Archive for the 'Articles' Category

We are our choices

Published
by
belindaparmar
on August 14, 2008
in Electronics
. 0 Comments

We’ve just completed some interesting work about people’s relationship with technology.

Classical research theory assumes that our decisions are based on conscious, rational thought or reflex ’snap’ decisions. These days most psychotherapists have come to the conclusion that the truth is somewhat more complex: decisions are often post-rationalisations and snap decisions are backed up by a lifetime of knowledge.

Our client had previously spent thousands of pounds on ‘traditional’ research which failed to reveal anything substantially new. The planner, had been traveling around the country, night after night, suburb after suburb and was exhausted at the prospect of doing yet more research.

We decided to change our approach and run an ethnographic style study.  We assembled our ‘SWAT’ team of researchers, each was sent to ‘live’ with the subjects of our research: We spent time in their homes. We went shopping with couples buying technology and ‘hung out’ with families, observing their relationship with household technology.

The study revealed a great deal of new insights about how gender influences technology use, for example men often have their PC/Laptop in their ‘den’- its a retreat, its a hide out, a solace place where they can internalize ‘their’ time.  We saw how women use their PC/laptop in the heart of the home. Many women used their laptops to manage the household and ensure things run smoothly: Its used to make sure the shopping online is ordered, help the kids with their homework and keep them in touch with their friends via social networking sites.

We watched how couples shop for technology and the very different roles they take:  Women tend to be more concerned about how the device will ‘fit’ into their home.  Whether it will be a beautiful addition to the home, not just in terms of design but in functionality and ergonomics. This is a motive that so many tech-brands misinterpret as “women only care what the technology looks like“. Men tend to want to make sure that what they are buying is “right” piece of kit.  Not in terms of their home but more in terms of what it will purportedly do.

While the differences are obvious, what unifies men and women is that buying technology is an emotional decision: This does not mean that it is irrational. An emotional decision can be very rational as our feelings are informed by a lifetime of experience. As the neuroscientist, David Lewis states,

“Our conscious is a bit like a PR company.  It justifies our decisions on an intellectual level and seeks to explain behavior that feels right“

The ‘PR’ bit is what ‘respondents’ had been articulating in the focus group.  The planner told me,

“I realized that for 2 years people had been lying to us in focus groups.  Not because they deliberately set out to lie but because they either couldn’t articulate it or were too embarrassed to tell us what they really felt about buying technology”

There are 3 types of decision making.  The first type is the truly instant decision. The second type are those which appear instant but actually access our vast network of experiences, however we often refer to them as based on our ‘gut instinct.’ The last type is the mathematical way to approach them which is cost benefit analysis. Received wisdom has it that the vast majority of choices are of the first and third type, however the more I observe people in the act of making choices the more I realize that the way people shop is neither frivolous nor analytical but something in between.

As Sartre stated, we are our choices.  If only technology companies spent a little more time trying to understand why we do what we do on a deeper level, then maybe so many women wouldn’t feel so frustrated and bored when it comes to buying technology.

Ode to Nokia’s BH-503

Published
by
Sally
on July 31, 2008
in Articles and Electronics
. 3 Comments

Although we are not just a tech review site, as this is a niche well-served by thousands of opinionated man geeks whose mission is to describe tech objects in the most excruciating detail possible, I want to briefly attempt to describe the newish Nokia BH-503 headset…

Since this is just a headset, it does essentially the exact same thing as every other bluetooth headset ever made, just a little bit better and in stereo. Sounds boring eh?

What’s remarkable is not the engineering that’s gone into this product but that it’s taken the world’s finest electronic companies over three years to come up with the something that “just works”. It’s an understatement to claim that the market is flooded with crappy and non-functional bluetooth products. The overwhelming majority of Bluetooth gadgets are barely-functional trash.

This year Nokia seem to have got it right for the first time - they’ve built a headset on which I can listen to music on without annoying cut-outs. They’ve figured out that when a connection fails, the smart thing to do is automatically re-connect. They’ve managed to make a product that can withstand a few months of knock-about use without breaking.

Best of all they’ve made it so you can actually have a phone conversation a feature which previous generations of headset seemed to fail, despite arguably being the raison d’etre for a bluetooth headset.  And the best thing about this is that it liberates me to do other stuff while on the phone.

