This is the blog of @GearheadGal

My passion is encouraging designs and strategies that matter to consumers

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Saturday
Sep032011

This Ground Under Repair

The Consumer Matters website is undergoing a transformation. Stay tuned for updates to the site in the fall.  Thanks to all of you who have found and read our musings here. More to come.

Saturday
Jun252011

From Ubergizmo: How Far Can You Leverage A Brand?

[Excerpted from a guest post on Ubergizmo the past week.]

With the launch of an Android-based Sidekick and the close of the Danger service, can the brand recover its status as a cultural icon?

The inevitable shuttering of the Danger service earlier this month came and went without a lot of hoopla, providing an inauspicious end for the original T-Mobile Sidekick, the first truly consumer-focused smartphone. The Sidekick name was cleaved from the Danger intellectual property after the acquisition of the company byMicrosoft and the subsequent dissolution of the exclusive distribution agreement that Danger had with T-Mobile.

Earlier this year, T-Mobile, which maintained the rights to only the Sidekick name and the subscriber base, transferred the moniker to an Android-based device produced by Samsung (previous generations were made mostly by Sharp,). Built over eight major releases and six Limited Edition co-branded versions, the Sidekick name lives on as the moniker for a new mobile phone experience, and raises the question – how far can you leverage a brand?

For the rest of the post, click here.

Saturday
Jun252011

Will.i.am on Thinking Inside the Box at CM Summit

How does an artist like Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas take on a role at corporate technology giant, Intel, and maintain his personal brand as an innovative businessman? Oddly, he doesn't recommend thinking outside of the box.

Tuesday
Jun142011

Retail '11 - How Technology is Changing the Customer Experience

Holly Brown, the Chief Innovation Officer of our company, r2i, and I attended a great conference today at the University of Washington on retail management. The event was keynoted by the elusive EVP, Jamie Nordstrom.  I asked Holly to share what she thought that was the most interesting takeaway from today's discussions. Here's here answer. 

Friday
Jun032011

The D9 Swag Bag - AKA My Soon-To-Be-Favorite Things

Thursday
May122011

My Philosophy of New Product Development

"We should cultivate the ability to say no to activities for which we have no time, no talent, and which we have no interest or real concern. If we learn to say no to many things, then we will be able to say yes to things that matter most." Roy Blauss via Compendium

Tuesday
Apr122011

The Dbar is opening in Seattle!

We are entering a time in the digital landscape when most product information is already known and readily available to all potential consumers. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and other peer-to-peer communication networks have created dynamic communities of interest which inform customers about product options and influence their purchasing decisions.  The content that is created through these communities, the people that publish into them and the places where these interchanges occur are all now connected. That's why I am looking forward to this event - The Networked Consumer - How Content and Community Are Driving Commerce.

The panel brings together local digital thought leaders to discuss the conversations and innovations that are impacting consumer buying behavior and brand engagement. There will also be an interactive lab for hands-on product experiences. 

Here's the 411 for you all to come. And here is the RSVP link to the Eventbrite. Sign up now because seating is limited and it's almost 50% full already!

Where: Founders’ Co-op, South Lake Union, 511 Boren N., Seattle, WA 98109 

When: April 28th, 2011 5:30-8:00 PM

Event Moderator: Tricia Duryee, eMoney columnist, Allthingsd.com

Event Participants: James Lively, COO DIY Media, Scott Blanksteen, CEO AppStoreHQ, and Kathy Savitt, CEO Lockerz, and Jordan Williams, Digital Engagement Lead, REI.

