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Why a Woman’s Femininity is her Strength

Featured in Huffington Post and Fast Company

 

I’ve written about the lack of women working in technology<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belinda-parmar/women-technology-jobs_b_1120068.html>, and the problems the imbalance can cause for those women that do make up the 17% of the industry. But it can sometimes feel like we don’t hear enough about the success stories, the Remarkable Women leading the way and paving the way for the next generation.

Recently I was lucky enough to talk to Lee Epting, Content Services Director at Vodafone. After starting in mortgage lending, Lee landed a job with a telecommunications company and hasn’t looked back during a long successful career in technology. But how has she felt working as a woman in a man’s world? Does she feel – like many women I’ve spoken to – that she has to sacrifice femininity in order to achieve strength in the workplace? At the end of the day, does Lee have to put on a “man suit” and play by men’s rules?  On the contrary.

‘For me the strength that a woman has is her femininity. I have often found that being a woman has often given me the opportunity for growth – I often find I can get better airtime as a woman because I am often unique in the room. I think we should celebrate the uniqueness – I do communicate differently because I’m a woman.’

 

The key to making diversity count is adaptability – Lee says that you need to learn how to get your message across in different ways depending on the audience. She will communicate in different ways depending on the gender, race or age of who she’s talking to.

 

Her philosophy is that technology will only fully benefit from the experience of women if it lets them be themselves. Refreshingly she acknowledges that many men and women do work differently, and that this is something that should be embraced rather than ignored. ‘Tech can benefit from the more emotional approach that women can bring.’

 

I was intrigued to find out what she makes of one of the key culprits in the male/female imbalance – a 2010 study by Intellect found that 84% of women they surveyed in technology companies believed that not enough was being done to encourage women to return after maternity leave.’ Lee believes there are solutions.

 

‘There is always that moment where you consider as a new mother whether or not to go back to work. We are talking to our colleagues in Egypt who have started to implement some interesting programs. Mothers who have come back from maternity now have access – at their place of work – to discounted ‘meals to go’ at the end of their day. It just makes their daily chores that bit easier. It’s been very well received’. If more initiatives like this were introduced to make new mothers feel welcome back at companies we may well see a decline in the so-called ‘leaky pipeline’ of female tech employees. She also believes more subtle initiatives could make a huge difference – ‘We need to create programs that support women’s growth. Give women a clearly defined path showing how they’ll progress in a company.’ If women know where they are going they are more likely to keep heading down the path.

 

So where will the next generation of Lady Geeks come from? Lee says we need to combat tech’s geeky image before anything else, instead making it accessible and fun: ‘To make technology cool for young girls it comes down to how and what brands we associate ourselves with – it comes down to the content. Technology can allow a girl to fulfil her dreams because basically there’s nothing in the world that isn’t going to be digital or isn’t already digital in some capacity.’ To get girls interested in technology we need to get across the message that it can help them do – and be – anything they like. They don’t need to change themselves.

It’s amazing to see woman in Lee’s position advocating strong, feminine behaviour at the top of the technology industry. As companies start to grow more receptive to the needs of women – be they eleven year old girls or new working mothers – we need to celebrate women’s femininity.

It’s a great time to be a woman.

Why Don’t Girls Want Careers in Technology?

This week I was lucky enough collect an award at Red Magazine’s Hot Women Awards 2011 which celebrates= successful women in industry. What made the experience all the more rewarding was being able to spend some time with a group of women at the top of their fields. We even got to shake hands with Sam Cam.

 

I was particularly pleased to chat to two women who are leading the charge for female technology innovators everywhere: Cary Marsh, who founded MyDeo, and Kate Burns, the outgoing Senior Vice-President of AOL Europe and former head of Google UK. Both are smart, impressive women who have trail-blazed their way to the very top of the tech industry and should serve as inspiration to all aspiring Lady Geeks out there.

Yet while their progress is heartening, it only puts into perspective the uphill struggle women face in an industry where only 18% of employees are female (e-skills uk). The passing of Steve Jobs last month made me wonder how long it will be before a woman reaches the same exulted status. Jobs, Gates, Zuckerberg, Page and Brin, Bezos: all the technology giants of recent years are men.

Of course questions need to be asked as to what the industry needs to address the imbalance, and first instinct is to assume that, like many things, it’s merely too used to being one big boys club. But I believe the problem goes deeper than that.

These days just as many women as men count themselves as tech users (see my previous blogs) and teenage girls and teenage boys have almost identical internet usage statistics. Yet when it comes to careers boys are five times more likely to go into technology (ComputerWorld). Why is this? At what point are we losing our girl geeks to other industries?

The problem is largely one of perception. Girls tend to want careers that lean towards what they deem as ‘creative’ – advertising, PR and publishing all remain popular choices. Why should they take an interest it tech when all that’s on offer for a teenager is a choice between an Information Technology class (spreadsheets, databases, powerpoints, zzzzzsorry what were you saying?) – and a games console at home (made by boys, played by boys). It’s seen as nerdy, dull and – dare I say it – male.

Frustratingly those of us in the tech world know that it can be one of the most creative places a person can work. Instead of boring them to death we should be introducing our young women to exciting cutting edge skills like coding, software development and games design at an early age and showing them that a career in technology is more about creating and building than it is about number crunching. Only then will we start to see a much needed influx of bright young women in the industry.

Until there is a real overhaul of the relationship between tech and women from childhood on up then the Carys and Kates of this world will remain an endangered species. There is a huge opportunity to make sure our daughters and young girls are creators and leaders of technology as well as consumers.

It’s a great time to be a woman.

Belinda Parmar is the founder of Lady Geek TV. Please join the Lady Geek campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches towards women in tech and Like us on Facebook (image in post by Joana Pereira).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1)    Don’t pink it and shrink it

The cardinal sin of marketing towards women is to ‘pink it and shrink it’. The woefully misguided approach goes something like this. Take a perfectly decent product, give it a marshmallow Barbie paint job and miniaturise it so it fits perfectly into tiny female hands. Ta da! Women friendly. We’re bound to love it, right? What makes things even worse is that the tech spec on ‘female orientated’ models often falls short of the ‘male’ counterparts. It’s not the colour of a product that entices us, it’s the sleek design quality.

 

2)    There’s no need to overtly target us

There’s no point trying too hard to push exclusively to women, we’ll see right through it. Take time understanding us like you would on any other demographic, but please don’t over-egg the pudding. Just because we’ve got breasts doesn’t mean we have special needs. We’re different but don’t want to feel we’re that different.

Far too many products are rammed down our throats yelling ‘Look at me! I’m being relevant to women! Here come the girls! It’s patronising, it’s ineffective and often quite alienating. A subtler, more nuanced approach is always far more success commercially.

 

3)    An emotional connection is a big selling point

Studies have proven that women are likely to form more of a lasting emotional attachment to products, and campaigns that make an effort to engage with this often prove to be very successful.

A great recent example is John Lewis’ beautifully executed advert ‘She’s always a woman to me’, which whizzes the viewer at highspeed through seventy years of a woman’s life. The reason this advert works so well is not only that it’s beautifully executed – which it is, heart achingly so– but that it also promotes a strong, enduring attachment to a reliable brand.

 

4)    Too much choice is no choice at all

Many men might be perfectly happy to sift through mountains of information in order to find out whether one little black box is slightly better than another little black box, but most women are overwhelmed by choice. If a product is a hassle to buy then we will cease to care about it.

So having a hundred near-identical products in the market can be a real turnoff: we don’t want choice, we want the right choice. We want to know that a product does what it’s supposed to and is obviously at the top of its field. We don’t have time to find a diamond in the rough.

 

5)    Entertain, don’t educate

Don’t try and use statistics to teach us that we need something. Instead, show us why we need it, how it can benefit our lives preferably in a way that’s entertaining, fun and engaging. I’m much more likely to warm to a product if it’s marketing does not preach, but has surprised me or made me laugh.   Top Gear is a great brand that has made cars acessible to men and women by entertaining them.

 

And if all fails, call the Lady Geeks to help you understand women.

image by Joana Pereira

@belindaparmar is the founder of @LadyGeekTV. Please join the Lady Geek campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches towards women in tech and Like us on Facebook.

Should Women Act Like Men to Get On?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture this – a man is speaking to a woman about a business proposal. She is nodding along, letting him know she is listening, but he assumes her nodding signals agreement. When they discuss the proposal at a meeting later on, and she disagrees with his ideas, he feels duped and angry. She is left confused.

What’s going on here? Why is there this disconnect? Lady Geek interviewed the very insightful Tammy Hughes of the Heim Group, “GenderSpeak” expert, to find out why men and women aren’t hearing each other.

Tammy shared with us the story of one woman who had made it to the top of her field – one of her secrets? She stopped nodding at men in the workplace, concerned she was sending the wrong signal. Will this break barriers? Will we reach gender equality if women merely stop nodding at men? Not likely, but if we take the time to understand these differences in communication styles, we will only benefit. Gender differences – whether they are nature or nurture – aren’t going away. Tammy added, “This isn’t about good or bad or right or wrong, but about difference. Valuing these differences will add commercial value to our organizations.”

Tammy also told us a very interesting anecdote. Whenever she speaks to corporate audiences, beforehand, she asks what the male to female ratio of her listeners is. More than half of the time she gets an answer that sounds something like the following. “There are 47 men and 3 women, but 2 of those women don’t count”.

We’ve probably all heard of a woman described this way – tomboy, manly, butch, bitchy – all meant to say that they aren’t feminine enough. Many women feel they must adapt to the masculine environment of so many organizations. She might be acting “manly”, but this could be a survival method in a world where, astonishingly, three times as many women would pick a male boss rather than a female boss (CareerBright).

The problem is that when a woman “acts like a man” as a coping strategy for climbing the career ladder in male-dominated companies, it blocks the path for other women. The glass ceiling remains intact. Instead, we should welcome gender diversity, showing just how much value it adds to a company. Research shows again and again that gender diversity outperforms homogeneous intelligence. (Why Gender Diversity Matters) Plus, we won’t need a Rosetta Stone for men and women to understand each other, just some gender speak.

Tammy Hughes is President of the Heim Group.

Written by Sarah Fink from @LadyGeekTV.

@BelindaParmar is the CEO and Founder of Lady Geek TV. Please join the Lady Geek campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches towards women in tech and Like us on www.facebook.com/LadyGeekTV.

Image by Joana Pereira.

 

Lady Geek Christmas Wishlist 2011

 

Each year tech companies will try and tell you what gadgets to get for Christmas by blabbing on about RIM, RAM and terrabytes. Yawn. And don’t even get us started on the pink and sparkly gifts of season’s past. But fear not –  hopefully no returns will be necessary if you write this year’s letter to Santa with a little help from Lady Geek. Whether you are looking to give or receive (or just receive…) we are bringing you our favourite gadgets that belong on everyone’s wishlists.

Stocking Stuffers

 

iStand
First up for a fun stocking stuffer, the iStand offers a way to prop up your mobile phone in the stylish manner it truly deserves. It also doubles up as a nice grip for when you’re sending out Boxing Day ‘thank you’ texts to everyone who got you something. Well everyone who didn’t buy you socks, anyway.

£4.49 at Lazybone

Hear-muffs Headphones
You probably never thought warm and cosy would be on the list of must haves for a pair of headphones until you saw this pair of wintery “hear-muffs”. No need to compromise between warm ears and your music when out in the frosty weather. Crack on a carol or two and keep your ears toastier than chestnuts roasting on the proverbial.

£15 at John Lewis

XBOX Kinect Games Dance Central 2 and Sports Season 2

 

Need to work off the Christmas pud? The long awaited Dance Central 2 and Sports Season 2 are finally out on Kinect with even more fun features than the first time round. Whether it’s challenging your boss to a “dance off” at the Christmas party or racing down a ski slope when you’re snowed in with the family, these games have something for everyone. Just let your dinner go down first, eh?

Out soon at Game.

Under the Tree

Check out these bigger presents to go under the tree…

PURE Evoke Mio DAB Radio, Orla Kiely Abacus Edition

 

If you’d like to give your ears a rest (from ear buds, not your questionable taste in music) then this radio belongs on your wish list. There is something very satisfying about crystal clear Classic FM or 80’s greatest hits being played into your home from something as stylish as this: the Orla Kiely print makes this gadget more than just easy on the ears, but easy on the eyes too. You can browse the airwaves or connect your iPod for instant gratification.

£149 at John Lewis

PURE ONE Flow, Portable DAB/FM/Internet Radio

 

…or if youd prefer a radio that is a little more subtle and well, actually looks like a radio the PURE ONE Flow, Portable DAB/FM/Internet Radio might be more your bag. It is even DAB’s most affordable internet radio yet.

£86.99 at Amazon

Book Charging Dock for iPhone and iPod

 

Love your e-reader, but still feeling bad that you’ve abandoned the beautiful book? These chargers from Inbook are here to ease the guilt. Making a lovely addition to any nightstand, it also rids you of the tangled bedside mess of chords that comes from charging your favourite gadgets. This only includes the USB cord, so make sure you have the proper adapter if you want to plug directly into the wall. I hope this graces my bedroom before the new year.

Made to order from the Inbook Etsy Shop for about £35

Amazon Kindle Wi-Fi 6” E-Ink

 

I could go on and on about all the specs of the Kindle and its features, but why bother? You know what it can do. All that needs to be said is that the new Kindle is faster, lighter and cheaper than its predecessors, making it easier than ever to curl up on the sofa, cup of hot chocolate in one hand and 1,400 books in the other. Its e-ink display and simple design make it a gadget for even the tech-weary. If you haven’t recieved one for Christmas before, this year should be the year.

£89 at Amazon

From Santa

Will Santa decide you deserve one of these super-fancy gadgets for Christmas?

ASUS Eee Pad Slider

 

Still pretend you don’t miss a proper keyboard when using a tablet? Stop lying to yourself and look again at those typing errors. What the hell is a Chirstmas Persent? Call me old-fashioned, but sometimes having a qwerty keyboard is a necessity, making this little beauty’s fold out number a great design feature. Its a bit heavier than its competitors, but if you’re looking for something to replace a netbook or smaller laptop, this should at the top of your wishlist.

£429.99 at Dixons

Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook

 

If you have been wishing for a Windows alternative to the MacBook Air this holiday season, the Acer S3 Ultrabook is a serious contender. When you open this super-sleek super-slim laptop your eyes will light up brighter than Rudolph’s nose after several whiskeys – it’s a truly stunning piece of kit. The screen could be a bit sharper, but it’s well worth getting yourself on the nice list to be in with a chance of recieving this gift.

Available soon for around £850.

Nokia Lumia 800

 

Nokia has built the most beautiful ever Windows phone. Sure it has the best camera of any handset on the market today, but it’s the new user-interface that makes Nokia’s latest phones worthy of your wish-list. Specifically designed for people who love to socialize with Twitter, Facebook and Email built into the “live-tiles” home screen. Add to that a design which makes it one of the most aesthetically pleasing phones around, and you’ve got the perfect Christmas treat. Now if only Santa would cover the cost of your data plan…

Belinda Parmar is the founder of Lady Geek TV. Please join the Lady Geek campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches towards women in tech and Like us on Facebook

This post originally appeared on handbag.com.

 

Can Apps Empower Women?

 

The first app I remember seeing was shown to me by a guy friend of mine, and it was the Wobble app. In case you don’t have the pleasure of familiarity with this app, it allows you to add “boob jiggle” to a photo of any woman of your choice. And we wonder why our research with YouGov (Source: The App Economy YouGov/Lady Geek 2010) has show women with smartphones were nearly twice as likely as men to have never downloaded a SINGLE app.

Quite remarkable when the same piece of research showed that more women than men bought smartphones in the last 6 months.  So women are buying smartphones but are not buying apps for 2 main problems.  One like me, women perceive a lot of the apps are not relevant to their lives such as iFart, i Burp and so on.  The second is that there is just too much choice out there. Who needs 200,000 apps- most women want a small selection of apps that make a difference to their lives.

