Lady Geek has been anticipating the launch for the Xbox 360 Kinect with our founder Belinda Parmar reporting on Channel Four News  and Lady Geek’s Relationship Manager (moi) at the launch party.

Held at the National History Museum’s Ice rink with performers such as the incredible Leona Lewis and Britain’s new boy band The Wanted, Xbox 360’s launch of the Kinect was a great way to get the show going.

After seasonal mulled wine and wobbly yet graceful laps round the ice rink I got to try out the brand new Kinect. Result: I’ve added Kinect to my Christmas wish list… (hint hint Santa).

Not only is the Kinect’s accurate detection of players’ movements impressive (including celebratory fist pumps in the air) the console warns you when you get too close to the device and TV screen. So unlike Nintendo’s Wii, which had to bring out safety straps to stop controllers careering into TV screens and people’s faces; the Kinect allows you to maintain your enthusiastic volley ball slam dunks and pumping dance moves without the fear of smashing your brand new HD TV.

There are a range of games to choose from, all incorporating lively gestures without a controller, making the experience more sociable and fun than any other console. What’s more the Kinect records your moves, so if prancing about trying to look like a professional dancer wasn’t embarrassing enough, after each game you get to see film clips of your moves on screen.

Ah well there’s always room for improvement –  Diversity better watch out.

To watch Belinda Parmar on Channel Four News see below…

Belinda Parmar on Channel Four News

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I’ll be speaking at Heroes of the Mobile Screen on Dec 7th at the BFI SouthBank which is taking an in-depth look at what’s really going on in the world of mobile.

Its going to be a fantastic event with speakers and panelists from across the globe including Doug Richard, serial entrepreneur, from the TV series Dragon’s Den.

Uniquely the event also has secondary school pupils, college students and other members of the same generation, to tell the industry what they want from their mobile, what they expect from their network operators and what’s most important to them in terms of their mobile life.

The event is run by the same team (which includes the inspiring and charming Helen Keegan) that brings you Mobile Monday London, Swedish Beers, Future of Mobile, Over The Air, Mobile 2.0 and Tech Media Invest.

Tickets are available online now for £99 (ex VAT and booking fee).

You can register your interest in Heroes of the Mobile Screen by:

Checking out the website: http://mobileheroes.net/

Become a fan on Facebook

Following on Twitter: @hotms

I would love to see you there.

I have been a bit slow getting all the press coverage of Lady Geek up onto the site.  So here’s the latest piece in the Times featuring Lady Geek.

The Management Today pieces to follow soon…

The Lady Geek seminar in Finland got excellent press coverage, once again highlighting the universality of the challenge for tech companies when targeting women. The two major business papers wrote a 2-3 pages story on the subject (and yes as you can see took a dreadful photo of me) and the press release by the Finnish News Agency was quoted in most of the Finnish newspapers, radio and web with over 2000 hits with the Google search term “naiskuluttajaa ei houkutella teknopornolla” “Tech Porn does not attract female consumer”

‘There’s a real opportunity here for brands and retailers in the consumer electronics sector to target women. They told us loud and clear that they do not want diamante encrusted mobile phones and baby pink DAB radios. Our aim is to get clients to think differently about how they develop, distribute and market products to women.’

Here is the full press release..

The Spectator highlights my Lady Geek findings this week.  Its a good article written by a talented journalist Amelia Torode.   Amelia talks of what women want from technology: style and simplicity.    I totally agree that women have little desire to to spend time working out technology.  We just want the damn thing to work.  Men have much more of a battle with technology.  Whilst my husband can spend hours tinkering with our new PVR (which is VERY complicated in my view- bring back TIVO) and telling me about all the great features it has, I just want to know if its recorded Ugly Betty.   Lets hope the men listen up to Amelia’s advice.

Although not directly related to Lady Geek, people might find the article Still too few women (FT, 22 October 2007) on gender in management education and the article Developing world cracks glass ceiling (The Guardian, 15 October 2007) on gender stereotypes across the world of interest.

“One final thought. Please, for the next five years at least, lose the pink. Pink has become a cliche: make it pink and bingo, that’s the woman thing taken care of.” -Kevin Roberts, chairman of Saatchi & Saatchi world-wide, writing in the NZ Herald.

I agree with Kevin about the over-reliance on traditional research. Much of the qual research done today is similar to the 1950′s, where you take your ‘respondent’ and stick them in a focus room, and the women feels like an experiment. The way to find the truth is to stand next to the till while a women is multi-tasking with her two children, husband on the phone and trying to find her purse. You end up hearing whats going on in her life, not whats going on in your store.

A short but sweet article in last week’s campaign, but I think Campaign should go into a lot more depth into the way technology and gaming is currently marketed to women if we are really to make a change. Campaign are well placed to raise this issue given their status as advertising’s most widely read mag, lets hope this is the start of an interesting debate on advertising to women.
Campaign, 14th Sept

Belinda Parmar says: “There’s a real opportunity here for brands and retailers in the consumer electronics sector to target women. This group of women told us loud and clear that they do not want diamante-encrusted mobile phones and baby pink DAB radios. Our aim is to get clients to think differently about how they develop, distribute and market products to women.” -Marketing Week, 10th Sept 2007