“I listen to a customer call every day. Every single day.”

Dell Global Chief Marketing Officer- Paul-Henri Ferrand.

I am impressed: I have met hundreds of heads of marketing and never has any of them told me they devote this much time to actual customer contact. Most marketing directors I meet speak of their customers as an abstract quantity, or perhaps an undiscovered exotic species. This probably explains why most heads of marketing are have a disproportionate reckoning of the importance of their brand in their customer’s life.

Not Paul-Henri from Dell. He seems different. He is French and charismatic (which helps) but more than that- he talks with conviction and ambition about the the transition towards a ‘new Dell.’

The old Dell as I remember it, is a commodity box shifting business which was sales focused and masculine. If they had a motto it would have been “pile em high and sell ‘em cheap”.

The new Dell, Paul-Henri envisions is a company that puts customers at the heart of the business. The new Dell strives to be more of a product advisor rather than a vending machine. Dell should guide customers through the tyranny of overwhelming choice. This company should provide personalized devices but without making you feel like you are building your own computer from scratch. This re-invented company strives to understand what women want and “help women achieve their objectives and their dreams.”

Sounds good but has Dell really changed or is this just the same old Dell dressed up in blingy crystals? Does Dell really communicate what women want from technology other than laptops in a pink or red shell? And why does the Lady Geek/The Times Survey show that only 6% of women think they speak the female language?

I asked the Lady Geek Panel what they thought of Dell’s understanding of women. Here’s a few quotes;

“When I think of Dell as a brand, I always think that you will get a decent quality spec netbooks, good value for money but I don’t like the way they position technology as a fashion accessory-its not as if I am 15 years old. The sorts of women buying these products are professional educated women”

“Dell’s marketing still doesn’t reflect what they are truely trying to achieve here and still dumbs down the technology when talking to women. I look forward to the day when their advertising agency truely understand what the business is trying to do with personalised technology.”

I firmly buy into Paul-Henri’s vision of a company that is trying to understand what women want. Are they there yet? By no means. Do they need more insight into women? Absolutely. However, no-one can dispute that Dell has clearly changed. One look at their product pipeline shows that like Apple, Dell are trying to re-define product categories and are looking to women as an audience for these product categories:

For example, the Dell Mini 5 aims to bridge the gap between tablet and smart-phone. This is intended to be a portable, always-on Internet device which is small enough (unlike the iPad) to fit into a hand-bag, and yet big enough to offer a PC like browsing experience.

It may seem like a small thing, but it’s refreshing to see Dell trying out new form-factors at a time when the rest of the industry is converging on specifications which were previously invented by Apple. Dell recognise that women and men want different things from technology.

And with Paul-Henri leading the ship, I am confident the best is yet to come.

PRESS RELEASE: TOP 20 MOBILE APPS CHART

What is Britian’s favourite app? Lady Geek and YouGov Sixth Sense have just released the first of a series of surveys conducted intended to discover what Britian’s smart-phone users are actually downloading. Unlike music publishers who are keen to publicize their Internet sales, downloads of mobile apps are a closely guarded secret.

Our Top of the Pops for apps went directly to 16,810 smart-phone users. In addition to revealing the most popular apps, we also discovered some surprising gender differences in the kinds of apps that men and women download.

Gaming, long presumed to be the domain of teenage boys, is actually a female obsession: six of the apps in the women’s top 20 are games. Women’s biggest app obsession is social networking, particularly Facebook.

While men in the survey also download social networking apps, these are less popular than mapping and navigation tools.

Some apps appeal to both sexes such as Guardian, Shazam and Twitter apps.

The facts:

• In the top downloads chart in the survey, six games appear in women’s top 20: Bejeweled, Sudoku, Solitaire, Scrabble, Tetris and Doodle Jump. For men, only two games chart – Doodle Jump and Scrabble.
• Approaching half of all women between the ages of 18-24 say that their favourite app is for social networking, compared to a 1/3 of men in the same age group.
• Six times as many men say their favourite apps is a Maps app.