And that is exactly the ambition and purpose of the brilliant IdeasProject “Apps to Empower Women” Challenge run by Nokia. The competition asked for submissions of app ideas that would make a real, practical difference to women’s work, education and leisure. The top app chosen in the challenge will be developed by a team of women software developers.

Honours went to Mobile Women African Crafters by Atim Oton, Easy App for Elderly Women by JoJa Dhara and Trigger Free by Jenny Evgenia. Mobile Women African Crafters would be an app  that creates and increases sustainable income for local women crafters in Kano, Nigeria who stay at home and work. The idea is an online space for crafters to share and sell their crafts via Mobile phones. The Easy App for Elderly Women would help elderly women navigate their way through various social networking and communication tools to help them stay in contact with their friends and family. Trigger Free would allow survivors of sexual violence to identify media that can trigger post-traumatic stress. Allowing users to add media to a database, rate them and help other survivors enjoy trigger-free leisure.

The winner was Woman’s Personal Private Market Place by Rustam Sengupta. Often women, especially living in the rural areas of emerging markets do not have access to personal care products such as contraceptives, or the means to purchase them from traditional sellers. The app will have a catalogue of such products and allow the process to be as discrete and comfortable as possible. Now that is what I call a real app.

These ideas show the force for good in innovative technology like apps. Yes we can download apps to get the weather or play a game, but its amazing to see how apps are transforming how women gain access to everything from health services to banking, and employment opportunities to educational tools. The mWomen Programme is an important component of this, and addresses key barriers to women’s access to mobile phones. The appetite for empowering apps is a hunger to feed, and there are inspiring women making it happen.

Written by Sarah Fink from Lady Geek TV.

The judges for the Apps to Empower Women Challenge were Mitchell Baker, Abigail Disney, Libby Leffler, Elizabeth Varley, Angelique Mannella and Belinda Parmar.

Belinda Parmar is the founder of Lady Geek TV. Please join the Lady Geek campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches towards women in tech and Like us on Facebook

 

Are Men Really More Ambitious Than Women?

When asked about the lack of women in high-level jobs, Sheryl Sandberg attempted to explain why this is. “[There’s] a really big ambition gap. If you survey men and women in college today in this country, the men are more ambitious than the women. And until women are as ambitious as men, they’re not going to achieve as much as men.” The Ambition and Gender at Work Report found that only half of women said they expected to become managers, versus two-thirds of men. But are men really more ambitious than women?

The issue here isn’t ambition, but instead how we interpret it in women and men. Ambitious men are considered strong, successful individuals. However, women aren’t always valued when they are strong and ambitious. No, they are perceived to be ‘domineering bitches’. And nobody wants to date a ball-buster.  Society doesn’t like women whom we traditionally define as ambitious – having a strong desire for something such as wealth or power. Women aren’t always admired for being strong, men are supposed to be strong for them. Women aren’t to desire success, but be desired themselves. Ambition in women isn’t attractive. It isn’t feminine enough.

We’re always saying how there aren’t enough women in tech, politics or any other leadership roles. But it just isn’t enough to tell people to hire more women, vote for women, or any of that. These environments have been dominated by men for so long, and with men and women still expected to perform their gender in a particular way, things won’t change. You can’t add women and stir. You have to change the recipe for success.

Let’s celebrate ambition in women.  Let’s applaud it.  Let’s stop categorising women because they are ambitious. We should expect and accept people who step outside of the roles ascribed to their gender. Women don’t lack ambition, they just aren’t valued when they have it. Sheryl Sandberg is over-simplifying the issue.

Image via Flickr user World Economic Forum

Written by Sarah Fink of @ladygeektv

Belinda Parmar is the founder of Lady Geek TV. Please join the Lady Geek campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches towards women in tech and Like us on Facebook

 

Five Things Every Woman Entrepreneur Should Know

I talked to some of the best women entrepreneurs including Camille Johnson of Pink Ribbon Lingerie and Isobel Beauchamp of DegreeArt, about their experience of starting a business. Here’s what they told me:

There may never be a right time

You may be waiting for the “perfect” time to start your business, but the truth is, it probably doesn’t exist. The women I spoke with about jumping in and starting a business were easily able to make a laundry list of when was or wasn’t the right time for a start-up and why. It will always be daunting. The economy might be crap. You’re too young, too old or your children are too young or too old. You’ll make it work.

You can ask for help

Camille Johnson, the founder of Pink Ribbon Lingerie, a company that specializes in intimates for women post breast cancer surgery, stressed the importance of having a circle of people to support you. “Use your friends and family as much as you can, for support, babysitting, feedback..”. You don’t have to do it alone, and really, you aren’t supposed to.  Its not a weakness to ask for help, it’s a strength.

Your online presence is your storefront

The first thing people see isn’t necessarily your storefront or office, but your online presence. These women don’t just have strong websites. They are active on Twitter, have Facebook pages, video content and online communities of client feedback. Branding is carried out through a multitude of platforms beyond business cards and logos to social networking profiles and hashtags. Remember every channel is an opportunity to make an impression on someone.

It will be 100 times harder than you already think

Isobel Beauchamp is the co-founder of DegreeArt, a company that sells, rents and commissions the artwork of students and recent graduates. Beauchamp spoke about how there will always be challenges, but they are meant to be hurdles, not barriers. Beauchamp went from working on the business with Elinor Olisa every evening and weekend on top of a full-time job, to eventually making it her sole venture.  You need to pick yourself up and carry on when you get a knock back.  You get tougher.  Your skin gets thicker.

Be fearless

When Johnson couldn’t get funding for her business, she took things into her own hands. She carried out extensive market research and learned all she could before making the absolute jump and self-funding her start-up. She felt that it was her only option if she wanted to see her business as she envisioned. Lesson learned: it takes guts, but the payoff is worth the risk.

We need more women putting themselves out there. Job creation is a dire need in the current economy, and women have great potential to help turn things around.

Written by Sarah Fink of @ladygeektv

Belinda Parmar is the founder of Lady Geek TV. Please join the Lady Geek campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches towards women in tech and Like us on Facebook

image via jimbates332000

 

Will Women Chime.in?

 

We already know that women rule social media. There are more women users on Facebook and Twitter, and they spend more time than men on these sites. What makes certain social networking sites more female or male oriented?

Less than 15% of Wikipedia editors are women. Only 36% of Digg users are women, and its content doesn’t exactly scream gender equality. Meanwhile, Pinterest (a virtual pinboard sharing site) seems to be a community mostly made of women.

New social network Chime.in is actually not calling itself “social,” but an “interest network.” This means it will revolve around subjects, like tech, rather than people. Is there a clear divide between the two? And what does the answer to this potentially mean for women?

For now, Chime.in appears to be a gender-neutral place where men and women can speak and share freely and equally. Then again, so did Google+, which is still only 31% women. The most headline-grabbing aspect of Chime.in has been the concept that it could generate cash for users through advertising sales, leading to a deluge of get-rich commentary. Will the site even be social? Or a profit-driven interest site for the self-interested?

As for whether women will buy into Chime.in, it depends on whether it caters to their basic roles and natures. Women are expected to be caregivers. They get pregnant. They have families. They are the glue of their interconnected communities. They can’t be 100% self-interested. Perhaps this is why they tend to dominate community based social networking like Facebook, rather than linear, systematic sites like Wikipedia.

Women won’t chime in to a site without a strong community. Chime.in won’t have much of a relationship with women unless it remembers what keeps them interested–a place that feels like an extended family, a real community in their virtual worlds.

–Written by Sarah Fink from @ladygeektv

Please join the Lady Geek campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches towards women in tech and Like us on Facebook. @Belindaparmar is the founder of @LadyGeekTV

 

 

 

 

Can tech retail learn anything from the fashion industry?

 

When it comes to shopping for tech women often report it to be dull and rather intimidating. Not only are we bombarded with too much choice, but the techy jargon spoken by the shop assistants confuses us even more, making the overall experience tiresome and painful. However, when it comes to shopping for clothes women often report feelings of excitement and joy. It’s not just about buying something new, it’s the whole retail experience we tend to enjoy: from browsing the rails; to trying things on; to opening up your new purchases at home.

So what are tech retailers doing wrong? Why don’t women enjoy shopping for tech? Is it the store layout? Is it the presentation of the products? Is it the service? Is it the way the goods are packaged?

To get an insight into what tech stores are missing I went to investigate what’s regarded as the ‘ideal shopping experience’ for women – personal shopping.

After booking an appointment at Selfridges I turned up at the luxurious personal shopping department where I was politely greeted and taken through to a beautifully decorated lounge. Nothing too flashy or pretentious, just comfort and beauty setting a stylish and calming tone. A stylist came over and introduced themselves sitting down beside me to begin the first step 1:  understanding the customer’s need.

They began by asking me questions such as ‘what was I looking for?’ ‘Do I have a particular style?’ What size am I?’ Do I have any preference in colour?’ ‘Do I have a price range?’. The type of questions asked and the way they asked me didn’t at any point make me feel uncomfortable or intimidated nor did they use any terminology that confused me. In fact they made me feel at ease and reassured that they were there to help me find exactly what I was looking for. At no point did I feel overwhelmed nor feel that my requests were being ignored, which is often how I feel in tech stores. Even if you go into a tech retailer knowing what what you want to buy, the assistants will still try and sell you something that you clearly don’t want.

Step 2: making sure the customer is satisfied. After the initial consultation, the stylist talked me through how the session would work, checking that I understood and that I was happy –  now there’s something you don’t normally get asked. In tech stores they don’t even notice the steam coming out of your ears when you’re having to explain what you want for the 10th time.

Step 3: shopping with ease. As I sat waiting in the lounge while the stylist went in search of the clothes I was looking for (that’s right they do the browsing for you!), I received a courtesy glass of champagne. This gesture of offering a drink although simple, was such an effective way of indulging me, without too much effort.

The rest of the session involved trying on the clothes the stylist had carefully selected for me in a spacious and beautifully lit dressing room. With each item of clothing the stylist talked me through the product, telling me about the material & the designer, suggesting what to wear with it, asking me how I felt, and also giving their opinion. Throughout the entire session I felt my needs were listened to and I felt reassured in my decisions, which overall boosted my confidence. If only that was the case when shopping for tech. Instead what tends to happen is they ignore what you’ve asked for and sell you something you don’t want, and in the process they make you feel stupid when asking a question. You then leave the shop having your confidence knocked, feeling bewildered and frustrated. No wonder it has been found that 7/10 women say they do not enjoy buying technology.

Walking out of the store (unfortunately empty handed, sadly our expenses account doesn’t cover £900 Armani dresses) I was filled with confidence and excitement, partly due to the champagne and the prospect of one day buying an Armani dress, but also having just experienced the ‘ideal retail environment’. If anything, it confirmed how painful tech retail can be and how much they could learn from the fashion industry. Women spend $20T annually, so by improving the shopping experience, which would make women spend more money, tech retailers would see a dramatic increase in their sales. Understanding what women want out of the retail experience is a significant financial opportunity that should not be ignored.

 

The HTC Flyer: Coming in for Landing

Image via HTC

Each morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is reach for my smartphone to read my email, look at Twitter and check out the front page of the Guardian. Never does a morning go by where I don’t do these things before breakfast, or really, even sitting up. The HTC Flyer may just replace the smart part of the smartphone as my morning companion, especially on a weekend morning, where this phase of my day lasts at least an hour.

Upon my first impression of the HTC Flyer, I was surprised by it’s weightiness, especially considering the screen is just 7 inches. I’d actually consider the slight weightiness for size a pro, as it is light enough to be incredibly portable, yet feel sturdy. It could be more sleek in design, but the screen is crisp and clear.

I can’t emphasise enough just how portable the Flyer is, although that feature is a bit lost on me. All this talk of being portable, the truth is there is one place that heavily outweighs the rest of the places the Flyer could be used. My bed. I have been able to carry it around everywhere with ease, but I prefer the Flyer with a cup of tea, curled up in bed, comfortably reading my favourite blogs and for pure enjoyment rather that a tool on the go.

If I did want to watch a film on it or more than my usual amount of YouTube videos of baby animals, I’d prefer a larger screen considering the Flyer is more like a roommate than a travelling companion. Unfortunately the speaker is in the back, and when my lazy morning self puts the Flyer down, the sound gets a bit muffled in my duvet. But for an improved web-browsing and life-organising experience, the Flyer could easily replace what I do on my smartphone or on my laptop while lounging around. The reader is also nice, and easier to use than my Kindle, but I am still so committed to the look of the Kindle ink, it’s lightness and all of Amazon’s features.

The Flyer really is a gadget for transition. For me it’s the transition of getting up in the morning and wondering what’s gone on in the world since I fell asleep, and relaxing before bed. Although it’s meant to do as the name implies, and fly around with you wherever you’re headed, I only used it upon landing.

 

Three cheers for Tech mums

It’s all quite surreal. Here I am in a swanky bar in a central Colchester retail park, rubbing shoulders with 30 local mums and waiting for uber Essex girl Denise Van Outen to make an appearance. Which she duly does, sporting a trademark cheeky grin to go with a personality that turns out to be even bigger and bubblier than can fit on your plasma.

She’s here as the face of the “On The Go” Mum roadshow for mobile network Three, whose innovative grass-roots approach aims to celebrate local mums and show them how to get the most from their phones.  Having formed a less than orderly queue, we finally cornered Denise for a chat about being a mum and the role of technology in her life.

How do you feel being a mum?

Exhausted!  Its physically and mentally very tiring.  I am constantly on the go and trying to juggle things.  Its not easy trying to work and keep a happy calm home.

What is the hardest part of being a mum?

Having to be so many different women.  I have to be a wife, mother, business woman, actress.

What is your Favourite Gadget?

My iPad. It’s a real life-saver with the kids.

What is the role of technology?

It makes everything so simple.  The key thing is to accept technology and embrace it.  The genie is out of the bottle.

Our research has shown women need more reassurance than men when it comes to technology. Why do you think that is?

Because women do not like making mistakes.  We often think that men are more technical but actually mums can benefit more from technology as mums tend to do most of the organisation in their house.

Which 3 pieces of advice would you give to a technology company wanting to connect with mums?

• Keep your message simple
• Stress doesn’t make people buy, so keep customers relaxed and talk to mums in an informal way
• If stress doesn’t sell, smiles do, so get your sales staff to crack the occasional grin!

@belindaparmar is the founder of @ladygeektv.  Please join the Lady Geek’s campaign to end the stereotypes and cliches when talking to women  http://www.facebook.com/LadyGeekTV

 

Boys, Boys, Boys

(Image via Marta Manso)

In the film Mean Girls, Lindsay Lohan’s character Cady is a math whizz. She captures the attention of her math teacher and the high school math team the Mathletes, but the person she really wants to capture the attention of Aaron, the hunky guy that sits behind her in class. Cady decides he won’t be interested in her math interest, and she goes with her “instincts”. She dumbs down and asks him for some rather ill-advised math help. The result? She starts failing…

A recent study “Effects of Everyday Romantic Goal Pursuit on Women’s Attitudes Toward Math and Science” has uncovered that this has some scientific standing, and that women don’t pursue study and careers in science, math, engineering and technology (STEM) because, wait for it…they want boys to like them. *Head hits desk*

Actually, this isn’t quite what the research concludes, but it is how it is being interpreted.

The findings come from a series of studies that were undertaken to determine why women continue to be underrepresented at the highest levels of STEM.

The authors found converging support for the idea that when romantic goals are activated, either by environmental cues or personal choice, women—but not men—show less interest in STEM and more interest in “feminine” fields, such as the arts, languages and English.

“When the goal to be romantically desirable is activated, even by subtle situational cues, women report less interest in math and science. One reason why this might be is that pursuing intelligence goals in masculine fields, such as STEM, conflicts with pursuing romantic goals associated with traditional romantic scripts and gender norms.”

In part of the study participants viewed images related to romantic goals such as romantic restaurants, beach sunsets and candles or intelligence goals such as images of libraries, books and eyeglasses.