Bottom Line: It’s the first Stereo bluetooth headset I’ve owned that sounds good, does not make me look like I’ve escaped from the local mental institution, does not instantly fall-apart and is approximately as reliable as the old sort (you know the ones with wires).

Vocational Training on the Rise – Gender Segregation Remains

Published
by
elisabethkelan
on July 27, 2008
in Articles
. 0 Comments

I was very pleased to read that vocational qualifications are - according to the educational foundation EDGE - on the rise in the UK. While this is certainly a positive trend, my heart sank when I read that 36% of vocational qualifications achieved by women are in the areas of health, public services and care and only 3% in engineering and construction. It appears that the occupational segregation with men and women working in different areas of work is as strong as ever.

Why does this matter? We know that so-called women’s jobs tend to be lower paid than jobs classified as men’s jobs. More importantly for Ladygeek, women tend not to chose or to remain in technology work.

I just recently read a report by CRAC: The Career Development Organisation which stated that female IT students outperform male students academically and are as keen as men to enter IT jobs. However, despite of this, a lower proportion of women actually ends up working in IT jobs. I find it puzzling that women decide to study IT but then don’t get jobs in the IT area.

Unfortunately, the study was less conclusive in terms of why this is the case. One could speculate that women find the culture of technical education alienating. Maybe because men treat women as exotic and less able to use and create technology. To counteract this problem, in the 1980s women-only vocational courses were en vogue. The rational was that women would be encouraged by seeing other women in their course, have it easier to find role models and are in an environment where they can speak out freely. However these courses have fallen out of fashion.

So, even in cases where women decided to break gender norms and enter an area which is coded ‘masculine’ in society, they often do not end up working in technology fields. More often women do not even chose areas of study and training in which technologies are central. This means that women lose out on the opportunity to shape new technologies and add a women’s perspective to them. They miss the change to leave their fingerprint on technology.

The rise of vocational training courses in the UK is certainly laudable and important. It would be even greater if vocational training courses that challenge gender barriers in society and at work would be developed to attract women and indeed men to non-gender typical areas of work.

Honey I shrunk the Mac

Published
by
belindaparmar
on July 3, 2008
in Electronics
. 3 Comments

I’ve written about my Asus EEE. I love it. Its cute. Lilliputian. Compact. And most importantly it fits perfectly into my handbag.

The Asus EEE has taken the market by storm (PC Pro, Gizmodo). I’ve already put my order in for the next upgrade. Even Dell have recognized that the micro-laptop is the next big - their Dell E series looks like a flattering imitation of the original EEE. Dell seems to have gone all out for copying asus, even down to bundling a Linux operating system instead of Microsoft Windows which has been a compulsory feature of just about evrery Dell sold in the last ten years.

There’s even a new name for this kind of dinky laptop: “mobile internet device” or (MID):

But not everybody loves these new gadgets: One female friend of mine claimed that she loved it, but “at the end of the day, still not a mac.” I explained that it was a 10th of the price of a Mac and not ten times inferior from a performance and usability perspective. But what ever I said, I could not convince Sarah. To quote Carrie Bradshaw,

“this was not about logic, it was about LOVE.”

(cheesy quote I know but reflective of the whole film)

If ever a brand was about pure unadulterated love, its Apple. Its a the world’s 7th most valuable brand, worth a staggering $55billion. Its is a Lovemark for so many people. Sarah anthropomorphised her mac in no uncertain terms;

“My Baby is old now. Arthritis has worked her spine for a while, but she is still going strong. Her memory is remarkably good considering all the strange things I have introduced her to. I love my Baby.. I can’t be mad at her. When her metallic voice speaks out “It Is _Not_ My Fault…” all I can say is: “I know, Baby… I know. I gave you a bad command, and I’m sorry. Let’s try again.”

Whilst I agree with our CEO, people are 20% rational and 80% emotional, I am left feeling that the love for Apple seems misplaced when there are so many better or equitable products on the market.

But perhaps that’s part of the joy of owning the EEE - the technology you buy makes a statement. With the near ubiquity of Apple’s products in the creative industries, these high-end laptops are no longer about “Thinking Different” and are more a sign of conformity to cultural norms, wheras carrying around an unusual laptop, especially one which runs entirely different software marks you as an outsider. Those rival icons of computing, the Thinkpad and the Powerbook (or Mac Book) represent your tech-tribal affiliation.