“What our research highlights is that women are becoming engaged and getting excited about the app world and what it can do for them.  Everyone seems to think it’s a young bored male who spends hours on his iPhone.  The reality is that in the future, it will be as likely, if not more likely, to be your mum, sister and grandma.  And contrary to received wisdom, women are not looking for horoscope apps- women are using apps for gaming, shopping on ebay, getting their Twitter fix and messaging their friends” says Belinda Parmar, Founder of Lady Geek and on a mission to help companies understand what women want from technology.

According to the Harvard Business review, marketing to women is now a bigger financial opportunity that India and China combined.

Methodology

For this report, Lady Geek in conjunction with YouGov SixthSense ran a survey on YouGov’s monthly Oracle survey, which is sent out to all of YouGov’s 270,000 panel members. The survey was conducted throughout the month of February 2010. A total of 78,835 responses were received. It should be noted that results were not weighted and are not nationally representative.

The Guardian

PRESS RELEASE

The world of ‘apps’ is not just the domain of young geeky males. Lady Geek’s survey (conducted by YouGov) reveals that technology and software are no longer just the preserve of geeks, with women over 55 feeling liberated by their smart-phones.

The report highlighted:

• Of all survey participants, 39% of female smart-phone owners aged 55+ have downloaded one or more app to their smart-phone.

• Gaming was the second most popular category for over-55-year-old women in the survey, with nearly 1 in 5 female smart-phone owners stating gaming is their favourite app compared to only 1 in 15 of men in a similar age band

• The number 1 app for female smart-phone owners over 55 is Facebook, with 18% of survey participants in this group saying that a social networking app is their favourite app.

• 22.5% of female smart-phone owners over 55 found out about their favourite app from a recommendation from a friend, compared to only 12.9% of male smart phone within the same age band.

“We set out on a mission to understand how older women use technology and raise the agenda of these ‘forgotten’ women. We are so obsessed with youth and yummy mummies in this country we forget that a third of our population is over 50. The women we spoke to loved what ‘apps’ could do for them whether it be ‘snacking’ on a 10 min Bejeweled game or updating their Facebook page with new photos. A revolution is going on within this older group but no-one seems to notice or pay any attention to these women.” says Belinda Parmar, founder of Lady Geek, an independent company which helps technology companies understand women.

In the US, the number of women over 55 on Facebook is almost double the number of men in the same age group (Source: Inside Facebook, Feb 2009). Yet despite this growth, companies tend to ignore this ‘invisible and forgotten’ generation and pay little or no heed to what they want or need.

Methodology

For this report, Lady Geek in conjunction with YouGov SixthSense, ran an online survey a sample of 16,810 smart-phone owners. The number of men and women over-55 was 1,639.

Lady Geek also conducted some informal interviews with older women to understand how they engaged with technology.

Lady Geek helps technology and gaming companies understand women through female insight, intelligence and influence.

SixthSense, part of YouGov plc, is a provider of comprehensive business intelligence.

To interview Belinda Parmar the author of the report, or to obtain a full copy of the report, please contact belinda@ladygeek.org.uk

One of the myths prevailing around women and technology is that technology companies think that women are not interested in technology therefore they need to ‘dumb it down’, ‘pink it up’ and ‘girlify it.’

The reality is that women are interested in technology. Four out of every ten gadgets in the UK are now bought by women.  The missed financial opportunity of NOT targeting women is calculated by Forrester at £0.6billion.

And more interesting than the stats, are the wonderful stories that women share with Lady Geek about how they feel about technology.  This woman Justine being a great example of how excited (!) she was when she got her iPad.

Apple is a great example of a company that spends approx 70% of all its research and UI testing with women as they see women as the ‘gold standard’ in terms of their unwillingness to ‘conquer’ technology.  Women want intuitive technology that is a joy to use, and like them or loathe them as a company, Apple delivers all of it in spades.

The other tech players must get a sense of anticipation and excitement amongst women.  They must target female influencers much earlier on in the product lifecycle. They must think about what women want at every stage of the sales experience from the pre-sales mania to the post-sales experience.  They must understand that men want to conquer technology, women want to it to enhance their life.