Are we really that simple? Candles equal romance. Books equal school. What if people were shown a mix of these images? What would happen then?

After exposure to the romantic, intelligence or friendship goal cues, participants completed questionnaires assessing their interest in STEM vs. other fields and their preference for various areas of academia. Results showed women—but not men—exposed to cues related to romantic goals reported less positive attitudes toward STEM and less preference for majoring in math or science fields compared to other disciplines. This did not occur when they were exposed to cues associated with intelligence goals.

But what if I want a romantic partner that is also intelligent?

Overall, the findings suggest women’s romantic goal strivings, triggered by environmental cues or by personal choice, have important implications for gender inequality in STEM.

My problem with the study isn’t really the findings, but how the study was designed. First of all, only 350 people were surveyed. Second, eyeglasses and books are categorised as a “smart” thing—people with glasses who can read, can also be romantic—and beach sunsets and candles are “romantic”. What does it mean to be romantically desirable anyway? Can one really classify romantic activities versus other activities so swiftly? Is that really what gets women going? Personally, I’ve had bad dates at romantic restaurants and great dates at the Imperial War Museum.

The way studies like these are designed aren’t going to benefit women. They are rooted in gender stereotypes and cultural constructions we should be looking to dismantle. What are the real reasons women are underrepresented in these fields? It isn’t because they are out scouting for boyfriends or because they are worried technology isn’t sexy (plus, it totally is). What is the industry and our education system doing to deter women from these fields? Where is the support?

There is a difference between what women want, and what is expected of them. The authors of this study should have tried to answer these questions without submitting to such stereotypes about women, romance and intelligence.

 

The Technological Gender Divide

This article originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

Women play the games and use the gadgets to transform their lives, so why is the technology industry still marketing to them as if they slept with fuchsia-clad, faux-diamond-studded Barbie dolls tucked under their arms?

Women are smart, economically powerful and increasingly active in the way they look to technology to enhance their lives. This isn’t my opinion, it’s fact. Look at the figures: according to research we conducted with Forrester, over half of women attempting to make technological purchases walk out of shops (Source: Forrester Research 2010) because they simply can’t find what they are looking for. The missed opportunity here is calculated at £0.6 billion per year in the UK alone (Source: Forrester Research, 2010)

The more you look at women’s market share, the more baffling the industry’s approach becomes. Out of every 10 gadgets, four are bought by women, and we’re talking high-end consoles and digital cameras, not steam irons or hair curlers! Furthermore, in the 25-34 age bracket, women make up the lion’s share of all gamers at over 50% (Source: YouGov/Lady Geek Feb 2011). So the question remains, why is the industry still trying to palm them off with patronizing, dumbed-down products?

This question is particularly relevant given the lessons that ought to have been learnt from Dell’s disastrous Della website (a site that gave you recipe tips with email suggestions). After all, money always talks, and with such a cash cow waiting to be milked, millions must surely have been spent on expert consultants examining just what it is that “women really want.”

Sadly wherever the money’s been spent, it hasn’t made any marked impact on the products themselves, where stereotype continues to prevail. Take HTC’s new Bliss phone, with its calming wallpapers, calorie counter, shopping apps and irritating ‘charm indicator’ that flashes when you get a message. When this was being designed, someone really should have taken a step back and asked just who really wants a Barbie charm hanging off their phone.

Compare this to the eminently masculine stylings of the Motorola Droid 3 phone and its “it’s not a princess, it’s a robot” tagline, and you get the picture. Instead of marketing to women (and men) as the complex, informed and fundamentally varied customers they really are, the battle lines have been set out from a 1970s template, with Android “dudes” on one side, and glitz-fed bauble babes on the other.

To frame a complex issue in the simplest of terms, women want smart devices that enhance their lives. They don’t want to be bamboozled by jargon but nor do they respond favorably to being marketed to like pre-teens cooing at the latest Justin Bieber add-on. Frankly, the current approach smacks of marketing so lazy it needs its pulse checked.

To end on a bitter-sweet note, consider the iPhone PMS SOS Betty Crocker app, which sought to cure pre-menstrual tension through cocoa-laden product vouchers. What we are witnessing here is a marketing approach that is perilously hard to swallow, and that is a reality the industry is simply going to have to digest.

 

Remember to like LadyGeekTV on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

 

Sweeping Claims About Social Media Aren’t Helping

As an American living in London, the riots and now looting that has spread over the past nights evoked comparisons to the Rodney King uprising. A glaring difference to the 1992 event’s media coverage is the role of social media. On Monday, Twitter saw the largest ever spike in UK traffic with 3.4 million visits.  Newspaper headlines scream “Nail the Twitter Rioters” and “Looters co-ordinate raids via Twitter and BlackBerry as messages of rage spread like wildfire”. How accurate are these claims, can we really blame social media as the fire behind the looters? Is technology facilitating violence?

There is no doubt social media is having a role mobilising violence and a portion of the community, and that BBM appears to be the medium of choice. Messages have included specifics like “Everyone in edmonton enfield wood green everywhere in north link up at enfield town station at 4 o clock sharp!” and the sensational, “if you see a fed… SHOOT”. This is troubling. But the power of social media has shed some light on London’s situation in ways that are inspiring. The idea that a simple hashtag or a Facebook page can build solidarity among thousands (or more) of people is the light at the end of this scary tunnel. Rather than see social media platforms as independent, each with their own function, this outpouring of community support for London has inundated a myriad of sites.

@Riotcleanup, a Twitter account to help mobilise efforts to clean up the destruction left behind, already has over 85,000 followers (and growing rapidly). Their tagline is “Clean up OUR communities”. A Tumblr called “Catch a Looter” has been set up to help identify those involved. Even the Metropolitan Police has set up “London Disorder – Operation Withern”, a Flickr account that posts pictures of looters. #Tweetalooter and #Catchalooter have become popular hashtags. #Riotwombles has also become a popular Twitter topic and aims to keep track of cleanup locations and how to get involved. The Facebook page “Post riot clean-up: let’s help London” has over 18,000 likes.

To call technology the fuel to the fire of violence in London is a dangerously sweeping claim. Social media and instant messaging have had multiple roles, but their force for good is not to be overlooked. London’s response to the riots exemplify the positive power of social networking.

Blackberry Playbook review

The BlackBerry PlayBook’s tag line is “powerful”, “portable”, “PlayBook”. It is ⅔ of those things. Yes, it is powerful – it loads and surfs the web faster than my iPad. Yes, it is portable – half the size and weight of my iPad. But a “PlayBook” – it is not. This is a new product so understandably the App World is pretty bare, but the ‘top purchased app’ is “File browser” – a file organiser, and the ‘top free app’ is “Navita translator” – a translator for your emails… fun?

Given the flash capability of this tablet, the game choice is severely limited and does not make the most of the tablet. “Hangman” is the top downloaded game – again, fun?

Although this tablet is more ‘WorkBook’ than ‘PlayBook’ (at least with the current state of the App World), as a tablet it does have some really strong features.  It has amazing screen quality and front and back cameras (great for if / when there is a Skype app). It’s portable, easy to hold, easy to type on, and has Microsoft Word, Excel, and Powerpoint ‘to go’ – again more ‘WorkBook’ than ‘PlayBook’.

I would add ‘easy to use’ to that list – which it absolutely is – once you get the hang of it. But going from iPad to PlayBook with no idea how to use it meant when I first opened it up on the train I must have looked like I’d stolen it – turning,  searching for a menu button, and swiping all ways. Once I had got over the mental block of there being no menu button, I found the PlayBook to be very intuitive.

But the question is: who is BlackBerry targeting with this tablet? Historically, BlackBerry have always targeted teens and corporate users with their phones – and the target here seems to be the same. The BlackBerry Bridge feature allows BlackBerry handset owners to ‘bridge’ their phones with the tablet. This means users can sync and view their SMS, BBM, calander, contacts, e-mails and other data between the devices. Although this is a great feature (for BlackBerry owners), with corporates getting the benefits of synchronising information, faster browsing, and Microsoft Word, Powerpoint and Excel, other than improved Internet browsing, the Tablet does not offer teens anything new – just their BlackBerry’s on a bigger screen.

As much as we all want our 5 a day, most of us have to choose between a BlackBerry or an Apple. So which should you buy? All round the BlackBerry PlayBook to me seems superior to the iPad. It’s faster, more portable, nicer to hold, and looks better. However, I mostly use my iPad for apps and web browsing. So if the App World switched to the App Store (or came somewhere close), then I would be trading my Apple for a BlackBerry. And this may soon be the case, since rumour has it, the BlackBerry PlayBook will soon support Android Apps – which will make the App World – and BlackBerry PlayBook altogether more ‘mall’, and less ‘market stall’.

What do you use your tablet for? Is it a workbook or a playbook?

PlayBook from ￡399

 

Inspiring Young Women into a career in the IT Industry

All through school I thought of the ‘IT man’ as the guy who changes the ink in the school printers and keeps the stocks of paper replenished. Lessons seemed to involve a painful amount of dull work on Microsoft Word and Excel. Needless to say I got to know the ‘help’ paperclip very well, but was far from inspired into an IT career. It’s time that IT education broadened its horizons, and Helen Clough from IT Support Company Integral IT takes us through some of her ideas to boost female interest in an IT based career…

“Although the UK workforce is 47% female, the IT & Telecoms sector is home to only 17% women (IT & Telecoms Insights 2010). Not only that, but this figure was 22% a decade ago, highlighting a downward shift in the role women are playing in the IT industry.

The worrying thing is that girls consistently outperform boys in IT-related subjects at school, but very rarely continue their studies to pursue a career in IT. Much of this can be attributed to the fact the IT Industry is considered male dominated, geeky and overly complex, but what can be done to stem the tide and introduce a new lease of life to this female absent world?

IT Inspiration Clubs
The IT world influences so many of the things that fascinate the young female generation. The fact is that not a lot of these girls understand or are aware of the IT being key in making the fashion, design and music industry the successes that they all are today. If organisations teamed up with schools to bring to life the role IT plays within these areas it would almost certainly help portray a more exciting image than the current stereotype the industry is lumbered with.

Workshops with female IT professionals
Exclusive workshops and courses with women in IT-related jobs, who are passionate about what they do would help teenage girls get that much needed hands on IT experience. Speeches from female IT entrepreneurs and innovators would inspire them to think the same and generate their own ideas of what IT could do for the world. If you plant the seed, then sometimes it grows, which is no doubt true for encouraging young women to gain an interest in an IT career.

Enlighten and Educate Career Officers
This could be a vital cog in the machine for bringing more women into the world of IT. Traditional thinking combined with social stereotyping will rule out the prospect of career advisers opening up the idea of IT related job to female students. Maybe it’s a lack of understanding into the reach of a role in IT and where it can take you that opts them away from highlighting these possibilities? The fact is most schools and colleges do now use, whether in house or external, career advisers in the educational process – one of the crucial elements of the career decision making process for any student. I firmly believe this is a key area that needs developing to drive greater interest in IT.

Writing this post has made me even more aware that changes need to be made into the way the female audience perceives the IT industry. So much needs to be done to create a working environment which isn’t as drastically single sex orientated. A massive amount of government intervention is needed and organisations need to form closer relationships with schools to get the ideas and interest across from an early age.”

Helen Clough: www.integral-it.co.uk

What do you think could be done to encourage more women into an IT career? Please leave comments and suggestions below, we’re excited to hear what everyone else thinks could be done to change the tide!

 

HTC ChaCha: The socialites best friend?

 

The cha cha cha is the name of a dance of Cuban origin. The Cha Cha is the name of a handset of HTC origin. Lady Geek and YouGov’s research shows that Android has a ‘dude’ problem with more than twice as many men choosing an HTC as their smartphone of choice. But the ChaCha seems to be an attempt by HTC to tap into the female market – and they nearly got it right. This week I took HTC’s latest phone in as my own, and here is a breakdown of the positives and negatives I found:

 

‘Likes’:

1. The curved shape makes it nice to hold for general use, texting and on the phone

2. Loads of freedom and space to personalise features and apps to be as organised (or unorganised!) as you want them to be.

3. Your social media made easy: QWERTY keyboard, instant Facebook button, and ‘Friend stream’ synchronises your Facebook and Twitter feeds as one – saves time checking both.

‘Dislikes’:

1. Low Battery life – nearly late for work when the battery died on me during the night which meant no alarm!

2. The look of the front (I like the back) – in the time I’ve had this phone its taken some abuse. Firstly from my mum who said ‘that’s a nice calculator’ and secondly from my friend who said ‘it looks like a poor mans Blackberry’ – they both have a point.

3. Takes a while to get used to – but easy to use when you do.

This is a really fun phone to use, has great customizability and loads of great features – especially if you’re into your social media. But it is seriously let down by the battery life, and in my opinion its looks.
Overall, if this is HTC’s attempt to reach professional women, then they’ve missed the mark – the handset just doesn’t look professional enough. But for the socialite teenage girl – this will be their best friend.

Available for £224.38 from http://www.amazon.co.uk

 

Lady Geek Reviews: Legacy Organiser App

 

The i-phone has all sorts of apps. Forgot where you parked your car? There’s an app for that! Want to make a customised pair of trainers? There’s an app for that! Want to capture your life history, and store your funeral plans? …. yes, now there’s an app for that!

 

An app called Legacy Organiser (available from the app store at £1.49) will help you:

‘collect images in your life album’,
‘create the soundtrack to your life’,
‘include a diary of life defining occasions’,
‘capture your history through memoirs’ and,
‘record your the intentions and wishes for your farewell and will’.

Now, I thought this idea was crazy at first, and was surprised to find 7/7 5* reviews for this app on the i-store. But using this app really gets you thinking, it’s both reflective and thought provoking, as well as a genuine way to organise ceremony plans (including guest list, flowers etc.).

It’s really simple to use, can be password protected (note: remember to tell someone my password – just incase!), and can be linked and shared with your Facebook page – allowing your friends to get involved in the organising.

But I wonder, is this too strange? With apps now covering everything from pregnancy advice to planning your wedding I’m not surprised apps have gone this far – but maybe an app that plans your funeral is a step too far.

To end, (but hopefully not actually END) I recognise that this app may be really useful for helping someone come to terms with having to plan a ceremony or those who just want a thought provoking few hours. But for me I question the direction of where social media is leading…

Here is the link to Legacy Organiser on i-tunes app store:

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/legacy-organiser/id428518774?mt=8

 

Lady Geek’s XBOX event for mums: battle for the living room

 

Last week we held an event in partnership with JCPR for XBOX. As we all know mums are the CEO of the household and the gate keeper to the living room. Mums tend to decide what goes in the living room and what is used. So the question was: can XBOX could win the battle for the living room?

Showcasing new content due out for Christmas, we invited the most influential mums in the UK, including Justine Roberts Founder of Mumsnet, Liz Fraser Parenting Guru, Emma Jell Founder of Mashup and Ella Dolphin Publisher of Grazia.

Held at the Saatchi Gallery in London, the mums got a chance to ask Kudo Tsunoda (Creative Director for Kinect) questions on whether gaming can have a positive effect on family life, followed by testing out the new content, as well as getting a chance to speak with game developers.

 

This was about grass roots marketing and having an honest and open debate with mums, not just flattering clients with what they want to hear. The aim was to help XBOX win the battle of the living room.

“The XBOX media mums event was excellent – really good to get the opportunity to have a dialogue with the guys who actually develop the product.” Lucy Banks – Exec Creative Director at Bauer Group.

“The event hosting was flawless, the staff went above and beyond and the information was invaluable.” Laura Rigney – Founder of Mumpreneur UK.

Get in touch if you want help in engaging with and selling to influential women.

Belinda@ladygeek.com or Lucie@ladygeek.com

 

The Power of a Network

 

Networking has become a part of all our lives. Whether we realise it or not, every one of us is part of a Network. Along with over a billion other people, I am part of the 4 huge social networks LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. I am also a member of 100’s of sub-networks – from my family, to the Lady Geek family, to the networks of a ridiculous number of Facebook groups I have joined (170!).

