Photo from fuse.tv

Behind the Scenes

James Van Dyne
Nov 17, 2016 · 3 min read

When I bought my first album the anticipation was almost unbearable. I heard this song on the radio in the car going to school one day. From the first time the bridge played I was hooked and had a new favorite song. I had no idea who it was, we didn’t have Shazam back then, so I made my Mom listen to the same station whenever we were in the car, hoping that they would play it again.

After what seemed like weeks, but was probably only a few days, the song came back on just as we were pulling into the driveway. After some begging and pleading, my mom let me stay in the car to listen to it all and find out who it was.

Three minutes later I knew the name of my new favorite song, who the band were and the fact they they also had a brand new album out that month.

The special pleading started as soon as I threw my bag at the bottom of the stairs. I had to have this CD. After a few days of talking about nothing else my Mom caved and said she would take me to the mall at the weekend and we would get it.

I was almost skipping as I came out of store with my new precious object. I opened it as quickly as I could, tugging and scratching at the impenetrable cellophane coat that would be the bane of humanity until MP3s became popular years later.

We didn’t have a CD player in the car, so I had to sit and wait until we got home to put it in my boombox. With nothing else to do I started to look at the album art and track list. I open the jewel case and immediately attempted to spin the matching colored CD in place. By total chance I then noticed that the front insert wasn’t just a single sheet of paper, but was a little booklet.

I spent the rest of the ride home glued to its content.

Thumbing through it I wondered what the band were thinking when they decided on this artwork. Why this image for that song? Were they playing this song when this photo was taken? So that’s what a recording studio looked like. Oops, I had been singing the wrong lyrics to my favorite song.

Seeing these photos gave me a glimpse into the life of these artists. These are the people who made this, I thought. They’re so cool and talented. I wondered what the rest of the studio was like, and daydreamed about being in there someday with them.

Showing the behinds the scenes of how the album was made, forged a bond between me and the band. It made them become more than just a voice on the radio. They were no longer just Nirvana. They were Kurt, Krist, and Dave. I knew them now. I was a true fan.

As makers of digital products we need to remember that there are real people behind each purchase. They are human, not a transaction number, and as humans they crave stories to give meaning to things.

Sharing the story behind how your product is made shows the human aspect of a largely inhuman industry. Where one byte is the same as another, we have to bring more to the table that just the end product..and that’s the story.

There is no holding, feeling, or smelling a digital product. You cannot see where the maker made their mark. So instead we need to tell the story of how our bytes got to be the way they are. We have to offer a glimpse into the workshop to show how the product was crafted and by whom. We have to humanize our products so that they are elevated from being a mass produced item to a handcrafted masterpiece.

Don’t just sell a disc of plastic, sell the story behind how the music was made.

Whilst we build Kwoosh, a software project management tool, we are showing off a lot of the behind the scenes stuff in our monthly reviews. We also post updates and glimpses into all our work on twitter.

Building Kwoosh

Building Kwoosh

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