 

Wednesday
Mar232011

A Cartoon History of Social Networking

Monday
Mar212011

Favorite Tweets Of The Day

@dannysullivan can we agree? it's not an NYT paywall, it's an idiotwall. designed by idiots to get money from idiots, the idioci. Prob will work a bit, too

@gary_hustwit "You have to systematically create confusion, it sets creativity free." Jasper Johns

The importance of storytelling RT@PeterGuber How to Make Your Career A Hollywood Blockbuster http://bit.ly/hdEgrw

Monday
Mar212011

4 Ways Verizon Can Benefit From an AT&T/T-Mobile Deal

 

Originally published on Technorati.com

The recently announced acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T, if approved, potentially vaults the second and fourth place wireless carriers into first place, with their combined subscribers tallying more than Verizon’s total subscriber number. Verizon will spend a lot to convince the government that a combined AT&T/ T-Mobile is bad for consumers and to ensure closing that deal will be no small distraction for its two competitors.

T-Mobile can’t exhale in relief just yet, as the agreement, including the billion dollar fees they’ll likely get if the deal does not go through, could be challenged in court by everyone from Nokia to Google to Comcast to Apple.

Surely, there will be a lot of time, money and effort spent on selling this deal in to the federal government, generating a lot of work for PR agencies, lobbyists, hardware vendors and consumer advocates. While AT&T and T-Mobile fight the battle on Capitol Hill, Verizon could be claiming victory on the front lines with consumers.

Here are 4 ways Verizon might capitalize on the announcement:

  1. Stay on message: Verizon’s clarity of message—it's about the network—has clearly positioned them as the most reliable consumer choice. Both AT&T and T-Mobile have suffered from the strength of Verizon’s network message in light of their own network evolution challenges (not the least of which were T-Mobile’s late arrival with 3G and AT&T’s call handling problems with the iPhone.) Staying the course with their current, well established network position will continue to serve Verizon well.
  2. Comfort confused consumers: If consumers aren’t sure who’ll own their contract two years from now, they may be loathe to sign a new agreement with ATT TMoT-Mobile. In addition, T-Mobile’s television commercials have specifically poked fun at AT&T’s network. A well-positioned message by Verizon could capitalize on customer’s sense of confusion or betrayal.
  3. Be the anti-corporate brand: Verizon has focused heavily on consumer messaging, and with its successful launch of the Envy, Chocolate and Droid brands, has shown it can build and maintain a franchise line-up of consumer focused devices. (Okay so I’m choosing to forget about the Kin because it was practically stillborn.) AT&T built a strong enterprise customer base, not just through the sale of a large portfolio of smartphone devices early in the category’s development, but also through volume pricing deals for corporate buyers. T-Mobile has a heavy consumer and Android base, and a very strong family focus, especially with its MyTouch and Sidekick brands. Verizon should continue to focus on super-messaging phones that appeal to the young and social, 'Gen C' customers, who are Droidalways  connected and communicating.
  4. Deliver service innovation: In today’s economy, it’s typical for an industry with few providers (like the airline industry, for instance) to provide much less service for more money than a few years ago. As sales automation and cloud services technology begin to drive down operational costs, Verizon can seize the opportunity to support customers in new and efficient ways, like bundling FiOS home broadband services, or packaging Gogo Inflight wireless data services on your iPad, or securely enabling physical purchases through a personal cell phone account as if it were a credit card. Given all the infrastructure and systems work AT&T and T-Mobile will be pre-occupied with to support the acquisition, Verizon, and its customers may be best served by a focus on service innovation.




Sunday
Feb272011

New Places To Go, Things To See

My friend, Holly, talks about how much she enjoys the "social serendipity" of discovering new websites or fresh ideas from her Facebook feed.  

Here are a few of my recent favorite discoveries, the home of interesting curators assembling original ideas. Add these to your app readers, your real time feeds, or like their Facebook pages.

Notcot http://notcot.com offers Ideas + Aesthetics + Amusement

Design Milk http://design-milk.com and its sister site Dog Milk http://dog-milk.com are online magazines dedicated to modern design

Doodlers Anonymous http://www.doodlersanonymous.com is the permanent home of spontaneous doodle art.

 

Sunday
Feb272011

Who Really Has Influence?

There are a million ways to measure your influence across the social web. But it seems that being the Mayor of something or having a big Klout score really doesn't define us when we want something we can't have. 