 

It is these sub-networks, more than the huge networks that allow us to be ourselves online and show our identity- Facebook provides the platform, but the intimate network provides the expression. In our personal lives we have networks which allow us to express ourselves – why can’t it be the same in business?

Networks in business are beginning to be used in the same way – large corporations providing a platform for many small networks. It seems the new message is not ‘think big’ but ‘think niche’.

Recently Dell hosted an inspirational event in Rio called DWEN (Dell Women’s Entrepreneurial Network) which supports and showcases over 100 female entrepreneurs/CEO’s from around the world.  Lets be clear- Dell are motivated by solid financial reasons, IDC predicts small business tech spending to reach more than $500bn by 2011, and with women at the helm of many of these small businesses, it’s certainly worth trying to get our attention.   But is this the best way to get on our radar?

What I found refreshing was that Dell understand the ‘one way street’ method of marketing is becoming less successful amongst women. It’s no longer cost-effective to blast out a business message using the megaphone of traditional advertising. Even big companies need to engage with the targeted groups which are likely to buy their products – in this case Dell have developed the perfect strategy to engage female entrepreneurs.

Our research shows that women are 3 times more likely to talk about positive experiences than men. Within 2 days, DWEN  managed to create a buzz and reach of 12.5 million tweets (according to Tweet Reach) -not bad when you compare it to an average tech product launch which would take 4 weeks to gather this type of momentum – and reach almost none of their female audience.

Clearly not every company has the financial might to arrange a lavish conference like Dell’s DWEN event, however we can all learn from this grass roots approach. We have set up Lady Geek PR to help companies pass on the megaphone to real women. Women know what they want and when given the opportunity the collective voice of women is the most powerful.

Are you a member of LinkedIn? If so, here is the link to DELL’s Women Powering Business Network:

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=3671396&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

 

Lady Geek’s best bits from E3: Top 5

 

Get down on the dance floor

 

Harmonix have finally blessed us with Dance Central 2, with even more songs and dance routines to choose from and more excitingly a multi-player feature. Finally your friends can join in with you as you shake your bootie and attempt to master Rihanna’s Rude Boy routine.

 

Retro games are a must.

 

2011 sees the anniversary of many old school classic gaming heroes such as Sonic and Zelda, which has prompted developers such as Hyperkin to create consoles for retro games. Retron 3 and Supaboy are consoles capable of playing Nintendo, SEGA Genisis and Super Nintendo cartridges. For all you retro fans here’s a chance to play your favourite childhood games.

 

Make a smoothie out of an app.

 

Not only is Fruit Ninja available on Kinect this summer, but Halfbrick are releasing a new game for Facebook, iPhone and iPad. Fruit Ninja Frenzy has a ‘smoothie’ feature which allows you to personalise game play. From adding extra time to getting rid of those annoying bombs to including extra bananas, you can become a Fruit Ninja master of a game catered for you.

 

Zoom into Kinect

 

For those who don’t have the room for enthusiastic moves while playing the Kinect, Nyko have the solution for you. The Zoom is an accessory that clips onto your Kinect reducing the space you require in depth by 40%. It widens the camera angle so you can play closer to your TV without needing to rearrange your living room.

 

From Wii to U

 

Nintendo have finally unveiled their highly anticipated Wii U – a console that like a woman, can multi-task. With a brand new 6.2inch controller with a touch screen, microphone, speakers and an accelerometer, that will change game play, 2012 looks to be an exciting year for Wii lovers. Yes, this does mean you’ll have to wait for next summer to play, but with impressive graphics on the controller and the ability to share photos and video chat, it could be worth the wait.

 

Does sexualized female imagery turn women off gaming?

 

The theme for E3 2011 may have been ‘experience for all’, with new content and consoles attempting to lure in wider audiences, but the presentation at the Expo seemed to cater for only one demographic: the male hardcore gamer.

At the majority of the stands in the expo were women with fake boobs wearing skimpy clothes. These types of models can make women feel intimidated and put them off gaming as it gives off a message that the product is only for men.

By taking this approach gaming companies are continuing to miss out on expanding their financial opportunities by limiting who they appear to target. Claiming to provide entertainment for everyone is not convincing when at the same time the tone of attraction is only for men.

According to Lady Geek research more than half of women are now gaming, yet over a third of those women do not identify themselves as gamers. This tells us that although women enjoy gaming they feel disconnected to the gaming world. Perhaps if the gaming industry toned down the sexualised female imagery, women would feel more attached to the world of gaming and purchases would increase.

 

Xbox at E3: taking the next steps

 

 

7 months ago I went to the launch of the Kinect in London and was impressed with Xbox’s answer to the Nintednso Wii. Now witnessing the unveiling of more games and upgraded features at the world famous E3 I predict a successful future for Kinect and Xbox.

Attempting to address wider audiences with a much broader range of experience for consumers,  the Kinect and Xbox boasts a greater selection of new games. For the hardcore gamers this includes ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warefare 3′, ‘Fable: The Journey’ and ‘Motorsports 4′. For the fans of classic games there is the brand new ‘Tomb Raider’, ‘Kinect Star Wars’, and the mighty ‘Halo 4′. Then for those who enjoy family fun there is ‘Kinest Sports 2′, ‘Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster’ and my personal favourite ‘Dance Central 2′, which finally allows multiplayer fun.

There is also an impressive upgrade for Xbox Live, which looks to dramatically change the TV entertInment experience. Rather than the click of a button it’s now all down to voice command “You say it, Xbox finds it”. In the past voice recognition has been found to be less reliable and even seen as more of a gimmick. However, Xbox claim the technology behind their voice command has vastly improved and will change gameplay.

Xbox Live has partnered with Bing making searching for games, films, TV shows, music and sports smarter, easier and much faster: giving you that extra time to make popcorn to eat while watching a film. The catalogue of films and TV shows has also expanded with the partnership with YouTube, giving you access to content from Sky and Zune.

My most favourite feature has to be ‘Fun Labs’. From Kinect Me, which allows your avatar to mimic your actual look; to FingerTracking, which allows you to create awesome 3D pictures; to Object Catcher, which allows you to create your own content. These fantastic new features demonstrate Microsoft’s attempt to not only widen the game player’s experience but also supports individual developers to be more creative. This all sounds very promising but what Xbox haven’t mentioned is who the new content created by you will belong to.

At this moment in time, at the very core of Xbox’s new launch, I am impressed with their attempt to expand the entertainment experience and their target audience. This is something that has been long overdue. Nintendo started it with the Wii and now I see Xbox taking that step further.

I do feel however, that there is more on offer for hardcore male gamers, especially those into fantasy warfare. Research from Women at Play has found that women represent a financial opportunity of £0.6 billion so could Xbox be missing out by deciding to target hardcore male gamers? However, Xbox have promised more games to be released this coming year, so let’s watch this space…

 

Dell supports Female Entrepreneurs

 

When Dell first invited me to their Female Entrepreneurial Conference (DWEN)- I was filled with trepidation.  An all women conference?  This was something I had not encountered before.  Would it be discussing maternity leave and flexibility at work?

It was nothing of the sort.  The purpose of the conference is to support women CEO’s/founders of small and medium size businesses by showcasing inspirational speakers and giving them a platform and a voice to discuss the next stages of growth of their businesses.

Last year DWEN took place in Shanghai and discussed everything from how to scale your business to how to manage your talent through to advice on acquiring funding.  Practical inspirational information jammed pack in a 2 day conference with plenty of cocktails in between.

Its an amazing conference with some of the most inspiring women I have ever met focusing on real business issues facing women like me.  A year on and I am still in contact with many of the women I met.  I get asked to go to lots of networking events, the majority I turn down, but I make time for this one due to the calibre of the women and the attention to detail by the organisers and sponsors.

This year- its in Rio on the 6th & 7th June.  Other than being a superb location (I know its a tough life), but on a more serious note, Brazil provides the ideal setting as nearly half of the country’s entrepreneurs are women and has made its way onto the world stage in the last decade as the world’s fifth largest country and eighth largest economy.  Not to mention being under the leadership of the country’s first woman president, Dilma Rousseff.

Above is a video of some of the amazing women I met.  Judith Clegg, CEO, Venturing Unlimited.  Joana Picq, COO, Thenextwomen, Helen Ridgway, Co-founder of Axicom, Helen Gorringe, Wiggly Wigglers.

You can join the DWEN linked in group and be part of the debate here. Content about the event can be found on Twitter via @DellBizWomen and by following #dwen.

I hope to see you there or if you can’t be there, please get involved in the debate.

Belinda

 

Mum the new CTO of the household

 

 

Mums represent $1.7 Trillion of the consumer market annually. 80% of the purchases decisions for the home are made by the mum.  68% of mums use their smartphone while shopping.  Its official- Mum is the CEO of the household.

Yet despite these powerful statistics, mums are often ignored and misrepresented when it comes to technology. The way most tech companies communicate to mums is as if they are still Betty Draper, the 1960s housebound housewife, whose soul purpose in life is to look after her children, dote upon her husband- thankfully we are not expected to smoke endless cigarettes in the process.

Nowadays, the expectations on mums could not be bigger.  Mums are expected to be at their whim of their boss 24/7, be at the doctors when their children are sick, cook fabulous culinary treats for their husband work colleagues and have a washboard stomach whilst performing all of the above-which lets face is is pretty darn impossible post babies (unless of course you subject yourself to eating just mung beans for the rest of eternity).

Technology can play a vital role for many mums.  My mum friends want to use technology but only to help them cope with what family life throws at them on a daily basis.  My friends are not interested in the difference between a megabyte and terabyte- they want technology to protect their kids from harm and keep track of what they are up to.  Mums want to be the emotional umbrella of the family.   Mums want technology to help them be not just the CEO, but the Chief Technical Officer as well.  And lets face it, mums are the gatekeeper to the home and ultimately they decide what’s allowed in.

The new campaign from Three is a good attempt to connect with mums. Their campaign is called “On the Go”.

 

Denise van Outen, is the face of the campaign and does a good job in sharing her experiences as a mother and describes how technology can help her navigate through motherhood.  The tone is not patronising  (it is a little Day Break though), but all in all its a well executed idea.  Our Lady Geek Mum panel said they would prefer a more ‘everyday mum’- despite this we think its a good step in the right direction.

Lets hope this is the first of many campaigns giving mums a voice and making their lives just that little bit easier with technology.

 

iDo App

 

For any Brit or foreigner alike, this is an in-depth Royal Wedding package. Complete with satellite views of the procession, as well as several downloadable maps of different key areas of their royal promenade through London, this app from Appstillery Ltd. and MakkaMappa promises easy access to the entire procession. As well as following the procession you can track your own location, helping you to find the perfect spot to wave to the Royal couple as they pass.

iDo also includes a scheduled itinerary of the day to ensure you know where to be at the right time, whether it’s Kate leaving Buckingham Palace or the married couple departing Westminster Abby.

Unlike all the other Royal Wedding apps, this app is actually pretty useful if you are planning on going to see the procession. However, an annoying feature on this app is the necessity to separately download the maps onto the App. It’s not too slow but seeing as it’s described as a virtual map app, you’d expect them to be preloaded onto the app.

A final feature of the app is the ability to follow royal wedding tweets and post comments on Facebook, keeping you connected to the royal wedding community.

Available on: the iPhone, iPad, and Android.

Price 59p

 

 

As we are only a few short hops away from Easter Sunday, the Lady Geeks would like to leave you a few eggs to open that will help you enjoy the Easter holiday to the fullest.

Angry Birds: Easter Edition – Android Market, iPhone, and the iPad.

This iconic smartphone app game has released it’s Easter Edition! Celebrate Easter in true Lady Geek fashion as our favourite Angry Birds go up against…green pigs wearing bunny ears. Fair enough. This should be a fun way to spend your Easter weekend, or if you have any long travels to visit family.

Cost: 59p

London’s Parks and Gardens App – iPhone and iPad.

Due to the extra long weekend away from school, work, or whatever forces you to keep your mind and feet moving during the week, we suggest taking some time to just slow down. There’s no better way to spend your Easter Weekend, weather permitting, than getting lost with loved ones in one of London’s famous parks. Sutro Media’s London Parks and Gardens gives you details about every one of London’s best outdoor grazing sports for a lovely day off from work.

Cost: 1.19

Easter App Hunt – iPhone and iPad.

Look around the Garden and try to find the Easter Eggs that Magic the Bunny has hidden. For a bit of fun that the kids can enjoy, download MagicSolver.com’s Easter App Hunt. For every easter egg you unearth you’ll unlock further Easter-themed games.

Cost: Free

UK Restaurant Guide – iPhone

And after all the fun, games, and Easter Eggs, what better way to end the day than with a meal with the whole family. With UK Restaurant Guide APP from Sardine’s Place.com, you’ll have your entire dining experience planned out with a few clicks of the button.

Cost: 1.79

We hope you have enjoyed your basket of Easter apps. Have an ‘appy Easter!

 

 

 

21

APR

Lady Geek’s guide to… royal wedding apps

Posted by Lucie Sarif (0) Comment

As the Big Day looms, Lady Geek takes her shopping trolley down the royal aisle and loads it up with everything you need to make it an ‘appy occasion.

 

 

Blag the Royal Wedding: So you didn’t get invited to the Royal Wedding? Well, how about being the Royal Wedding planner? With Pocket Power Software’s Blag the Royal Wedding app, you can make all the big decisions right down to who sits at what table. Who needs an invite when you can be the Royal Wedding Planner – well, to your own virtual version of the big day, at least.
Platform: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch.
Link: Download it from iTunes
Price: 1.19

 

Dress the Royals: If you’re hard at work planning the Royal Wedding with Royal Blagger and still require a bit of hands-on Wedding fun to curb your appetite for all things regal, try WeAreApps’ Dress the Royals. This app gives you the power to make the royal family look as proper or as properly ludicrous as your heart desires for William and Kate’s big day.
Platform: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Link: Download it from iTunes
Price: 59p

 

ITN Royal Wedding App: You don’t need to be in the MI-6 to get the inside scoop on the Royal Wedding. With ITN’s Royal Wedding APP, you have access to the most interesting, sometimes outright silly, facts and updates on Will and Kate’s regal union.

Platform: Ovi/Nokia
Link: Download it from iTunes
Price: Free

 

Weakest Link: Royal Wedding Edition: You are the weakest link…goodbye! Imagine those familiar words with “Rule Britannia” booming in the background, and Anne Robinson wrapped in Victorian garb, and you have Weakest Link: Royal Wedding Edition. This app features over 1,000 trivia questions relating to the Royal Wedding and the history of regal matrimony in England.
Platform: iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch
Link:Download it from iTunes
Price: 59p

 

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19

APR

Having trouble keeping track of where you’re spending your money?

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Direct Debit is a brand new app that helps you organise out-going payments. It’s easy to use and what’s more, you can set reminders for when payments are due, keeping you up-to-date with your finances. For those concerned with the app’s security of storing personal information, fear not, you are not required to enter any account details or passwords. On top of that the app allows you to set a PIN for opening the app, so if you lose your phone your data is safe from peeping toms.

Available on iTunes

Price: Free

 

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25

MAR

Women At Play Event

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

Believe it or not, women are gamers: Gamers with a load of purchase power. Women don’t give videogame advertising a second glance, and only 4% of game developers in the UK are women. But when it comes to women, we’ve found that casual gaming is anything but casual. There has to be some way to connect the clueless marketers, the under-developing gaming industry, and the countless women interested in gaming.

Find out more on 31st March at 7:00 PM at the Apple Store on Regent Street.  Topics will include the many myths of women and gaming, and how to better market and develop products to target an untapped source of millions of pounds. A panel of experts will include: Belinda Parmar @BelindaParmar, Founder of Lady Geek, Ian Livingstone @Ian_Livingstone, Life President of Eidos, Paulina Bozek @Paulinabees, CEO of INENSU, Siobhan Reddy, Studio Director at Media Molecule, Renate Nyborg @Reante, Head of Business Development, A&N Mobile & TV, and Catharina Lavers Mallet, Senior Producer of Playfish.

