the science of product design

Did you know this is called a Taraxacum?

Ever made a wish and blown on a dandelion when you were a kid?
Or soccer kicked one out of frustration (or joy)?
I stopped doing that when I found out that the weed was  a nuisance to gardeners and what I was doing was helping the weed proliferate.

Whether you know it or not, plants reproduce in two broad categories: making a lot of seeds and investing very little energy into making them or making one seed and investing all your energy into making them.

People say you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket; but clearly, Mother Nature thinks it's a fairly good idea.

The dandelion (if you've guessed it) employs the first method. It makes a ton of seeds and hopes that at least one of them will make it to a full plant later on. Kinda like cell phone manufacturer Nokia. In their heydays, Nokia had a huge cell phone portfolio producing inexpensive cell phones that proliferated the market.
However, due to their late entry into the smart phone arena, their strategy started shifting.
They churned out phones less and less frequent.
As with plants, if your reproductive strategy is to devote a lot of resources into making one offspring, that offspring better have a high chance of survival.
In this analogy, the cell phone that you produce better be a game changer. Or else the resources put into it will have considered been wasted.

Another case in point is RIM. As much as my patriotism demands me to sing praises for the Waterloo, On-based company, they did screw up quite a few times in the past.
Their strategy route is a mirrored opposite to Nokia's.
They were successful with pushing out well-designed corporate phones one a fairly regular basis (by no means often though). Focusing on designing the phones and the software and enterprise compatibility.
Then the Torch happened.
There was so much potential. It was touted as Blackberry's best phone, the game changer.

But it was a bit of a let-down.
Sluggish sales had a pronounced effect on the company's stock (Aug 2010 news).
Then earlier this year, with the introduction of the LG and Samsung phones, it only compounded the problem because these phones gained market share mostly at the expense of RIM.

However, there is a sliver of hope on the horizon (a silver lining if you will).
RIM recently announced the introduction of SEVEN (yes, 7!) new phones.
Read here.

With this, hopefully they can keep up with the competitors and churn out more phones within a fiscal year.
This will help them turn the company around and regain their North American market leader position that they lost to Apple in the smart phone arena.

The take home message is:
Figure out which reproductive strategy you will employ.
Each has its advantages and disadvantages; so choose carefully.

Make sure the strategy aligns with your market position and brand image.
For example, Nokia was "everyone's phone" so they produced a lot of products. They were the market leaders in the cell phone era which afforded them certain luxuries such as economies of scale.
Later, the sparse product launches did not fit very well with their market position and brand image. Soon people forgot about their phones in favour of newer cooler phones. Nokia was then swept away by the competition.
Nowadays forever relegated to commoner status. Sad.

Any how, I've been sitting on this article for way too long.
Publishing it without rereading it.

Just because I can. =P

How about some mango? How about no...kia?

This is a part anecdote and a part about marketing.

Beautiful picture from the Mango page on wikipedia.

So I found out I'm allergic to mangoes a few months ago. I've never been allergic to it my whole life leading up to this event.
The story goes:
One day, feeling a bit healthier than usual, I went and made a mango vanilla chocolate banana protein shake.
I out everything in except the mango (because I haven't peeled it yet). As I finish peeling the mango and proceeded to eat the middle part that I can't dice up (the seed part), I felt an itch in my eye. I did what any normal human being without a mango allergy would do and scratched my itching eye with my unwashed hands (dropping with mango juice).
I then took the bus and went to school for my routine without.
Unbeknownst to me, while I was napping on the bus, my eyes started to swell. By the time I arrived at school, my eye swelled up as if I'd been in a fight (also seemed like I got beaten pretty badly).
And kids, that's how I found out I'm allergic to mango.
What does this have to do with marketing? Nothing.

But thank you for indulging me there.
Now onto the marketing bit.