Saturday
Feb122011

How Not To Do The Social Network

GoAnimate.com: How Not To Social Network by Gearheadgal

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Saturday
Feb052011

Understanding The "Media" Part of Social Media

If you put up a website a few years ago, and thought that's all you needed to do because you don't sell direct or don't expect much more from your website than to serve as digital collateral, you are probably one of the many marketers who has also yet to develop a social strategy for driving customers to your branded online destination.

The truth is, however, that once you posted the digital assets associated with your branded URL, you became a publisher. As a publisher, you need an editorial calendar, and a distribution plan for your content that goes beyond the HTML pages associated with your domain. The plan, which extends your own properties and connects with the communities of interest where your customers congregate, must thoughtfully design and inject digestible content bits into the social web which place your brand, products and services into the sometimes temporal but influential conversations that occur before someone considers making a purchase.

 

Monday
Jan242011

5 ways social media will change your marketing plan

First published in iMedia Connection

Article Highlights:

  • Campaign ideas will be deconstructed into smaller, more digestible messages
  • Applications will continue to adapt to user behavior, leading to hyper-personalization
  • User-generated content will influence marketing strategy

Reputation and relationship management skills are foundational to architecting an effective customer development strategy for both B2B and B2C enterprises; this will be acutely true in 2011. No longer just the responsibility of a community manager, social communication will be integrated into service and support experiences, product, point of sale, and commerce solutions. Because official spokespeople are no longer the sole purveyors of your company's message, social channels can be counted on to accelerate and amplify the conversation between customers and brands. Look for the following trends to drive changes to integrated marketing plans in the year ahead... read more here

Sunday
Jan232011

Favorite Tweets of the Day

@businessinsider iOS Is Half Of New Enterprise Mobile Activations http://www.businessinsider.com/ios-enterprise-2011-1#ixzz1BvON9rD2

@greatestquotes "You just can't beat the person who won't give up." - Babe Ruth

Blogging is the democratization of publishing via @jeffbullas 

Fascinating piece by @: Identity and The Independent Web via @
Sunday
Jan232011

Marketing in the Age of Social Media

I enjoyed this presentation by Edward Boches (@edwardboches), Chief Creative Officer at Mullen, recently named #3 in Ad Age's A List. So, naturally, I thought I'd share it.

Sunday
Jan092011

CES 2011 Video Moments

I hope you enjoy these two video montages of the sites and sounds of CES. It's a visual and auditory mashup, but so is walking around the show floor.

And, just in case you think it's all glam and glitter at CES, please see my post on Technorati, Ten Things I Hate About CES.

Sunday
Jan092011

Can America Become The Comeback Kid?

If you ask the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association what America needs to do to become as great as it used to be, he'll tell you the answer lies in two words - support innovation.

Gary ShapiroGary Shapiro, head of the organization that annually mounts the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, believes America's position as a global superpower has been diminished by the federal government's immigration, education, broadband and tax policies which have dimmed our entrepreneurial spirit.

Shapiro feels so passionate that the country needed a strategic turnaround plan, he says he almost named his new book simply "The Plan." In an interview on the verge of opening the 2011 trade show to tout his short treatise "The Comeback, How Innovation Will Restore The American Dream," Shapiro said, "I created a SWOT analysis for the country, and evaluated our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats."

The CEO of the CEA was steadfast in his interest in speaking about long range vision, and was committed to the perspective that his job is to focus on federal policy. Downplaying the impact of the state government's role in fostering innovation, maintaining employment levels or managing immigration at our borders, Shapiro suggested that the economic situation California has gotten itself into is a local business issue that gets sorted out through competition among states for jobs and business. "Other states win when California makes bad decisions," Shapiro remarked. Despite insistence that innovation starts with federal policy, in his book, Shapiro compares the financial woes of California to the economic implosion of Greece.

Read more: http://technorati.com/technology/article/ces-can-america-be-the-comeback/#ixzz1AaSFwU00