This event is free of charge.

 

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17

MAR

Confessions of a Casual Gamer: Tiki Towers by Ann Scantlebury

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

I’m beginning to worry about the welfare of my future children. I’m questioning whether I even
want children anymore. My maternal instincts have been pulled left and right and are now in tatters.
This is all down to a game, of course. Player beware: Tiki Towers will ruin you.

On the face of it, this is a nice little game with no cause for emotional concern. You build towers
and bridges from a supply of bamboo in order to get your monkey troupe from their box to their
goal, enabling them each to pick up a banana en route. If you’re not careful with your construction
work, the bridge will collapse as the monkeys swing and jump and hang on it. They don’t care how
carefully you have placed each piece of bamboo, how much thought has gone into making sure that
last banana is reached. They don’t care that if they would just walk in an orderly fashion it wouldn’t
matter that there isn’t quite enough support at the end of the bridge. If there is any faulty design,
the monkeys will discover and destroy it.

I am aware of the difference between monkeys and children. Number 1: Children are not monkeys.
Number 2: Monkeys are not children. But as I finish building my first tower and open the box
(Number 3: Monkeys can be kept in boxes; children shouldn’t be kept in boxes? ) to set the monkeys
free, I think of my nephew. He has just turned 2 and loves destroying things. Auntie Annie builds a
LEGO house; Archie pulls it apart. Auntie Annie builds a brick tower; Archie knocks it down. It’s a
bit annoying (the LEGO house was so good I was going to put it on Right Move) but look how much
fun Archie’s having! Finally free from their box, the monkeys seem to be having a lovely time too.
Oh no. I have created an attachment to a bunch of cartoon monkeys. And this is where the trouble
begins.

One structure I build has a weak connection. It breaks as my monkeys are mid-climb and they fall
down, down, down: gone. Two monkey skulls appear in the line-up. I am an unfit monkey mother!

One island (you unlock new islands if you progress well) has a lot of lava about. I should probably try
to keep my monkeys out of the lava, I think. The game agrees and tells me: Monkeys + lava = no-no.
I put my hand on my hip, metaphorically. Don’t you tell me how to look after my monkeys! I know
what’s best for them! The game obviously remembers my earlier double monkey murder.

I don’t expect everyone will get as emotionally involved with Tiki Towers as I did. Without that it
is still a fun game of logic, trial and error, and bananas. Hopefully it has taught me enough about
rudimentary bamboo construction that if I do have children, and they do need me to build them a
bridge, I’ll be able to get them to the other side without causing too much harm.

Tiki Towers has most recently been made available on Windows Phone 7, but is also available on
Android, iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad and WiiWare.

 

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1

MAR

Sifting through apps: the useful from the useless

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Fed up with useless apps such as iburb and ifart? Think your
smartphone should have smart apps? Lady Geek is on hand to sift out
five apps that might just actually enhance your life…

(Also appeared in Company magazine- March edition)

 

1) Spotify
Now available on Ovi, Spotify’s gargantuan jukebox and offline
playlists make this app all the more irresistible. A word of warning,
however; publicising your playlists can make for ritualistic
humiliation if your guilty pleasures stretch to Manilow, Right Said
Fred or the Hoff.

Platform: Android, Ovi, Apple
Price: 9.99 a month for premium version (mobile & PC)
www.spotify.com

2) 3G Watchdog
My mum used to curtail my teenage phone-athons with a timely
unplugging of the cable, and this App is very much a third-generation
‘rental, tracking the data traffic sent over your phone’s mobile
network, and vibrating when you exceed your limit. And now it’s you
paying the bill, you might take more notice!

Platform: Android
Price: free/ Pro version for £2
http://www.androlib.com/android.application.net-rgruet-android-g3watchdog-zzA.aspx

3) Cut the rope
Chillingo’s latest multi-million selling app involves feeding a green
monster with candy, via a series of ever-increasingly complex
obstacles. This description may not seem much of a hard sell, but this
app has the dual benefits of simplicity and an addictive appeal.

Platform: iPhone
Price: £0.59
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cut-the-rope/id380293530?mt=8

4) Google Translate.
Don’t cancel the Mandarin lessons quite yet, but you might consider
replacing your phrasebook with this versatile translator. Type or
speak your phrase and it will translate it into 50 languages (the
voice recognition is actually surprisingly good), speaking it back to
you in a tone that will command respect in restaurants across the
globe. Could work on boyfriends, too…

Platform: Android
Price: free.
http://translate.google.com/#

5) Nokia’s Ovi Maps.
This free app provides walk and drive navigation for over 70 countries
worldwide, with pre-loaded maps and updated third-party content. Using
your phone’s GPS chip to work at where you are, the app provides
timely (ie not as you drive past the turn-off in question!)
instructions for those whose map and compass skills are, quite
literally, a lost cause.

Platfrom: Ovi
Price: free
http://maps.ovi.com/

 

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25

FEB

Confessions of A Casual Gamer: Bop it! By Ann Scantlebury

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

“Would you like some pepper?” asks the waiter. I stare at him. All of my concentration, every bit of will power I have ever possessed, is going into not shouting “TWIST IT!” in his face. I have not lost my mind, I promise.

Ó

Let me explain myself: I arrive very early for meeting a friend. The suggested pub is shut and it’s raining outside so I find a restaurant nearby, get a table and order a drink. I appear to have found a nice restaurant. There are tablecloths and olives. People are celebrating things. I am going to eat food I have trouble pronouncing. A nice restaurant.

I have 30 minutes until my friend arrives. I get out my iPhone and flick through some games. I’m looking for something discrete, something befitting of the ambiance, something that might look like I’m checking my emails when the waiter comes back. Bop It! That seems about right.

I don’t whip out the much loved plastic audio toy and pass it round my fellow diners, clapping as they PULL IT!, FLICK IT!, and BOP IT!. That would be ridiculous. I begin to play a solo round of the game as designed for iPhone and iPod Touch.

The game follows the same principle as its parent game. A demanding American man shouts at you to complete actions using the onscreen icons, instructing you at ever increasing speeds while some delightfully annoying music plays in the background.

You can play the game in a variety of modes: As a solo player you can play in classic mode, with the three original bop, twist and pull icons, basic mode with one icon at a time, extreme mode with up to six icons on the screen at one time, or play against the clock in blitz mode.

If you do feel the need to get the whole restaurant involved and pass the game around in multi player with basic, extreme and blitz modes, or you can play head to head with one other player. I am tempted to ask the waiter.

During the game you are able to unlock trophies and, if you feel the need to boast about your Bop It! prowess, you can share your scores on Facebook.

There are also a variety of settings that are very important to consider when playing in public. You can receive the commands through speech (shouting), sound effects or text, decide if you want to switch banter on or off (request setting transferal to the group celebrating – their banter is getting dangerous), and, most importantly, the one setting I failed to pay proper attention to – ‘Shout It’.

One of the icons that appears is a microphone and you are requested to SHOUT IT!. That can either be done by tapping the microphone (Shout It off) or shouting YEAH! at the screen (Shout It on). As I sit in the nice restaurant by myself a microphone appears and I have Shout It on. Oh well, at least I unlocked the ‘Yeah! Shout’ trophy.

The mobile version of Bop It! is exactly as enjoyable, annoying and frustrating as the original. It’s easy to play and the graphics are cartoony and colourful. I guess the most important information I can pass on is this: No matter how much you like Bop It!, there is a time and a place; and when the waiter approaches with a giant pepper grinder, the response should never be “TWIST IT!”.

You can download Bop IT here.

Ann Scantlebury is the accomplished actress and co-presenter of the award winning game show One Life Left.   Ann is a regular contributor to Lady Geek.

 

Category : Casual Games | Uncategorized

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14

FEB

Lady Geek TV founder Belinda Parmar on BBC Breakfast News

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Lady Geek TV founder Belinda Parmar joined BBC Breakfast’s Simon Jack to discuss the most-wanted devices at this year’s mobile world congress.

 

 

 

14

FEB

Confessions of a Casual Gamer: Stacking by Ann Scantlebury

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

 

You know what would have been brilliant? It would have been brilliant if one of my Grandmothers had been from Russia.  Even better if she’d given me her antique matryoshka dolls and told me magical stories about ‘the old country’ while we played with them. That would have been brilliant and, for the purpose of reviewing Double Fine’s new Russian doll puzzle game, quite useful. But neither of them were from Russia, they were from East London and Kent, and they knew me well; one gave me toffee and the other gave me the excellent pop magazine Live and Kicking. That’s the kind of kid I was, the kind of girl I am. No Russian dolls. I did sit in boxes a lot as a child, so perhaps I had matryoshka sympathies.

It doesn’t really matter that I missed out on the hollow doll wielding Russian Grandmother experience, because with Stacking I’m right back in the 1930s of yore(ski). They certainly can’t be described as ‘the good old days’ though. Through one of the many silent film inspired cut scenes you learn that your family has been captured to work for The Baron, an evil industrialist who forces children to shovel coal.  Yeah, that kind of evil. You, Charlie Blackmore, the smallest of a family of matryoshka dolls, and your mother are the only ones that managed to evade him.  She cries a lot, so it’s up to you to rescue your family. And you will rescue them through the power of puzzles.

You solve puzzles by stacking yourself (teeny tiny Charlie) inside bigger and bigger dolls and using their unique abilities to move through the game.

 

 

 

Stacking’s cute design is easy to enjoy because the puzzles themselves don’t take a huge amount of brain power. If you find yourself stuck at any point you’re never more than a button click away from a handy blue line telling you where you should go next, or a set of tips on how to complete the puzzle. If you find that all too simple, there are plenty of other things in the game to keep you entertained. Go back and figure out all the different ways you can solve the puzzles – the easiest one isn’t the only one. Or earn more rewards by completing the Hi-Jinks. Or just walk around and talk to your fellow dolls. They can be very funny.

If you, like me, have lived a life largely devoid of dolls you can put in dolls, fear not: stacking is here to fill that hole! And then fill it again with something slightly smaller. And then fill it again with something slightly smaller. And then…

If that doesn’t sort you out, go and sit in a box. Nana Scantlebury will be along shortly with some toffee.

Stacking is available for download on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade.

Ann Scantlebury is the accomplished actress and co-presenter of the award winning game show One Life Left.   Ann will is a regular contributor to Lady Geek.

 

Category : Casual Games

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6

FEB

Confessions of a Casual Gamer By Ann Scantlebury

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

When I was 14, I had my first kiss. I can’t say it was the best kiss I’ve ever had, it really wasn’t, but there were fireworks. It was bonfire night. At 14, giddy from fireworks and kissing, I thought that was as exciting and eventful as life could get. That’s what I was doing when I was 14. What I was not doing when I was 14 was making a chart-topping physics puzzle game.

Earlier this year Bubble Ball knocked Angry Birds from its position as the number one free game in Apple’s iTunes store, presumably by throwing a bird at it. And yes, Bubble Ball is a physics puzzle game, and yes, it was made by a 14 year old.

So, what do you do in a game made by a 14 year old? Here’s what you do: You are shown a ball and a flag. You have to get the ball to the flag. When you hit the ‘START’ button gravity happens and the ball can’t get to the flag. Gravity wins, and it sucks to be the ball. But wait! Seeing this is a problem (and, actually, the crux of the game) our 14 year old developer has given you apparatus to place around the screen, to harness the power of gravity and get that ball to that flag. Haha! Sorry, gravity. Through the 32 levels you’re given different apparatus to use, from wooden planks to power up buttons. You’re even able to reverse gravity. Poor gravity. Gravity’s been used, the ball has won and nobody’s bothered to ask how the flag feels about any of this.

Of course it’s impressive that the game was made by a 14 year old (with a bit of help from his mum). But if you forget that that and just play the game, you might be a bit disappointed. For a game that has been so popular and successful, it isn’t very fun. It’s satisfying and interesting and technically it works very well, but I didn’t get hooked on it and I didn’t feel the need to keep playing level after level. Maybe because the design is quite utilitarian, or maybe because the game seems a little bit too much like a physics lesson. It’s definitely missing something.

I look forward to seeing the next game from our 14 year-old developer (Robert Nay, Utah). Who knows, maybe it’ll be a firework themed platformer. Maybe you play a 14 year old desperately trying to catch their first kiss. Probably not though, right?

Bubble Ball is available on the iTunes Store and for Android devices, and it’s completely free to download.

Ann Scantlebury is the accomplished actress and co-presenter of the award winning game show One Life Left.   Ann will be a regular contributor to Lady Geek.

 

Category : Articles | Casual Games | Games

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4

JAN

The Best Gadgets of 2010

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

Just in case you missed my bad dancing moves with BBC’s Tech Correspondent Rory-Cellan Jones and Founder of PocketLint Stuart Miles, you can watch our review of the best gadgets of 2010 and what’s exciting for 2011.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12085177

And you can also hear my Persian voiceover here.  Far better than my own voice

And don’t forget to join us in our campaign to end stereotyping of women within the tech industry and put an end to the ‘pink it & shrink it‘ approach that goes on.  You can find us on Facebook here.

Happy New Year.  And thank you for all your support in 2010.

Belinda

 

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13

DEC

Lady Geek’s Christmas Wish List

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Xbox 360 Kinect

 

 

If you like the Nintendo Wii you’ll love the Kinect. Fun, energetic, social and for all ages. Brings people together: so once the Christmas meal is over and you’re wondering how to entertain all the family, get a wriggle on and get your booty moving and work of some of that Christmas pudding.

- Price: £127.99 alone – £249.99 with Xbox 360 console

- Where can you buy: Most retailers

 

Veho Smartfix Slide and Negative Scanner

 

For all those old photos you wish you could upload on your computer but you only have the negatives – Look no further.  This gadget scans you negatives and transfers them onto your computer. Why not upload those embarrassing school photos onto Facebook and tag your old friends in them?  Bet they thought they’d never see them again. Alternatively its a great present for those who haven’t switched to digital perhaps for your parents/grandparents.

This is a really affordable alternative to the industry standard Nikon Coolscan. This scanner will cost you less than the price of having ten rolls of films scanned at your local snappy-snaps!

-Price: £99.95

-Where can you buy it: Gadgets.co.uk

 

Pogoplug

 

 

Its a real hassle having to remember to upload your important docs/music.  This is like dropbox for your living room.  This device stores your documents like a normal hard-drive but allows you to access your data via the internet.

If you cannot bear to look at the Barbie pink exterior, this device is best operated remotely. It comes with drivers for Mac, Windows and (for the real geeks) Linux. Plus it works with just about every kind of mobile device. It even doubles up as a media streamer – you can store your videos on it and it will stream it to your XBox.

-Price: £56.60

-Where can you buy it: Amazon

Cut the Rope App

 

As entertaining and fun as Angry Birds has been, it’s time for a new casual gaming app to take over. Cut the Rope is a wonderful lightly challenging addictive app that is becoming very popular on the itunes app download list. What’s more Lady Geek predict it will become the next best app everyone will be dying to play.

-Price: £0.59 (Available on the iphone, itouch and ipad)

-Where can you buy it: iTunes

Roberts Colour Steam DAB internet radio and ipod dock

 

 

The latest Roberts internet radio  allows you to listen to your favourite radio station online, or plug in your MP3 and listen to your own selection of music through a fantastic sound system. Sleek sexy looking and very easy to use, especially when lying in bed hungover after a Christmas party.

-Price: £199.95

-Where can you buy it: John Lewis

Samsung / Google Nexus S

Nothing brings the Christmas cheer like a contract-free premium Android handset such as this – Samsung’s new Nexus S. It’s a substantial upgrade on the Galaxy S with a sleeker, curvier shell plus the very latest Google Maps. We were big fans of the Nexus One, but that love-affair has ended now we’ve seen the new model.

 

This is the phone for Android purists who want the authentic, undiluted Google experience. This is the very first phone which will feature Google’s new 3d mapping service – it’s like a TomTom but you actually see 3 dimensional representations of the buildings as you drive past them.