About half a year ago (give our take), Nokia found a new CEO in Steven Elop. This was a pivotal moment in the company's history because it was his role to steer the back on track. At the early stage of his new job, he delivered a brutally honest speech about the company's failing state and tried to address what he thought to be the main reason why Nokia went from global market leader to a failing business. This was the famous burning platform memo. You can read it here. The main analogy was a man standing on a burning offshore oil rig. The decision to change and improve the company was liken to the man's decision to stay on the rig and wait for rescue, or plunge into the freezing waters of the ocean and not burn to death along with the rig. From the company's decision to forgo their prized and beloved (newly-developed) operating system, Meego, to marry Microsoft and their Windows 7, they decided to take a leap of faith. But did they jump too early?
There are some arguments for and against.

First of all, was Meego really that bad?
This guy didn't think so. And generally I agree with him.
I don't wanna cover the same points he did, but I'll say a few things:
- Yes it was resource-demanding to maintain the upkeep (MTG reference ftw) of the department, but pay off can be huge.
- Building an entire ecosystem for the phone is not an overnight thing
- Perhaps developers aren't flocking to your system because they see the lack of support for it in the future (should adopt the "if you build it they will come" philosophy)
- From what I gather from the reviews, people actually like the Meego phones

Second, why Microsoft?
At the time, Windows 7 was horrible. Only recently, with the Mango iteration did users and critics praise the software mogul. Could they have foreseen this? Perhaps.
But really, at least keep your options open and have Android in your portfolio as well!
Most of the top mobile manufacturers own a wide option of operating systems (LG, Samsung, Motorola); maybe Nokia should do the same, make Meego phones, Symbian, and MS 7 Mobile.

Feed the crowd.
Nokia is actually doing a great job with this. They started with the design and continued on with the open SDK to developers on the Meego platform. What Nokia has to do right now is incentivize the development project.
Perhaps a contest? Funding for the developer's next project (on the order of 1000's of dollars). Or even give exclusive Nokia freebies (perhaps a customized Meego phone for bragging rights).
Key is, the people who are willing to spend their time to dabble in this are probably not looking for traditional forms of compensation, so find out what they want and provide it as an incentive to them when they build the system.

However, the main thing is: Nokia still hasn't addressed their issue.
The problem at Nokia wasn't because of the a horrible OS (okay partially it's due to a horrible OS), but it's because of their lack of focus on the smartphone arena - they missed the ride on the wave.
When they decided to play catch-up, they're not churning out smartphones as quickly and efficiently as their competitors. Even when they do launch a phone, their phone's qualities aren't on par with the benchmarks set by others (OS, ecosystem, features etc).

I really hope Nokia does better. Because when it does, hopes of picking Meego back up is exponentially higher. With their own operating system, Nokia will be able to better differentiate itself in the market.
There's very little Nokia can do right now to turn the Meego project around (especially after being so adamant about dropping it). It's also too little, too late with the marriage with Microsoft.

I think the best analogy is: Nokia's boat has a hole in it and is filling up with water quick. Microsoft was left behind at the shore. Out of desperation, Microsoft jumped onto Nokia's boat (their boat was close by and convenient since it was leaking and didn't get too far away from the shore). In the end, the hole isn't patched up. They're both still sinking.
Sad.
Unfortunate.
Fall of a giant.

/gg no re

turning up the heat

Let's face it, most of you probably came to this post because of this picture:

Snagged this screen cap from Sports Illustrated's website. Check it here.

The old adage of marketing/advertising: sex sells.
But I'm not here to discuss this.
I'm here to discuss how cinematographers clearly captured and created a new market for superhero films that are adaptations from comic books.

Case in point is Thor.

I'm a big fan of comic books. Although I didn't read them much when I was a kid, I know most of the (popular) superhero's stories. So when I knew the movie Thor was on the silver screens as a lead up to assembling the Avengers, I had to go see it.
My older sister, and my female cousin were very eager to see the movie as well. All for a different reason.
You see, they aren't fans of the genre at all. They are, however, fans of good-looking men.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I present to you: exhibit A

Snagged this one here.

This is truly expanding the market and exposing the brand to people that they would otherwise have been missed. The two fanatical females would never have went to watch this movie under normal circumstances. However, their change of heart is wholly due to a conveniently placed scene in the trailer (that is rather revealing).