I feel emotional about my Asus. I feel emotional about my Tangent Quattro Internet radio. I feel emotional about my Blackberry. But show me a better, cooler, smaller, cheaper, more useful product and I will be promiscuous. With technology changing so fast, can we afford to be loyal to one particular brand. And quite frankly is any brand (even Apple) brand deserving of such unconditional love?

Mummy, please can I have a …Blackberry?

Published
by
belindaparmar
on June 4, 2008
in Mobile Phones
. 3 Comments

I was chatting to Dominic Mcvey,the guy famous for becoming a millionaire at 15 selling scooters, and he recounted me a story of his friend’s son who is 10 years old and asked his mum for a Blackberry.  I was astonished that a ten-year old child child was even aware of what a Blackberry is.  A DS lite- yes.  A Xbox 360 naturally.  High School Musical…of course.  But a Blackberry? I’d never considered that the brand appealed strongly to the ‘tweenie demographic.

I spoke to some of my Lady Geeks who have children of a similar age - astonishingly the story was the same: all the kids love Blackberry.  For them, a Blackberry equals money which equals success. This is a reflection of what our society values.  It’s all about money and the desire to be wealthy… and the Blackberry is the tangible symbol of this desire, even for pre-teens.

This is a great for Blackberry: Their strategy has consistently been to target the ‘business professionals’ and they have not been tempted to diversify.  As Napoleon said, the essence of strategy is sacrifice. By remaining conspicuosly dis-interested in any audience other than their core they have created strong desirability outside of that audience.

Money, fame, power… blackberry?

Whilst it may leave me sad that that this is the reality of the world we live in, it’s really not so bad: When I was ten years old, the objects I desired were crappy imported toys of limited fun and value. Perhaps armed with the awesome communications power of the BB we will see a new generation of hyper-achieving mini Dominic McVey’s… come to think of it, now I know what to get my son for his 2nd birthday.

A solitary moment for two

Published
by
belindaparmar
on May 28, 2008
in Articles, Electronics, Home Entertainment, Mobile Phones and Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

As a  techno-utopian, I believe technology brings people together rather than disconnecting them.

Received wisdom would have us believe that technology breeds isolation:  I’ve lost count of the number of hysterical Daily Mail articles that warn us that computer-games are turning kids violent. As a child I was told that sitting too close to the TV would “make you go blind”. There’s a great deal of nonsense spoken about technology, and it’s often believed because many people consider technological progress to be the root evil of society.

When I think about how technology is used in my household, the HD TV is like a digital campfire which brings the whole family together to watch films, the Wii is a short burst of fun for my husband and I when the kids are in bed, Facebook connects me to a wider circle of friends that I wouldn’t have the time to see, and my mum and I listen to Woman’s Hour together on our new Wi Fi radio.

Not only is technology physically bringing people together through new shared experiences, its creating a new way of sharing an emotional experience albeit in some cases on different platforms and different devices.  The reactions and the emotions of the people with whom you are sharing the experience with is whats important.

This becomes ever more apparent with the shift towards mobile content sharing devices.   As Jan Chipchase shows with this photo of two Tokyoites - on the right of the photo engaged in the same task watching the same television program on their mobile phone each using their own device, with comments passed back and forth.   Whereas one screen can compromise the viewing experience, the same content can be shared and hence the same experience.

As technology evolves and content becomes ever more mobile (or ‘time shifting’), there are so many opportunities for companies to position technology less as something about individual glory and status but more as a shared emotional experience.  Its these kind of positioning that will capture the female heart as well as the female pound.

Is Web 2.0 pink?

Published
by
elisabethkelan
on May 23, 2008
in Articles
. 1 Comment

The Internet is according to an article in BusinessWeek going to go pink because women are apparently the hottest target market for social media.

The article’s author Auren Hoffman who is CEO of Rapleaf states that Web 2.0 is all about being social. This is supposedly more appealing to women. Rapleaf and Business Week surveyed 13.2 million people and found that more women than men are using social media.

The research found that young women are much more active on social networking sites but married men over 30 do not even seem to join social networking sites. Married women between 35 and 50, on the other hand, are the largest growth segment for social media – defying the stereotype that only young people are hooked to the Internet.