 

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10

NOV

Lady Geek give Xbox 360′s Kinect the thumbs up

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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

 

Category : Electronics | Games | Home Entertainment | Interesting | Mobile Phones | Press Coverage | Press release | Women in Business | Women In IT

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4

NOV

Lady Geek’s plug in

Posted by Lucie Sarif (0) Comment

 

Would you swap your ipad for Toshiba’s new tablet?
With the Folio 100 hitting the streets just in time for Christmas will people be changing their wish lists from ipad to Folio 100? Not only does the Folio 100 have a bigger screen (10 inch vs. 9 inch) it is competitively cheaper by £100. That is a significant save, especially during the season of present shopping for the whole family or sale season (bring on January).
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2272728/tablets-toshiba-folio-100-ipad

East London to rival Silicon Valley: a fantastic opportunity to bring more women into technology industries?
David Cameron’s plans to create a UK based technology centre that is as successful and influential as America’s Silicon Valley could cause the biggest potential intake of women in technology companies. A shift that is long overdue!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11689437

Who are the most influential women?
British women voted for who they think are the most influential role models: from Maggie Thatcher to Oprah Winfrey.
“‘It’s these female one-offs who make it clear that the glass ceiling is permeable,’ she claimed. Ms Cochrane also suggested that female role models should be more realistic than pop stars and heiresses, and highlighted the work of campaign website PinkStinks.co.uk.“
http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/news/women-compile-list-of-influential-role-models-news-800217405

 

Category : Articles | Electronics | Games | Home Entertainment | Interesting | Uncategorized | Women in Business | Women In IT

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20

AUG

A lesson in fearlessness with Eileen Gittins

Posted by claire (0) Comment

 

The minute I meet Eileen I like her.  Eileen Gittins, CEO of Blurb Books is warm, direct and funny.  She is one of those women who you know would give you a straight answer if you asked her a direct question.  I want to know more about her story. How did she get from being ‘an artist at heart’ to one of the most successful female entrepreneurs in San Francisco generating $45million in revenue in 2009 and shipping 1.2 million books to more than 60 countries?

And how did she manage to get VC funding of over $1million when just 5.7 per cent out of a total of more than $20 billion of VC funding in North America goes to companies with female bosses?  What is about Eileen that makes her just successful?

I ask Eileen about how she started the business.  She talks about the ‘kitchen cabinets’ she held, where she would group her friends and share her ideas.  The more people she told about her business, the more she became confident in her ideas.  This openness and exchange of ideas is something she says is fundamental to Blurb Books today.

The thing that most struck me is when I ask her about whether it was a struggle getting funding she looks perplexed.  Its almost as if it never entered her mind that her gender would be an issue despite the facts showing how difficult women can find it. She laugh and tells me;

‘VC’s don’t care if you are a horse, as long as they can make money from you.’

Eileen is not intimidated by being in a room of men ‘thinking they know best.’  She knows she knows best.  She learnt two valuable lessons in getting VC funding.  The first was be crystal clear about what you do.  You can’t expect anyone to invest in you if they don’t understand what you do.  The second lesson was to have a big vision.  Blurb’s vision is to democratise publishing and give everyone in the world a voice- far more impressive than trying to ‘encourage people to self publish.’ This is already becoming a reality with Blurb for Good which allows philanthropists and nonprofits to create and use books as a mean to generate awareness for social causes.

I can’t help feeling that there is an even bigger lesson to learn from Eileen.  One we don’t speak about in our interview.   A lesson every woman should adhere to.  The art of being fearless.  Not caring about or even noticing we are pitching our business to men or women.  Not caring if we get rejected.  Not needing to be reassured at every level. Culturally women, are still taught to be ‘obedient’ and the word ‘ambition’ is still used in a derogatory way when associated with women.  Eileen turns these outdated notions upside down.

Ask forgiveness not permission.  The most useful lesson to each and every female entrepreneur.

 

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11

JUL

Sony Xperia X10 Mini

Posted by claire (2) Comment

Cross-posted from Girly Geekdom

 

The ads for the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini could not have been more tempting. Elegant model fingers slickly trip-trip-tripping on the highly touch sensitive screen had me drooling from the get-go. Cradled perfectly in the palm of my hand with a screen size smaller than an average credit card, the Xperia X10 mini is beautiful, responsive and sharp. Looking at the Xperia-exclusive Timescape social networking feature and a beautiful camera -

this tiny and probably highly lose-able phone was practically begging tocome with me to Glastonbury.

 

The phone helpfully came with a micro USB charger, 5 colourful snap-on backs and a 2 GB micro-SD card. Me, the X10 Mini and my untested sleeping bag were ready to go.

Superfast internet, a responsive touch screen, a powerful processor and the killer Google Android operating system powerthe social mind-meld that it is the Xperia-exclusive Timescape

.Timescape mashes missed calls, texts, multimedia mess

ages and Facebook and Twitter updates into a one-stop shop for social networking on a home screen. Responsive, reliable and beautiful, it was a pleasure to use and a great way to check in with Twitter, Facebook and messages quickly.

 

The sharp 5 megapixel camera took beautiful pictures during the day and night. Even when crushed by revellers at 10 pm and battling with strobe lighting and the surging excitement of an energetic crowd, the pictures of Muse performing on the Pyramid stage came out perfectly. So well, in fact, that other festival-goers commented on their sharpness as I took them. Each photo could be easily and instantly uploaded to YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, sent as an email or MMS, which had my friend in a fit of jealousy.

The fast processor and Android operating system does come with a drawback – the battery drained faster than a kitchen sink. This problem culminated in the X10 mini dying twice in one day leaving a very lost me frantically handing over the device to the lovely phone charging guys by the dance tents for an emergency 1 hour charge. Oops! I spent a lot of time in Orange Chill n Charge tent over the festival. On the plus side, I did get to see Ellie Goulding play an acoustic set in the tent. Unfortunately, I could not take a photo as… my phone was charging. A little investigation on return home revealed that the X10 Mini constantly scans for network so, if you are in a low network area or a particularly busy area (for example, Glastonbury!), the X10 Mini’s battery will get sucked up just finding a network. Recommendation – switch the phone to airplane mode when confronted with this problem.

Overall, the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini is a very impressive small smartphone, especially in comparison to the unresponsive HTC Tattoo. With the slick Timescape giving the phone a social networking edge, its £200 price tag, great processor and the Android operating system gives this impressive smartphone a great edge.

 

The Pyramid Arena at Glastonbury 2010. Taken using the Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 Mini.

 

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17

MAY

Does Dell speak the female language?

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

“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.

 

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11

MAY

What is Britain’s favourite app?

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

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 friendsâ€ 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.

 

 

 

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26

APR

Guardian: Lady Geek survey highlights Gaming Grannies

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

The Guardian

 

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21

APR

The Geek is not just your son, but also your gaming grandma

Posted by belindaparmar (3) Comment

 

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.â€ 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

 

Category : Press release

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19

APR

Are Developers the Target of Droid Ads?

Posted by laurarich (0) Comment

 

by Laura Rich

“Can a smartphone take on all comers without flinching? It can when it’s operating a cargo-bay-ful of apps…that you can run while running other apps,” taunts the announcer in “All Comers,” one of the latest ads for Droid, the mobile phone from Google. There are no people, only machines, and made-up technologies. It’s a teenage boy’s fantasy dream.

Verizon has spent $100 million on the creative and media to blanket the universe with such positioning since the fall, and they’re pretty inescapable on television, radio, Hulu, etc. Which is why it’s somewhat surprising that the target market has seemed to be so narrow.

I’m talking about the robots, the space void, the landscape free of humans, only machines and the cold, empty clicks and whirr of this barren universe. Which mainly appeal to the boys, who don’t want an easier-to-use, more instinctual device but a storyline that makes them a character in a futuristic, inter-galactic adventure. And who don’t want any girls around. (Watch the ads here.)

It seems like a step back. So much progress has been made in the last two decades to make technology friendlier, easier to use, more intuitive. And this has helped to integrate technology into our lives, create more communication, more community, more opportunities for individuals to be creative, start companies, help companies save money, be more accessible, etc. Making technology easier is not a bad thing.

But if you listen to the Droid ads, it kind of is. The ads are aggressively aimed away from women. They emphasize apps that “pinpoint any location to find the star in the sky above you… and identify planets you’re not on.” Really? This is an app we need?

Women don’t need pink, but they do want accessibility, sociability, utility. The Droid ads use technical language and insider taunts like the one about multi-tasking, which is aimed squarely at the iPhone’s inability to multi-task. (You can’t, for instance, run your Pandora app and then check your email. It’s one or the other. And it’s a pain. Thankfully, Apple has announced that the iPhone 4.0 OS, due out in the fall, will finally allow for multi-tasking.) Droids seem to want boys, not girls.

Anyway, lots of people agree that Droid is going heavy on the dudes.

But here’s another thought on why: it could be about more than just share of the immediate consumer market: As a friend reminded me, these devices—Droid, iPhone, Pre—live and die on their apps. Just as a computer without any applications is kind of pointless, too. So far, the iPhone leads the pack in apps, with more than 185,000 in its App Store. The Droid counts 38,000, but growing at a clip that’s expected to hit 100,000 by end of year. The Pre is not really even worth mentioning, with just 2,169.

So if the apps are the thing, it’s obvious why iPhone is king. But if the Droid really begins to capture the imagination of geeky boys—I mean, even those in their 20s and 30s, perhaps nerdy programmer types—well, who’s going to win the app race then? If the developers like the Droid, that’s where the apps will go. And if there are enough apps that make our lives easier, allow us to be more creative, efficient with our time, connect with others, etc.—no ad will be needed to convince more of us, no matter what gender, that the Droid is the better option. (Especially if the wireless service provider also prevents calls from dropping so frequently, too.)

More: Read the full breakdown on the anti-girls approach from this reader on Contexts.org, here’s a part of it:

0:04. The voice over’s question “Should a phone be pretty?â€ is
visually answered with an effect reminiscent of melting celluloid. The
rupture starts on top of the woman’s head, exploding her “prettyâ€ face.

0:06. Women are beheld as dolls.

0:08. Images appear superimposed over images beneath a verbal
judgment. The beauty queen (fake) made out of plastic (fake) shown on a
television (fake) is definitively stamped “CLUELESS.â€

0:10. The commercial erased its first woman by destroying the medium
of her representation (supposedly celluloid). The commercial again
destroys its second “womanâ€ by destroying the medium of her
representation (a television).

0:10 – 0:13. Words across the screen: FAST, RACEHORSE, SCUD. Images:
Lightning, racing horse, ripping off duct tape, SCUD missile.
Combining these motifs into one single image, we see the SCUD missile
flying across the screen with the word RACEHORSE as though it were
written with lightning.

0:14. Droid applications: Reality Browser 2.1, Google Sky Map, Qik,
Mother TED, CardioTrainer, Where. While I doubt that these applications
were developed with the commercial’s themes in mind, their selections
reinforce the messages thus far enforced visually: reality (woman of
burnt celluloid, destroyed television), sky (SCUD missile), quick (FAST,
RACEHORSE), mother (a Freudian slip recognizing the infantile nature
of a power fantasy? ^_~), exercise (beef up for manliness stat +4), and
going places (which SCUD missiles, race horses, and THE MANLIEST OF
MANKIND’S MEN all do).

0:15. Word overlay: DOES. Men do things. Women are pretty and
useless.

Read the rest here.

–

This post originally appeared on LauraRich.com.

 

Category : Ads | Uncategorized

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8

APR

Ladies! PC World Thinks You’re a Dolly Bird!

Posted by claire (7) Comment

Oh – is that a woman speaking in the new PC World ads? Yes, that’s right, it is! Hooray a woman? Oh wait. Oh. Oh no.

 

 

Bargain World
Watch the ad…

 

 

 

 

Music World
Watch the ad…
Do you see the difference? The boy uses his computer to do stuff. The woman acquired it because she just cannot resist acquiring stuff when she’s shopping for fun because, you know, women like to shop. Even better when she can buy more shoes, right?

Believe it or not, and I suspect PC World doesn’t, I use my computer to do stuff. In fact, I am writing this pieceВ on my laptop. I am also streaming music from Spotify, I have (one, two, three, four…) 9 tabs open in a Safari browser and another 3 open in Chrome (I am an equal opportunities geek). iTunes, Tweetdeck, Adobe, a mail client, a photo editor, MS Office AND iWork are all open right now and running smoothly(ish). All pretty useful, all pretty convincing. So maybe it would be nice to know if the proposed Samsung netbook can, for example, connect to the internet instantly or run concurrent browsers. PC World could show the kind of media the Samsung netbook does support or enhance. PC World Dolly Bird, on the other hadn, does not care but aren’t her shoes awesome?

Women are diverse and have competing needs and there is definitely a market for accessible technology, especially where you are not a power user. HOWEVER, PC World then follows up the Bargain ad with this little gem:

 

 

Savings for a Night..
Watch the ad…
You’ll never guess what? Girls like to drink lattes and go to nightclubs! Wicked, innit? Also, this netbook is cheap. So is this all-in-one printer/scanner/photocopier/blackmail machine. PC World had a second chance to get this right and failed. Failed.

It is simply not enough to keep projecting female stereotypes in the hope this strategy attracts women and their purses. Women are as diverse, as disparate and individual, as men. PC World needs to talk to women like they are humans, not caricatures straight from a dumbed-down version of Legally Blonde.

The ads also disturbingly depict technology and, therefore, their products as a boring diversion, cruelly siphoning off money from the really fun things, like shoes and cocktails. I’m going to put my hand up here and say that many women find technology fun – it enhances their life and provides a constant source of entertainment. Make the product more appealing for women – sell the product, sell technology, sell a lifestyle, not the other things your customers can buy from other places.

 

7

APR

Women are not interested in technology?

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

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.

 

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14

MAR

On OnLive

Posted by claire (1) Comment

Having discussed women and gaming a couple of weeks ago, you can imagine how pleased we were to find out Wednesday’s announcement that OnLive will finally go live on 17 June.

Having had 11 months to refine a marketing strategy to appeal to the widest possible market, OnLive produced a product that got so much right and falls down at the last possible hurdles. The subscription fee model that will appeal to a broad range of consumers (read: women, too)? Check. The ability to work on both Macs and PCs without additional hardware requirements? Check. A microconsole to stream video games direct to a TV? Check! A fast, streamlined, informative website? Check, check, check. Check.

Now let’s look at the games – oh, dear. So close! The “featured games” on the website include Assassins Creed 2, Metro 2033 and the upcoming Prince of Persia.  Every single one of the games listed is graphically violent, arguably not the way to appeal to many female gamers.  By contrast, the most popular games for the Wii console (the most popular games console with women) are of the Super Mario Brothers/Mario Kart variety and multi-player sports games.  Two exceptions – the hugely successful Call of Duty and Lego Star Wars, my personal favourite, which involves shattering Lego walls, Lego objects and Lego storm troopers – no blood involved.

Given this evidence, the available games choices for OnLive needs to be rapidly re-examined to attract women gamers. Ignoring the huge female gaming market is a perilous tactic for OnLive, which gets so many other aspects right.  Making sure female gamers are catered to could turn OnLive from a quirky, interesting gaming footnote to a superstar player.

 

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10

MAR

Women control the living room

Posted by belindaparmar (4) Comment

 

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.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics | Uncategorized

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9

MAR

DIY for the Ladies

Posted by clara (1) Comment

 

For my 21st birthday I asked my father to buy me a power tool.  I still remember when I got my AEG power drill! I loved it then, and I still love it and use it today, 9 years after. It never let me down and it built my furniture in 3 flats and installed in at least 10 of my industrial design exhibitions.

Unfortunately it wasn’t designed with women in mind, so I often strained my wrist using it or had trouble carrying it around in its big and heavy case. I would have loved if AEG had thought about me, about other women, when designing it.  AEG like so many other technology companies, fail to understand what women want and just ending up producing a ‘pinked up’ and often’ dumbed down ladies version’ like the toolkit featured here.