So yes women are interested in technology.  Very interested.  Understand us.  Come talk to us.  And for god’s sake, don’t dumb down your products and talk to us as if we were 7 years old.

My first ever PC was a noisy clunky beige-coloured box which sounded something like a hair-dryer and produced twice as as much heat. It was a useful workhorse, but profoundly unpleasent up-close. Such a device would have no hope in my living room: In most households women control which devices are allowed into that most precious of space – the typical grey PC is not getting in.

Fortunately the PC has evolved: The boxes got smaller, quieter and more beautiful- they gradually adapted to fill every possible niche in the household.

The Dell Zino HD is the most extreme example of this evolution: It’s a tiny box that’s built for the bedroom or the living room. Dell understood that you probably want to connect it to a TV, that’s why it has an HDMI port and comes as standard with a wireless keyboard and mouse. Who wants wires trailing across their living room?

Unfortunately, the living room is a fiercly competitive ecosystem: At best there’s room for no more than three devices beneath the TV. That means if you are going to introduce a new device you probably need to boot something else out: The Zino is likely to displace a games console or a DVD player since it can do the job of both.

Dell have clearly studied the aesthetics of Nintendo’s Wii, however unlike the wii, the Zino HD is no toy: It packs a 64bit AMD Athlon X2 chip and runs a full edition Microsoft’s Windows 7. That means it can play just about any game or media you throw at it. Imagine your favourite games on your wide-screen TV? This is going to appeal to all but the most obsessed Wii-sportsmen.

With most women being the gatekeepers of the home – Dell have a smart strategy with designing beautifully made PC’s that are as much architectural fittings as they are useful pieces of technology.  The worst thing Dell could do now is patronise women like Samsung are doing with their Genio and come out with fluffy marketing statements asking women ‘What colour is your life?’

Whilst the Zino has earned it’s space in my living room, the marketing has yet to earn my respect.  Only time will tell.

At the Consumer Electronics Show in 2006, only 1% of women surveyed felt consumer electronics manufacturers have them in mind during the design process.

This was the ASUS stand at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2010- unfortunately very little has changed and manufacturers like ASUS are reverting to cliches stereotypes rather than understanding what women really want.

ASUS and other tech manufacturers must realise that women are the future drivers of growth.

Don’t patronise us. Understand us.

After the disappointing N97 it was all to easy to dismiss Nokia as a fading star of mobile phone design. The flagship which failed to float was the perfect excuse for a whole horde of doomsayers to predict the end of the once-greatest mobile company. A common quip was that unless Nokia were to pull off something entirely miraculous it would be “the end”. Fortunately the N900 is the miracle we had all hoped for, a truly remarkable combination of new software and hardware.

It’s hard to disentangle all the novelty in this new phone: Not only is it the first of a brand new form-factor (the sliding landscape keyboard-phone), but it’s also the first phone in Nokia’s huge portfolio to feature Maemo, an operating system entirely new to the world of phones. That’s not to say that Maemo is new: It’s been on the market since 2006 but only on Nokia’s ultra-niche tablet computers.

First of all, lets deal with the easy stuff- the hardware: Nokia vastly simplified the slider mechanism compared to the N97. Instead of the elaborate slide and tilt, this keyboard simply slides out from behind the screen. While it doesn’t look so impressive it makes for a device which is both more comfortable and rugged. The new keyboard is slightly wider than the N97s since they ditched the somewhat useless D-pad. I guess they figured out that users don’t actually need a d-pad and a touch-screen if the touch screen is good enough.

Ony of my big criticisms of the N97 was its’ insensitive touch screen (I called it a “punch screen“). At the time I put this down to the fact that Nokia had chosen the older “resistive” technology rather than the more trendy “capacitive” screens used by the iPhone and most android devices. The N900 has not switched to capacitative, and yet the screen seems a great deal more responsive. I’ve not yet encountered the frequent false-clicks of the older model. Nokia claim that the advantage of a resistive screen is that you can be more precise. This is why the N900 has a concealed stylus which slides out of the front. It’s not actually possible to use a stylus on a capacitative screen, so Nokia clearly see this as giving their customers wider choices.