They are doing something similar with the Green Lantern movie.
Ryan Reynold, voted as 2010 Sexiest Man Alive, is the male lead in this movie.
Him as an actor, in a word, sucked.
But hey, he pulls in the box office numbers.
I think his physical attractiveness is probably the only reason why he was cast for this movie.
Regardless, it seemed to do the trick for Thor so it should translate to Green Lantern.

On the same note though, Subaru did an amazingly clever marketing campaign on the theme of sexiness.
Check it:
www.sexysubaru.com

Check it here.

This ironic ad was creative and eye-catching. Honestly cannot unsee some of the things Subaru showed me. But the brand is forever impressed and burned into my head.
The comedic, fun factor was extremely high. Political correctness was okay.
Did you know, sumo wrestlers were considered sex icons in Japan?

Oh btw, I do follow sumo wrestling, so I'm not making fun of them.

Another creative use of sex appeal is godaddy.com ads.
I personally don't like some of their innuendos so I will not give examples of their ads.
But they do pique interest and get their job done. I'm sure a ton of traffic is siphoned into their site each time their ads are aired.

I also like the recent Bud Light commercials. At the same time, I don't like how they exploit human emotions (more on this later).

Anyways, point is, using sex appeal has been done over and over again. Take a pointer from Subaru, the comic book movies and even godaddy.com and come up with some cleverer and refreshing.

You can probably tell there's a diminishing effort to write this as the article progressed... That's because it's late and I'm tired. Bear with me.
Once I'm rested and fully recovered from this cold, I'll be churning out better quality articles.

Stay busy.

unlimited power!

One of my favourite internet meme:

The Star Wars wiki is awesome. Check it out.

UNLIMITED POWER!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiCznGaex2c

Okay, there is a strong relevance to this post.
In that movie the balance of power of the light side and the dark side becomes strangely disturbed.
A similar tipping of the balance of power between consumers and the big corporations happened a few years back. That is of course only possible with the advent of web 2.0.
No longer do the big corporations, with their big wallets, push ideas and concepts into the consumers' minds through advertising. The ball is now in our courts (so to speak). Let's not fumble or turn it over.

Web 2.0 enables users to create and edit content. Things such as blogs, comments, and product reviews were born. These and many more, combine to give the consumers the power to express their opinions about the big corp's products.

Think about it, when you make a big purchase decision, how would you gather your information?
Often our search for information about our purchase is a mixture of online search, close friends'/relatives' recommendations and opinions, information from advertisement, and what is readily available at the store.
But back in the days, online search wasn't an option. Especially those handy dandy customer review websites. Or those blogs about the product you're looking at.

Yea, now we can form our own opinions about the products. Companies that make inferior products will be exposed extremely quickly through the blogosphere and customer reviews.

Consumers now can take advantage of this technology to make more informed choices.
But this is also advantageous for the big corps.

First thing is transparency.
To avoid negative stigma, being transparent with communication is key.
Remember back a few years there was a scandal about manufacturers of certain electronics hiring people to write positive (biased) reviews?
This creates distrust. Distrust is bad when these are the people buying your products and, in the end, paying your salaries.

Next, you should encourage more feedback from your customers.
Provide incentives for your customers to provide these reviews.
This adds to the perception that you've got nothing to hide, which will inspire more confidence in your products.

With the encouragement to provide feedback, you've gotta make these reviews accessible and easy-to-do. No point in having a ton of positive reviews when no one can access them. As well, if the process of posting reviews is overly convoluted, people won't do it.

Product reviews and other web 2.0 tools can be leveraged by the consumers and companies. Use them wisely.

Writing this while having a migraine wasn't easy.
I hope you have more fun reading it than I had writing it.

EDIT
There's a point I failed to make during the first seating at writing this.
Consumers, do keep in mind that the reviews are usually on either extremes of the spectrum. That's because the people motivated to take the time to write a product review are usually either extremely satisfied with their purchase or extremely dissatisfied with their purchase.
Hardly ever will you find reviews that are treading along the lines of moderation.
(Obviously you'll bump into them on occasion)
Point is, when doing your research through product reviews take all the reviews with a grain of salt and use common sense.
If you encounter all 10/10 reviews, that means the product is very good on average.
If you see five 10/10's and one or two 1/10, that means the product is good on the average but there are some minor flaws.
etc

Oh and do look for the reviews that point out what people don't like and what they do like. Chances are you'll care about one or two of those things and perhaps have to make concessions on those due to budget/technology restraints.