This kit has probably been designed by men who didn’t want women to ever use tools, and if they ever do, this kit ensures they will have a bad experience. Bad grips, cheap metal, tiny fiddly components all coated in pink! Forgive me for thinking this is not a manicure set, right? It’s a tool set…

If women are not very experienced in DIY, a kit like this should make the job easier, not difficult and patronising.  I would have felt terriblly confused if my father had got me something like this, I would have probably never got closer to the DIY shop anymore.

Nine years on, and on my 30th birthday I would love to say that design is much more female centred.  Unfortunately it is not and according to CES, women think only 1% of designers have them in mind when designing for them.

Lady Geek’s DESIGNWITHME product takes into account women’s aspirations and strengths, not their nail varnish colour…

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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26

FEB

Where are the Women… Gamers?

Posted by claire (1) Comment

“Forget ‘Pink Games’,â€ declared Sharon Knight, then of EA, in her keynote address at Women in Games, 2007.  “Women want the same fun experience – not the dumbed down version.â€  As the Women in Games 2010 conference approaches, how successful has the gaming industry been in attracting the hitherto elusive “girl gamerâ€?

 

In 2007, it was already established that women were forming an increasing share of gamers.  Particularly attracted to games involving intuition, skill and an active community, the newest generation of consoles, such as the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360, offered the perfect opportunity for the industry to broaden the appeal of the games and attract the largely untapped – and spendy – female market.  Since then, the release of the iPhone and the hugely anticipated iPad have opened up a whole new dynamic platform and gaming experience, not to mention even greater direct access to the female market.

 

According to Sheri Graner Ray, a Senior Game Designer and Schell Games, not much has changed.  “The first is that the media has come out with the little fact that 45% of the game audience is female. The game industry took one look at that, and patted itself on the back saying, “Mission Accomplished!â€ They then went back to their offices smug in the knowledge that they didn’t have to worry about the female players of their games any more.â€

 

However, Ray points out, the game audience figures are drawn from both casual games, of which women comprise a 70% market share, as well as more traditional platform games.  Even when presented with statistics on female market share of casual gamers, casual game developers fail to capitalise on this by ignoring the wants of their core base.  Says Ray, “I will ask them if they are aware their audience is 70% female. I am usually met with a blank stare and the comment that, “Well, yes, but this isn’t for them.â€ Likewise, I’ve talked with publishers who will say, “This will be just like (most popular casual title of the day), but we are going to make it deeper! With long, deep quests! And extensive Crafting! And arenas for combat! And leader boards!â€ to which I will ask, “And how do these things appeal to your female audience?â€ I am usually met with a stare and a rapid change of subject. So what we have is publishers and developers who have stumbled into a very successful new genre but still cling tenaciously to what the traditional market likes and continues to try to shoehorn it into the new model.â€

 

As Rumbi Pfende, the UK country manager for Real Games, pointed out to Marketing Week

 

 

Girl playing video game shocker!

, companies are prone to stereotyping female consumers. “The misconceptions about gaming are vast,â€ she says. “Assumptions that women only play bingo if they are on benefits or women who enjoy gaming won’t do anything else, such as watch TV or use social networks, are just not true.â€

 

While women continue to gravitate towards gaming, it is imperative that gaming companies recognise these weaknesses and broaden the appeal of their games. Otherwise, women will burnout and they will not come back for more.

 

 

Category : Electronics | Games | Home Entertainment

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15

FEB

Binary Barbie

Posted by elisabethkelan (2) Comment

Barbie has found a new career: she is now a computer engineer. The computer engineer Barbie wears pink-framed glasses, a bluetooth headset and a binary code shirt. She also has a pink laptop. The press release states that ‘Barbie® designers worked with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering to ensure that accessories, clothing and packaging were realistic and representative of a real computer engineer.’ I personally have seen more managers with headsets than computer engineers and none of the computer engineers I have ever met had a pink laptop or pink-framed glassed.

 

However we see how a computer engineering Barbie could make the option to become a computer engineer more attractive to girls. While such an approach is laudable, Mattel could have thought about going a step further and giving Barbie a different colour laptop. If the Binary Barbie increases the number of women in computing remains to be seen.

 

Category : Interesting

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15

FEB

Belinda Parmar, CEO & Founder of Lady Geek

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

 

 

25

JAN

ASUS at CES 2010

Posted by belindaparmar (4) Comment

 

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.

 

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4

JAN

The N900 is a star

Posted by belindaparmar (5) Comment

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.

 

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13

DEC

Lady Geek featured in Management Today

Posted by Sally (1) Comment

 

I am now a regular contributor to Management Today.  Please subscribe to the MT blog and join our conversation.

 

Category : Press Coverage

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13

DEC

My Top 10 gadgets this Christmas (as featured in The Times)

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

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 “Appsâ€ or “Widgetsâ€ (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 “Pulseâ€ 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 “candybarâ€ 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 “premiumâ€ 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

 

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17

NOV

Vive la difference

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

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.

 

Category : Articles | Interesting

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17

NOV

Why Jeremy Clarkson may just be the answer.

Posted by belindaparmar (5) Comment

 

I am frustrated. I am bored. I feel patronised. PC World is telling me My World is Pink (it has not been pink since I was 7) and I need a new laptop to match my outfit (it would never even occur to me to match my outfit with my technology). Samsung is asking me “What Colour is my Life?â€ (hello?) and Dell is telling me that technology is like candy (do me a favour).

I am a 35 year-old professional woman with my own home. I am educated, fairly tech literate and, most importantly, I have cash to spend. Plenty of cash to spend, on technology that will make my life easier, more creative and fun.

Out of every ten gadgets bought in the UK, four are now bought by women. And, before you ask, we are not talking about fridges and washing machines. No, these are high-end items such as HD TV’s, games consoles and smart phones. And there are more games being played by women than men between the ages of 25-34.

I am not alone in feeling patronised or alienated by technology and consumer electronic brands.

I recently conducted some research for Forrester. This highlighted that one third of all British women do not feel connected to a single technology brand. Over half of all women walk out of shops because they cannot find what they are looking for.

This missed opportunity is calculated at £0.6 billion. The technology industry is where the automotive industry was 20 years ago- nervous boys at the school dance who do not quite know what to do or say to women. They end up leading with two left feet.

So why do technology companies think that pinking up and dumbing down their marketing is the way to get professional, well educated women to part with their cash? Why do they treat young girls and women alike – as an afterthought? Why are companies not researching “what women really wantâ€ and getting advice from expert consultants?

 

How can we help technology companies understand what women want?

Many technology brands believe that the way to a woman’s purse is to make her feel “specialâ€, and have aimed to achieve this by giving women their “ownâ€ space, site or product. Dell’s disastrous Della website, which handed out technological advice alongside recipe tips and fashion articles, was shut down within weeks. Carphone Warehouse, Dixons and Comet (Comet Angels) have all had their share of “initiativesâ€ and women’s only days, all with the aim of helping women turn the telly on. All, one assumes, with a glass of Prosecco held in their manicured, nail-varnished hands.

No woman wants to be a target with an overt “female friendly” message. Being singled out as different is as off-putting today as it was when you were singled out at school. Nor do women want to be stereotyped or bamboozled by obscure jargon.

It is ironic, given its widespread reputation for untarnished machismo, but the BBC’s Top Gear has democratised cars. It might be a legacy to make Jeremy Clarkson flinch, but he has helped to make cars accessible to women.

Once purely the domain of men, the programme now has nearly as many female viewers as male, thanks largely to being both playful and light-hearted. It stands for unadulterated honesty and entertainment looking at how people in the real world think and relate to their cars.

In September this year, the Harvard Business Review stated that women now represent a bigger market opportunity than India and China combined. Technology brands must put an end to these clumsy marketing strategies and put money and time behind understanding how real women in the real world engage with technology.

Women are no longer the second sex. We are the more profitable sex.

 

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10

NOV

Analogic Solutions to Digital Problems, older people and mobile communication.

Posted by clara (2) Comment

by Clara Gaggero

Older users, particularly older women, seem reluctant to use mobile technology on a daily basis. According to Ofcom, (The Consumer Experience 2008 Research Report) only 5% of people aged over 65 makes a phone call or sends a text on a daily basis.
Samsung commissioned a research project to the Helen Hamlyn Centre at the Royal College of Art to tackle this issue. Adrian Westaway and myself  conducted the yearlong project, aimed at enabling older users to use and enjoy mobile technology.
Existing “solutionsâ€, often known as Silver Phones, are stigmatising and disrespectful. They dumb down information instead of enabling the users to access them. We believed that creating another mobile phone with bigger screen and bigger buttons would not solve the problem. We believe that older people would benefit from gps, and other applications that mobile technology can offer nowadays.

We looked at the bigger picture, analysing the whole user journey. We worked closely with users of all ages and we soon discovered something staggering. After purchasing or receiving the phone, when opening the box, digitally savvy younger users approach immediately the phone and learn how to use it by trial and error; older people instead look for help inside the box. Help isn’t always there, manuals are merely legal requirements printed on flimsy paper and the packaging is a glorified egg carton. We noticed that the enthusiasm of having a new phone vanishes at this stage and many people feel frustrated and excluded.

But older people are not alone, 85% of all users report frustration in setting up a new phone. This shows how, by focusing on a defined user group and conducting a people centred design process, we can discover a big commercial opportunity.

We created three solutions, three analogical answer to digital problems. People are waiting six months or more to meet their daughters, sons or nieces, the “translatorsâ€ that will explain them the phone or the digital camera’s features. We created three objects that act as interpreters between technology and the users.

The Book:
Most phones come with flimsy manuals with complicated language and jargon. These books, which can live on a bookshelf, actually contain the phone. Each page reveals the elements of the phone in the right order, helping the user to set up the sim card, the battery and even slide the case onto the phone.
The second book is the main manual – the phone actually slots into this and becomes the center of attention. Arrows point to the exact locations the user should press, avoiding confusion and eliminating the feeling of being lost in a menu.

 

 

The Cards:
Phones have become over complicated and many users are afraid to break them or get lost in menus – so they don’t explore and learn all the things they can do. A set of cards represents every function inside the phone which users can flick through and discover. The phone is supplied empty, and users add the functions they want by tapping a card onto the screen. Cards can be carried in your wallet so functions can be accessed on the move. To encourage learning, the back of the card explains what the function does, and how to reach it using the menus.

The Map:
Last but not least. To encourage users to explore and familiarize themselves with their phones a map was created, which guides users through the meandering labyrinth of menus. Users tests showed that people were quickly discovering and getting interested in new areas of their phone previously buried under layers of menus.

 

Samsung was very pleased with the results of the research and is now developing internally the solutions to bring them to market. The company is looking for applying this direction not only to mobile phones but to a whole range of digital tools on the market – cameras, video recorder, mp3 players… -
Samsung will talk to its older customer in a way that will distinguish them to the competitors who dump down information and whose design is focused on disabilities rather than being inspired by abilities.

For more information please contact: info@claragaggero.com

 

 

NOV

Heroes of the Mobile Screen Conference-Dec 7th

Posted by Sally (0) Comment

 

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.

 

Category : Press Coverage | Uncategorized

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2

NOV

Technology & Fashion: A match made in Heaven or Hell?

Posted by belindaparmar (3) Comment

 

Last week Dell hosted an event intended to unite the worlds of fashion and technology bloggers. Their goal was to discuss how technology could be re-positioned as fashion in order to sell it to women.

With Microsoft’s research highlighting that technology is as important to women as fashion, should tech brands be positioning their wares as fashion accessories? Does it correlate that women love fashion and therefore if you position technology as fashion, women will want to buy it? Is a netbook the latest fashion accessory? Would women rather have the new Dell Adamo XPS rather than a pair of Jimmy Choos?

 

It’s not an original idea to try to sell technology as if it were a fashion accessory. LG’s Prada phone was the first time a major fashion brand put it’s label on a phone. Despite it’s modest capabilities it sold well, proving the allure and reach of the Prada brand.

Few woman have a strong attachment to technology brands – in such a vacuum a strong brand like Prada can help shift products, even if it does seem out of place on the shelves of the Carphone Warehouse. I suspect that the Prada label puts off as many women as it attracts, since there is something frivolous about being seen to flaunt a label, especially on a something as conspicuous as a phone.

There’s a big problem with the technology as fashion proposition:

Firstly, fashion is by nature short term. After a single season your old fashion is out of fashion. That’s perfectly fine for a £20 top from Top-Shop, however it’s not so fine when you are locked into a two year contract on a fashion-phone which is no longer a-la-mode.

If the networks are going to sell a phone on a 2 year contract they need to continue to offer value over this period or risk alienating the customer.

Secondly, the reasons I buy technology are very different to why I buy clothes. Technology enhances my life, builds real and intimate connections with people. It gives me a voice. And amplifies my voice to those closest to me. Fashion is transitory. I get immediate gratification but its fleeting. Its fun but not meaningful. Brands risk trivializing themselves by positioning themselves as fashion.

Lastly, every tech brand seems to take this approach to women. Samsung’s Genio talks about it’s exciting colours but does not mention what value it can add. Dell’s “my colour is pinkâ€ tv-spot looks like a mid-90s’ shoe advert. This is clearly not a way to generate sustainable difference.

As one Lady Geek said,

“What my phone and shoes do for me are very different. One connects me with the world and is about relationships. The other is solely just for meâ€

 

To truly understand women, tech brands must research and understand how women engage with technology in the real world.  They would understand that Fashion is about ‘me,’ technology is about ‘we.’  Two very different propositions in my world.

 

 

Category : Articles | Interesting

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23

OCT

Tech retailers add no value

Posted by Sally (1) Comment

When was the last time you saw an actual mobile phone on display in a mobile phone store?

If you’ve had the misfortune to wander into one of these places recently you will notice that the walls and shelves of these places are usually covered with “dummy” phones, empty shells in which the screen has been replaced by a sticker. Who could possibly think that a dead lump of plastic riveted to the wall gives an impression of the real thing?

 

Carphone Warehouse is an unpleasant shop: It’s the only technology vendor I know that borrows it’s design aesthetic from the Job-Centre. At the Liverpool St. branch I asked the bored-looking man behind the minuscule desk if I could try out HTC’s newish “Hero”. I found his reply quite astonishing: He explained that he couldn’t let me try one because they did not have a demo unit and that I ought to look on the company’s website which had an “interactive demo”.

 

At the nearby Orange shop on Bishopsgate I asked to try out the new Motorola Dext. This time my assistant was able to locate a working handset but unfortunately he brought it to me without a SIM card – that meant that I could not try out the phone’s killer feature: Social networking. So how was I supposed to experience this new product? He pointed me to a fuzzy screen near the entrance to the shop: Oh goody! Another interactive demo.

The previous examples are typical rather than exceptional: Conventional wisdom is that shops have one big advantage over online vendors: They allow you to experience the product. But if shops cannot get this very basic trick right then what value are they adding?  And why, according to Jupiter, over half of all women walking out of stores because they cant find what they want.

We asked the Lady Geek panel about the kinds of retail experiences which they wanted: Virtually everybody said it was important to talk about, touch, smell, engage with a  product before buying.

Women are “reassurance addicts.” Women feel at a relative disadvantage when shopping for technology.   They are much less likely to have done research about the product before they buy compared to men.   And they are much more likely to rely on the sales experience than men. Nearly half of all women have no idea what brand they are buying when they walk into a tech store.

The retail experience is akin to a “vending machine.” Not only that but as a woman, you feel like a bit of bait ready to be snapped up by a pushy sales guy.

Our research indicates a clear prescription for selling more phones to women:

• Find a way to put a few real products on display – and into customer’s hands.
• End the hard-sell tactics and let good products sell themselves.
• Stock a smaller range of more interesting products. Vendors should be brave experts and trust their opinion about what customers should want.
• Employ women to help attract more women and make the environment a place where women want to be.

With Best Buy entering the UK market, tech retailers have no choice but to add real value or die.

