the law of unintended consequences

So industry-watcher and commentator Pariah S. Burke's website is launching a contest to redesign the icons.

"Quark VS InDesign.com Launches Contest to Design Alternate Adobe Creative Suite 3 Icons; Designers to present their visions of Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications in competition for an extensive prize chest. All entries to be compiled into a free library of alternate CS3 icons."

http://www.creativepro.com/story/news/25128.html

What I find most interesting about this whole icon controversy is that it would never have happened without a) the public beta of Photoshop CS3, which alerted designers to the new icon(s), and b) the blogosphere, where the rest of the icons were unveiled in advance of the product release. I can't imagine that the Adobe icon design team (at least in private) welcomes a public referendum on their efforts in the form of a design contest. Quite possibly a contest-entering designer will create a set of icons that are clearly superior.

Just another example of bottom-up, user-generated content turning the status quo on its head. If I were in charge of Adobe's branding strategy right now, I'd be reaching for the Excedrin. On the other hand, it demonstrates how passionate users are about their Adobe applications.

Is this what the Cluetrain Manifesto was talking about?
7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.