The study also claims that men’s behaviour in social media is more transactional, i.e. gathering information and making introductions, while women are more relationship oriented. This sounds like a very stereotypical view of men’s and women’s behaviour but Auren Hoffman foresees that women will increasingly be hired to engage with key audiences. The future target market for Web 2.0 applications are according to the article women.

Attracting Women or Girls?

Published
by
elisabethkelan
on May 21, 2008
in Articles, Mobile Phones and Uncategorized
. 0 Comments

The article in The Times from 20 May entitled ‘Salesmen say this Pounds 300 pink phone with its cartoon cat loved by children is aimed at women of 30. Parents fear otherwise’ written by Lilly Peel states that the pink Hello Kitty phone produced by Sanrio is targeted not at young girls but at women in their twenties and thirties. This is based on a comment by Sanrio’s sales director Caroline Preston. I wonder what market research Sanrio has done to come to this claim. The Lady Geek research Saatchi & Saatchi has conducted last year found very clearly that only 9% of women in the UK would buy ‘pinked up’ mobile phones and technical gadgets. Pink might in the end be a better colour to attract young girls than women in the UK market.

kitty phone

While the number of girl gamers is increasing, the world for women in science, technology and engineering looks more gloomy

Published
by
elisabethkelan
on May 18, 2008
in Articles and Games
. 1 Comment

A recent article suggests that the number of girls playing games has increased to 41% in Australia. The article argues - as we have pointed out many times in this blog - that stores selling video games and makers of video games are not set up to please female customers. It is really surprising that companies have not realised that almost half of their customers are female.

The study also highlighted that women playing video games in Australia are now on average 28 years old, up from 24 years. The trend suggests that games of the future are not only as likely to be male as female but also older.

The article suggests that one way of responding to the increasingly female audience of video games is through having more female game developers. The figure the article quotes for Australia is 5% while the international figure stands at 12%. The picture is similar in computer science courses at universities and colleges where women make up only about 10% in the US as an article in USA Today states.

This is supported by the fact that the few women who enter science and technology professions are also likely to drop out as a recent contribution of Silvia Ann Hewlett in the FT claimed (I will review her Harvard Business Review article here when it is published next month). Hewlett argues that as many as 52% of highly qualified women in science, technology and engineering drop out due to work pressures and a hostile environment.

The IT industry can ill afford training few women and losing them in disproportionate numbers later on. However with more women actively using technology and playing computer games, one can hope that the image of technology jobs might change slowly.

Nokia’s business anthroplogy

Published
by
belindaparmar
on May 8, 2008
in Articles, Mobile Phones and Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

Nokia wanted to find out what some of their emerging markets wanted from a mobile phone:

They asked people from Buduburam near Accra, Favela Jacarezihno in Rio de Janeiro and Dharavi in Mumbai to design their ideal future phone. Rather than use traditional focus groups they got people to sketch and design what their ideal phone might look like.

The results are amazing.  You can click here to see the slideshow.  Two interesting points.

The first is how the ideal mobile phone is so much more than a communication device to so many people. It ranged from a survival tool to a stress-coping device to an anti crime device.  For Sam, an artist from Accra, his design (in the picture above) is an all-in-one device for high-profile businesspeople or celebrities. It includes a DVD player, mini-laptop, and cable TV, and lets users stay in touch with the world, especially when they are on the road or in a remote area with no electricity.

The second point is the way Nokia designed the research.  As I have frequently noted about in my previous posts, I am not a fan of focus groups:  They tend to ask the same old questions in the same old way to the same old people. I like to see research that helps people say what they want to say rather than what a moderator prompts them to say.

In this case the results speak for themselves: Every drawing tells a rich story that explains some facet of what these new customers want from a phone and how the company might better serve their needs. It’s the human aspect of this study which is so powerful.  By getting people to sketch out their ideal phones, they found out about people’s identity, their community and heritage.

This method of research is more akin to anthropolgy than traditional market research.   Its not about collecting data, its about understanding what it feels like to be someone in a shanty town.  Advertising people need to become business anthropologists and let go of this ritual of sitting people in a darkened room with strangers and bombarding them with questions. This results of this anthropological study will transform Nokia’, that is if Nokia’s product people have as much imagination as their researchers.