Moral of the story...
Consumers: don't believe 100% word-for-word the reviews out there.
Corporations: be more transparent and encouraging with honest reviews.

Spaceships, subways and sexy alternative revenue

So, when we think of innovations I really just mean Apple.

I mean c'mon, they started by building personal computers and forayed into person media players and now, they're building a spaceship in Cupertino!
That's moving forward. That's innovations.
Check out the spaceship pics:

Check out MSN Money here.

Check out Afterdawn.com here.

Check out geekygadgets.com here.

If this is any indication of Apple products to come, or their ambitions in the market, then it's safe to say that we're all doomed - Apple is planning to take over the world. All hail our cyborg overlord Steve Jobs (I think he'll get some cybernetic implants to prolong his life in the near future).

Introducing the iSteve:

Snagged this shooped here.

It just works! It's purely magical! This will revolutionize everything, again!

Jokes aside, when we think innovations, we often conjure up images of revolutionary products and cool new technologies. What if innovations can come in creating alternative revenue models?
Actually innovation can mean anything from a new product, method or idea. No, really!
As a Torontonian, subway delays seems like a daily occurrence (back when I worked downtown). What helped me endure the ubiquitous delays was my iPod Touch with its cornucopia of apps and games. Often though, I sensed something was missing - my connectivity to the outside world through cell phone and wifi.
Wouldn't it be amazing if you can Skype out a call while in the tunnels?
Or tweet about that large guy that's leaning on you while he's sleeping and snoring (this actually happened to me so it's not a stereotype)?
Or email to the office when you're running late?
Oh the joys of having internet access on the go.
But often, because a major part of an average Torontonian's "on the go" means underground, this is impossible.

Snagged this from CityTV's website, visit them here.

Enter my proposed alternative revenue model!
If Bell or one of the major telecoms can partner up with the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission, for those not native to this region of the True North Strong and Free) to set up access points along the subway tunnels there is serious money to be made here.
Imagine a subscription model.
TTC pays the telecom for its service and use of its infrastructure. Then the TTC charges a small monthly subscription fee that may or may not be subsidized based on metropasses (monthly/weekly transit pass). For example, if you purchase monthly passes then you will be eligible for internet access within the tunnels for the period of the metropass (or a discounted subscription fee during that period).
This encourages people to purchase metropasses as well as an extra source of revenue for the commission.

Suppose the ad model:
Before gaining full access to the internet users must go through a EULA sort of page and accept the terms and conditions. During that time, users will also be exposed to one ad. This can be an ad through the telecom or through the TTC. Either way, the infrastructure will be paid for.
If only the telecom gets the money, what's in it for the TTC?
Well, increased customer satisfaction for one. Easing the stress and frustration of riders while they are stuck in a tunnel without any means of communication with the outside would is a huge plus for them.

These are rough ideas and haven't given too much serious thought process to. If I spend some time to refine this idea, it will probably be much, much better. For now, the concept is there.

Let me know what you think about this.
If you like the idea, please leave a comment below and send it to your friends.

Oh btw, TTC if you're reading this:
Please train the operators of the trains and buses better!
Jerky subway and bus rides are not good. Especially when you're surfing the internet on the phone.
I appreciate the operators driving fast, but I do not appreciate them stopping just as fast/suddenly.
Almost killed myself this one time even while I was holding onto something!

Note: I am always courteous to TTC operators, most of them are really nice people.

and then there were four

Pretty Telus birds.