The other major criticism of the N97 was that it seemed sluggish compared to the high-end phones: Once again this has seems to have been fixed. Even while multitasking the N900 seems to have the processing power to stay lively and responsive. This is no doubt a consequence of the shift to Nokia’s next generation operating system. Maemo is the phone’s biggest new feature: It’s an operating system unlike anything I’ve seen before on a mobile, but oddly similar to almost everything I’ve used on my desktop.

I dont want to give the impression that it was entirely perfect:

The biggest problem with Maemo today is a complete lack of commercial apps. None of the official Google Apps (e.g. Mail, Maps) have been ported to Maemo. It also lacks some of my favourites such as Spotify, BBC iPlayer and Last.fm. There’s no technical reason to doubt that these applications will eventually be ported to Maemo, however early adopters might need to beware that they might have to do without their favourite apps.

As compensation for the lack of apps, the web-browser is really good: Good enough (for example) to use the web-versions of Twitter, and BBC iPlayer. The built in multimedia conceals some pleasant surprises, such as the fact that that the it can handle high-definition DivX movie files and Ogg audio files. No other device I can think of can play all of these non-commerical formats despite the fact that they are hugely popular in the free-software world.

So is the N900 the “iPhone Killer” that everybody’s been pining for? No, and thankfully not. I think this product represents an entirely new territory for the mobile phone industry. Rather than replicate Apple’s model of a tightly controlled environment, Nokia are emphasizing openness by borrowing a strategy which has worked so well for the open-source movement. This is the most open mobile platform on the market today, and I feel that proposition alone will draw in the “core” of developers who will in turn deliver the novel applications which will usher in a wider audience.

In summary, the N900 is intuitive, responsive and a joy to use.  A true star in the Nokia family.

No doubt this Christmas, technology companies will target men with tech babble (ram, gigs, specs etc), and then try to woo women by dressing up their products in glitzy, pinked up marketing bows. This is a guide for men and women, those who are less in love with technology and more interested by what technology can do for them. Here are my Top 10 gadget buys for Yuletide.

My newest and must have gadget this Christmas is the PURE Sensia Internet radio. This elegant device looks like something from a sci-fi writer’s dream. It’s the first and last thing I touch each day.  I can listen to all the programs I have missed during the day from anywhere around the world (a bit like Sky+ but for the radio). It comes with “Apps” or “Widgets” (the new currency of the tech world) meaning I can get Facebook and Twitter on the same screen which controls my audio. PURE Digital have promised that by early next year it will be able to display web-video such as YouTube.

My second choice is the incredibly practical Nokia BH-214 Bluetooth Stereo headset. Like all Bluetooth headsets, this device means I am able to do multiple things at once such as doing the dreaded Christmas shop whilst calling the relatives at the same time and making all the necessary arrangements for the Big Day.  The great thing about this gadget is that Nokia have finally realized that people want all the flexibility of Bluetooth but with their own choice of headphones.

The iBores will hate me for saying this, but the iPhone’s reign might be drawing to a swift end with the rise of cheap Android based (alternative to Microsoft and Apple’s mobile operating system) handsets. This year’s must-have mobiles provide the Google experience in the palm of your hand but without a nasty contract to tie you in for two years. T-Mobile released their “Pulse” as the UK’s first ever PAYG Android phone without any great fanfare which is great if you decide it is not for you and you want to upgrade within a few months.

Make no mistake, the Flip Mino HD is not your dad’s camcorder. Unlike traditional camcorders which are strapped to your hand, the Mino looks and works like a “candybar” style camera-phone. The Mino’s spec-sheet makes for short reading since it aims to do very few things, but it does them very well. This emphasis on simplicity is not just for people who have difficulty with conventional video cameras – it’s for people who want a device which is instantly ready for capturing anything this Christmas from your nan snoring like a boar on the sofa to mum starting on the wine at 10am and getting slowly but surely drunk by lunchtime.  Although personally, I am not sure I want to re-live Christmas day more than once.

