to a favorite recipe based on what we have in the fridge, and alter it again the day after. We improvise our plans as we go along. We take short-cuts when time is running out. We move in spontaneous and imprecise ways. And, like a jazz pianist playing a jazz standard or a traceur on a parkour route, we perform our routines a little differently each day. We make changes to and also because of our environment. Everyday is a new piece of performance art. Improvisation is the conversation we have everyday, between ourselves and objects, to make life work under constantly changing circumstances.

Given of the dynamic nature of technology today, companies are in a unique position where they can apply “user-improvisation” to interactive environments. There are a few products in the market that are capitalizing on this idea of improvisation. GPS systems are phenomenal at re-routing themselves when a driver goes off-course, and recipe websites are great resources for giving dinner suggestions based on what’s in your fridge and how much preparation time you have. But my sense is that this direction of thought is sorely under-utilized by product and web strategists and the like. I, for one, would be really excited to see more creative strategies and services growing out of this approach.

McDonald’s is an interesting place. The one on Rue de Passy, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris where old money lives, fascinates me. During winter, the seating area in the basement of this McDo—as the French call it—turns into a social space that usually does not exist in this wealthy neighborhood. Young children drag their grandparents who are dressed in thick fur coats into the fast-food chain; youthful backpackers tap into the free WiFi to check their emails and itineraries; and in the corner, a small group of homeless people huddle over their cups of coffee. The basement certainly doesn’t transform into a mega social networking event, but it pulls people from socially different paths and brings an alternate view to their regular field of vision.

Cities are built in ways that allow us to establish individual routines, but there also remain pockets that are capacious enough for the different corners of society to share a common space. As our daily path on the Internet become ritualized and more predictable (Gmail, check. Facebook, check. NYTimes, check), and as web portals becoming increasingly specialized to cater to consumer tribes, will there be space for a collision of unexpected social encounters? How will this alter the way we understand and experience search engines?

Above, a McDonald’s in Chicago’s theater district. The relevance of the picture? Perhaps a note to self to look beyond the theatrics of anti-corporate punching. The stuff on the ground’s usually more interesting.

Sharing shoulders: the latest Trump International Tower & Hotel and the stately Wrigley Building

A few days ago, I learned a new fact about the skyscrapers along the Chicago River downtown. Many of the architectural landmarks have been designed to relate to the river and their neighboring buildings. Roof lines of older and shorted buildings are picked up by the mid-section of their tall neighbors; curved green glass panels wrap softly around a convex facade that follows the river bends. To the uninitiated, this silent conversation lends an air of visual harmony.

Continuity and context probably aren’t news to anyone who has been to architecture school, but this led me to wonder if the products in our homes share a similar visual harmony. Could aesthetics be designed in relation to that of existing and owned products? A comparable example might be the Apple-esque culture with its endless stream of snow-white auxiliary products, but with a self-adjusting mechanism from multiple inputs rather than a direction driven by a single product.