I've been using wireless mobile internet for the past 3 months in Canada. Although I shouldn't complain because I can still access my data connection inside buildings (unlike some of our unlucky AT&T cousins down south), but sometimes information just doesn't load at the speed you wish it did.
Within the telecommunications industry in Canada there's a battle for supremacy going on. The three major players, Bell, Rogers, and Telus, are vying for the top dog position. The temporary alliance of Bell and Telus drew first blood in the advertising department when they won a lawsuit against Rogers over their claim of being the fastest and most reliable network (too lazy with the research this is the best you're gonna get in terms of outside info). With Bell and Telus' HSPA+ network, it's easy to see why the courts sided with Telus on this one (didn't find something on this one, so you'll have to take my word for it).
But that's all old news.
Recently I came across a rather interesting billboard ad:

Along the DVP in Toronto.

Zoomed in.

Btw, those pictures took forever to upload.

I guess Telus drew first blood with the advertising as well!
Though through the grapevine, I hear Rogers will be rolling out LTE in 2012.
(In Mr. Bean's voice) It's a race!
I'm really looking forward to using the 4G network in Canada. Small businesses and power users will definitely reap the benefit of a faster mobile connection, especially with the utility, functionality and power of modern smartphones.
Imagine being able to respond to email purchase orders. Download and work on invoices and order sheets on the go. Connect with vendors and suppliers simultaneously through video. Ah, the possibilities.
Of course, this is an absolute nightmare for the average employee (being tethered to office work even on the go), but this will be a dream-come-true for the entrepreneur looking to increase his or her control of the flow business and increase efficiency.
Imagine doing all that at a blazingly (I made up that word) fast speed.

So in the battle of telecoms, it's a war of attrition between the big 3 (speaking of which it was a disappointing loss yesterday, Miami). Let's see who actually gets to roll out LTE first. Because it's always good to be first.

That is, of course, unless you're a rat; the second rat gets the cheese.

a rose by any other name

A rose by any other name wouldn't be called a rose.
What's in a name anyways?
Apparently, a lot.
Especially when you are marketing a consumer product. There are some really stupid names out there. So whether you're downing the Pocari Sweat, or getting Ayds (pronounced "AIDS"; because everyone loves "getting Ayds") sometimes it just misses the mark.

But honestly this has got to be the worst EVER name.
Introducing: TrekStor's iBeat Blaxx!
(fyi: pronounced I beat blacks)

Picture from cnet.com, visit them here.

Of course, it was later renamed to TrekStor Blaxx.
And of course, being a German company, a worse names till would be iBeat Juz (fyi: pronounced I beat Jews). OF COURSE, I'm not making light of the Holocaust nor am I anti-semantic (in fact, I used to work for a wonderful Jewish man).

Here's a tip for future product/brand managers:
English, being the current number 1 international language for business, is important. So make sure your product names and brands, when translated, are culturally acceptable. It pays to hire a native speaker with in-depth cultural knowledge to tweak the brand and product names. Even hiring a random college/university undergraduate from the States or Canada would suffice (and you don't even have to pay them that much because they're basically starving; literally and figuratively in the professional-experience sense).

Google translator is not your best friend, nor is that intern who claims to be proficient in English.
Chances are that intern or the translator would screw up and give you Engrish instead of English.

If your company doesn't usually give product names (I'm looking at you Panasonic televisions department - Panasonic Viera TC-P50VT25, what a mouthful), use product nicknames! I think giving product nicknames as common names for specific models is great. In the Panasonic example I gave, the Viera VT25 would be so much nicer. Although it's not an official name, it does help people refer to that particular model much easier.
Besides, it's easier for consumers to remember and recall the brand when considering the purchase. This aids in the consumer's information search phase in the purchase cycle.


Lastly I want to draw your attention to the EOS Rebel series from Canon. Their Canadian celebrity endorsement choice was brilliant. Choosing Avril Lavigne, Canadian punk/rock artist, was a good choice. Especially with her rock-star and fun-loving rebellious attitude. It really complements the casual and against-the-norm notion of the entry-level dSLR camera (this was back when dSLR are mythical semi-professional to professional grade equipment).

Snagged this here. Not sure where she got the picture from though.

Take in the subtle beauty and look of defiance in those eyes.
















I'm in a writing frenzy. We'll see if I can churn out another post before I sleep tonight.