Dell’s new Adamo XPS is my most extravagant recommendation.  It is apparently the thinnest laptop in the world at 9.9mm and weighs only 1.4 kilos. It’s loaded with enough bling to make your Mac Pro-owning friends give it a second glance: I particularly love the sexy keyboard lock: You simply swipe your finger across a touch sensor and the mechanism opens for you. It is a joy to touch.

Even though I lust after the Adamo’s style, my preference is for something handbag-size, and this is where the ASUS EEE Seashell Netbook comes into its own. You might dismiss this as yet another Macbook Air clone, if it weren’t for the price-tag, which means you can get one for under £300. While it might not have its rival’s power or sophistication, at this price it only has to last a year for me to have obtained value for money.   This laptop is light, tough and mine has survived regular bashings from my small children.

Nokia won no friends with the flawed release of their N97. After a disappointing experience I vowed to stay well away from Nokia. That was until I experienced the new N900, the first of a new generation of Linux-based handsets. It’s got a qwerty keyboard, a great LED touchscreen and appears to be an intuitive device.

Many people will be looking forwards to receiving eBook readers from Santa.  However the most popular Kindle from Amazon is not exactly the most glamorous addition to your winter holiday suitcase. If you can wait until January you can get the oddly-named Nook by Barnes and Noble. This sleek looking device has a dual touch-screen, and, unlike Amazon’s miserly book-reader B&N will allow you to lend up to 12 of your eBooks to other Nook readers.  Great for kids too.

The iPod has dominated the music-player market for so long that it’s easy to forget that other products exist. However, the French company Archos’s Internet Media Tablet 5 claims the prize for being able to play every kind of video and audio file ever invented and makes for an easy distraction as more and more unwanted guests arrive on at your door on Christmas day.

Not every gadget lover’s gift needs to involve hardware: This year the Swedish company Spotify  launched a music service which anybody can use for free on their PCs as long as you don’t mind the occasional ad. If you pay a modest monthly subscription you can get the “premium” service which allows you to listen ad-free on any device including PC, Mac, iPhone and Android.  A welcome and surprising gift making a change from the usual socks, books and in my case, big knickers.

You can follow Belinda on Twitter:  www.twitter.com/belindaparmar

I am often asked if there is any real need to market technology to women as surely they just want the same things as men: quality, well-designed and simple products. Surely all we need to do is cut out the pink stuff and quit dumbing-down the technology.  End of story?  The short answer is no: There are some things that both men and women want, however it is far more complex and there are important differences. My latest research The Lady Geek Times Brand Survey 09 confirmed why.

Firstly, men see technology as something to be conquered whilst women see technology as something that can enhance their life.   Men are quite happy to tinker and conquer with a product for hours. Women just want things to work.   They want a clean interface, fewer frills and more substance than men.  An out of the box experience.

A few manufacturers understand this: Flip’s Mino and PURE’s Sensia are great demonstrations of perfect female design:  These products provide a clean, beautiful interface. They only do a few things but they do them very well.

Secondly, women buy technology completely different to men:

Most men research products extensively before buying. The male sales experience serves one of two purchases: Either a transactional purchase ( an exchange of money with little wanted interaction ). The other is that it is an opportunity to for bragging ( to ensure that they know more than the sales assistant ).

Women on the other hand, are often ‘reassurance addicts.’   62% of women said being reassured that they have bought the right product was really important to them.  And 40% of women do not have a brand or model in mind when shopping for tech compared to 20% of men. Women actually solicit advice from retailers (who are mostly unable to provide it).

Finally, when it comes to advertising, this is where tech companies make the worst mistakes. They only have three maladroit ways of positioning their products. The first is ‘tech porn‘ or ‘nerd jargon’ (spec, ram, gigabytes).  The second is ‘does not know what a phone is‘ (dumb technology down or disguise it) or lastly just ‘make it girly and pink” (bows, butterflies, princesses).

Women are different. Not better.  Not more intelligent.  Just different.

Vive la difference.