 

Category : Articles | Mobile Phones | Uncategorized

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18

OCT

Top Talent – Engaging A Diverse Workforce in Difficult Times

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

I just read Sylvia Ann Hewlett’s new book called ‘Top Talent‘. It deals with how businesses can ensure to retain and motivate diverse talent in the crisis.

 

This is a small book but filled to the rim with useful examples of what businesses can actually do to engage their people in these difficult times. It reports on the research and the high powered network meetings that Sylvia Ann Hewlett holds for the members of her Hidden Brain Drain Task Force of the Center for Work-Life Policy. It is a quick and easy read. A must for everyone who needs to be inspired by how gender diversity can remain top of the agenda when business is down.

 

Category : Interesting

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17

OCT

How to Address Gender Fatigue in the Workplace

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

The World Economic Forum’s Gender Gap Report states every year that no country in the world has yet managed to eliminate the gender gap. While gender inequality continues to be a strong feature of the workplace, my research which has just been published in the Canadian Journal of Administrative Science has shown that men and women find it increasingly difficult to talk about gender inequality. The research is based on a detailed qualitative analysis how people talked about and addressed gender inequality.

Employees from both companies claimed their organizations were gender neutral and that employees were evaluated based on merit. With further questioning, men and women interviewed could describe past situations where gender bias occurred against women, but limited it to happening 10 to 20 years ago, from contacts outside their own organizations (i.e. customer contacts), or to an isolated male colleague from another generation. Instead of denying gender discrimination, workers acknowledge it can happen but construct it as singular events that happened in the past, placing the onus on women to overcome such obstacles.

I have called this phenomenon ‘gender fatigue’ where individuals tire of acting upon gender discrimination in spite of the fact that incidents of gender bias either occurred at one time within their organization or could occur again. The problem with gender fatigue is that it prohibits productive discussion regarding inequalities between men and women, making gender bias difficult to address. If we believe that we work in gender neutral workplaces, seeing and acting upon gender inequality is becoming very difficult.

 

Category : Interesting

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16

OCT

Lady Geek in the Times

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

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…

 

Category : Press Coverage

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8

OCT

Connections

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

I have tended not to go to conferences or events in the last year unless  I am speaking at them.   I used to go with high expectations- hoping to be provoked, dislocated in some way.   The reality is that all too often, I was hearing the same old stuff (albeit with a new flickr image) said by the same old people (mostly 40 something men), done in the same old way (one way broadcast).  And if I am going to sacrifice putting my children to bed, I want to feel a connection.

Last night was a real exception.  It was The Next Women Funding and Pitching event.  The first part of the night was inspiring female entrepreneurs such as Sarah McVittie (founder of Texperts) and Karin Loeffen (founder of Libersy) who told their story from the heart.  The mistakes they made.  The challenges they faced.  The lessons they learnt. The hard way.   And the sacrifices and trade offs they had to endure.

It was real.  It was from the heart as well as the head.  No ‘commandments’.  No ’5 principles’.  No ‘long lists.’  Real stories.  From real women.

And just when I started to feel guilty about the bedtime story I should have told my children, things hotted up where ‘Pitch-Preneurs’ who did a 3 min pitch for funding in front of angel investors.  I watched in awe at some of the great ideas presented.  I felt empowered.

I felt part of something.  I felt a connection.

Innovation is thriving.  Its an exciting time to be in business.

 

7

OCT

Honest advice

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

I was chatting to a smart single twenty-something about dating. She wants a boyfriend but is too shy to go onto a dating site and feels uncomfortable touting her wares and telling everyone how beautiful she is (interestingly even the most unattractive men do not seem to suffer from this fear).

She told me that she’d been using a site called datemyfriend.net: The idea is that your friends write your profile. Instead of having to blow your own trumpet, your friends showcase your talents and acts as your honest-broker. This is a much more comfortable way of approaching the dating scene because your friends can take care of the most frightening bits leaving you to focus on the pleasure.

 

This aligns to how many women I meet have a fear of technology: There is an embarrassment and guilt that surrounds not knowing the difference between a megabyte and megabit. Between not knowing if you are connecting via a network, Wi Fi or 3G. The tech companies have been confusing and bamboozling us for decades. There is an opportunity to take the fear out of technology for those women who are not technology-literate and dread buying technology.

What if you could go to a neutral broker and give her your requirements online? She could come back with a series of recommendations as to what most suits you. What if you could have a planning meeting once a year with someone who would come to your home and assess your current network and requirements, and make you a “technology roadmap”? This person would be like a “personal shopper” for technology. An ITA, sort of like an IFA but for technology.

Whilst technology companies are realising the advantages of post-sales support such as the Apple Genius-bar and Carphone Warehouse’s Geek Squad, no-one is taking the fear out of the pre-sales process, certainly nobody who can offer independent strategic advice.

With women spending more on technology than ever before, it might be a good place to start.

 

Category : Uncategorized

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29

SEP

I am not quite good enough

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

Like many women of my generation, I thought of myself as not quite good enough for the various powerful positions in politics.

Baroness Shirley Williams talks openly on radio 4 about how she and many women always think about themselves as the Deputy…the deputy eduction minister but not the education minister, the deputy prime minister but not the prime minister…

 

Why do so many women although qualified, never put themselves for the top jobs?  Why, when asked do women say they make a good no 2 but not a good no 1?  Why do they often say they are not visionary or entrepreneurial but are more happy just doing the job?

If you go back to show and tell in American schools, more often than not the boys are the first to put their hand up to’ show.’  As girls, we are often taught not to put ourselves forward but stand back and watch from the sidelines.

I have some wonderful, smart confident female friends.  None of them think they would make great leaders or could run their own business.   I am convinced that this has nothing to do with their ability. It is more about the way society and their families set expectations about what girls should do.  Rather than what they could do.

The reason for this perceived lack of ability, according to Baroness Williams, is that women perceive men as ‘giant size’ and themselves as ordinary human size. She concludes by observing that it took all her political life to realise that while those men had projected a giant size image, they were not themselves giants either.

Whatever the reason, the fact remains that while women are not represented in the higher echelons of corporate life (62% of FTSE 100 companies still have NO women on their boards), men continue to dictate what products and services are available to women, particularly in areas such as technology and science which are still dominated by men.

We must ensure women have a voice, if not a seat, in the boardroom.  We must raise the agenda collectively and make sure women are seen not as a ‘niche’ audience but as the future drivers of growth and profitability.

 

Category : Uncategorized

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26

SEP

New Book on Gender in Technology Work Published

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

A new book looking at gender in technology professions has just been published by Palgrave.

 

Performing Gender at Work develops a new understanding gender: that gender is not something one is but rather something one does. This means that we perform gender and are performed by gender. Drawing on detailed academic research in the IT industry, the book outlines three implications of performing gender for the workplace.

First, many skills that are needed for at work today have a gender dimension. Skills like listening and nurturing are said to be perfect for building teams, creating networks and fostering innovation and they are also seen as feminine. However as this book shows it is not women who profit from showing feminine skills: it is men who are valued for performing what is seen as atypical gender behaviour.

Second, telling your own career story is something that is increasingly important in the workplace. The book argues that there is a gender difference in how men and women perform their career stories. Women tend to tell their careers as if they were due to coincidence and luck, whereas men appear to be on a mission to success. Organisations tend to expect the latter in their hiring and promotion decisions.

Third, the book explores the sentiment that gender problems are solved today. We live in a time of ‘gender fatigue’ where we know of the importance of gender equality, but people lack the energy to talk about and address gender inequality. Because of this gender fatigue, we do not have the right language to address gender inequality leading a situation where gender inequality exists but cannot be talked about.

The book urges us to think about stereotypes and biases when we evaluate skills, to give validity to different career stories and to develop a language, which allows us to address gender inequality. The book illustrates vividly how gender is something that is performed in the workplace and which implications this has.

 

Category : Uncategorized

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23

SEP

The Female Economy

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

 

This month’s HBR echoes  much of what Lady Geek has been highlighting for the past 18 months-perfect timing for my upcoming Symbian talk.  Firstly, that women represent the largest market opportunity in the world- in aggregate, the opportunity is bigger than China and India combined.

Secondly that despite this, most companies continue to market to men and fail to explore how they might meet women’s needs. Or they target women as an afterthought through patronizing initiatives.  Dell’s Della being a perfect example.  The NY Times said Dell needed to go to the ‘school of marketing hard knocks.’

And namely, that those companies that can offer tailored products and services are in prime position to win, when the economy recovers.

Interviewing over 12,000 women about everything ranging from their jobs and education to their hopes and fears, BCG found that women are vastly underserved.  Women feel few companies have responded to their need for products and services specifically designed for them. Too many businesses behave if women had no say over purchasing decisions.  With the recovery in sight now, women will represent one of the largest opportunities and are an important force in spurring a recovery.  One of the findings echoes Wave 1 of the Lady Geek Brand Survey;

I hate being stereotyped because of my gender and age, and I don’t appreciate being treated like an infant.”

Interestingly, the research highlights that women are happiest in their early and later years and the lowest point is early and mid forties.  Women struggle to cope with both children and aging parents, so are most receptive to products that help them better control their lives and balance their priorities.

I could not agree more with their final point;

A focus on women as a target market-instead of a geographical target- will up a company’s odds of success when the recovery begins.

 

Category : Interesting | Uncategorized

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11

SEP

The Masculinity of Marketing

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

 

I have sat in numerous meetings where clients and agency people alike have spent hours talking about what the rational unique selling point (USP) is of a product.  Very rarely have any of the products I have sold had a truly unique feature or benefit.  And in technology, any unique feature is quickly copied and therefore unsustainable as a long term strategy.

Whats much more unique is the emotional features of selling a technology product.  How it feels to the user.  The retail environment in which it is presented.  The feeling it creates in others who see you with your gadget.  And ultimately the meaningful human interaction and creativity it brings.

So why then do we insist on spending hours debating the rational USP of a product?  Comparing every tiny feature of a product with like for like competitor comparisons?  And talking about one specific rational feature as if it is going to solve every problem you have ever had in your life?

I propose we are asking the wrong answers and therefore coming up with the wrong solutions.  Take my previous article about Nokia’s N97.  Imagine the engineers and the marketing team’s conversation.

“The n97 has so many USPs.  Its sure to be an i-phone killer.”

“For a start it has a 5 megapixel camera.  The i-Phone only has 2.”

“Not to mention the FM transmitter…”

“And the fold out keyboard.”

The list goes on.  Nokia got so hung up on rational USP’s; they forgot about how people use the phone and the feelings it creates in the heart not the head.  A great product is more then the sum of its features. The tragedy of most products is that despite the brilliance of their specification, these features are not how women engage with technology.

One woman told me last week;

I love my i-Phone.  It somehow manages to capture the human expression of technology; whether its flicking the screen like i would with paper or browsing through my photos.  It just feels more human that other tech gadgets”

Pretty Little Head talk about how most marketing focuses on the Achievement Impulse- a male strategy which delivers competitive claims framed through a product advantage (largely based on Baron-Cohen’s work).  Most advertising claims talk about how technology helps men succeed.   In advertising we use ‘male’ language- military language of targets, strategies, campaigns, deployment and so on.

With the missed financial opportunity being at 0.6billion according to Jupiter, as a consequence of failing to connect with women, technology brands need to build marketing programmes around a female mindset and agenda.

Forgetting about USP’s is a good place to start.

 

Category : Articles

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25

AUG

My World is Pink

Posted by belindaparmar (10) Comment

Its official.  Ladies, get your pink handbags out.  The new ad from PC World and Dell is officially the most patronising ever.  It starts with the line

My world is fashion.  I just have to colour co-ordinate everything.  Even my laptop.  That’s why I love the new Dell laptop.

 

Pass me the barf bag.  Please.  It just gets worse.  Should I get pink to match my shoes….  Must I go on?  I am sure you get the picture.

This is an example of 2 companies who have money to waste.  2 companies who have no idea of how to talk to women and most importantly, no idea of the role that technology plays in a women’s life.

I thought that Dell would have learnt from their latest Della ‘for women’ website which seems to have such bad press that they have renamed it.  This is disappointing as the Dell Inspiron mini 10 is a  fantastic piece of kit.   I also thought PC world had made some progress with their latest work.  But alas, it seems a group of middle aged balding in marketing (sorry but it has to be) decided that “women are the answer.”

Here’s the logic.

Women like shoes.

Women like pink.

So to make women like technology, we need to pink it up and dumb it down and make it match her shoes.

Do me a favour.  None of the professional women I know (which is where the biggest financial opportunity is) would be seen dead with a pink laptop.  For most women over the age of 12, pink is definitely not their world.

And even more offensive is not the colour, but the positioning.   The women I speak to love technology.  The creativity and human interaction it adds to their life.  Not because it matches their shoes.

On the positive side, it confirms how much technology brands need specialists such as Lady Geek to put an end to patronising ads like this.

 

Category : Ads

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16

AUG

Baby Geek

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

If Microsoft can do it then I can go one better: My three year old son is reviewing the latest touch-screen laptop sent to me by HP: The HP Touchsmart TX2.  I had reservations about a touch smart screen as why would you need a touch screen on a laptop when you have a keyboard, but my son really loved it.  So did his favourite toy Serena…11

AUG

The N97, the ultimate Symbian smartphone or Nokia’s big joke?

Posted by belindaparmar (8) Comment

I have to admit that I was in a state of giddy anticipation when I got home to find that the courier had delivered a shiny new Nokia N97: It came in a under-stated black box which resembled a treat from a Regent Street boutique. It was a pleasure to unbox, as I appreciated the way it feels comfortable in my hands.

 

The N97 is a radical new design, somewhere between a classic touch-screen like the iPhone and a keyboard-phone like the Blackberry. The whole device slides open with a very satisfying swing that just exudes quality engineering revealing an easy to use QUERTY thumb-pad and a joystick for people who do not enjoy using touch-screens. Other bloggers have complained about the angle of the slide: The screen is at approximately thirty degrees to the key-pad, and it’s impossible to push it flat. I never found that to be a problem because the shape of the phone when opened out makes it very easy to hold securely while typing and walking.

I agree with Susy Weaser when she says that the test of a good gadget is that you should not need to read the manual. It does not take me long to download the Facebook and Twitter application.

However, it takes me ages to find out how to change the basics: date and time, profiles, personalisation. I found the structure of the configuration application very confusing: It took half an hour to connect to one of the many WiFi access points in the house and even more time to download the Google Apps.

Nokia are pushing their “Ovi Store” as the one-stop shop for all applications, however I found that I couldn’t find the applications I wanted. The search did not seem to work at all.

In all I think I must have spent about twelve hours customising and tweaking the phone’s apps and settings before I had something which seemed vaguely right.

Speaking of customisations – the phone seemed to want to do it’s own thing: For example even though I set up my own Google Mail application and then the “Mail for Exchange” client (which can be used to connect to Google’s calendar and tasks) it still insisted on forcing me to set up Nokia’s own mail software each time I powered on the phone. Even after I relented and signed up for “Ovi Mail” it still wanted me to set up the mail service every time I switched the phone on, which happened rather a lot given the phone’s tendency to crash in the middle of whatever I happened to be doing.

And on the subject of reliability: The Symbian platform is known for it’s dependable full-featured phones. I’ve been using Nokia’s S60 phones for more than three years. Unfortunately somebody in Nokia’s testing department must have been on holiday when they were preparing this for release: Even after upgrading all the software to the latest version this phone crashed two or three times per day. It usually happened at the least appropriate time, such as when I was talking on the phone.

The most annoying bug was a quirk on the key-lock: If left un-used for a minute the device automatically locks it’s keyboard to prevent accidental dialling. You are supposed to be able to unlock it by simply flicking the keylock switch on the side, however from time to time it would decide to ignore this. Other than removing the battery to hard-reset the phone I could find no way to get back in control of the device. Given that this happened two or three times a week I’m astonished that Nokia’s quality-control people did not spot this problem.

Finally, my biggest gripe is the screen itself: It looks just like any other mobile phone touch-screen however unless you push it quite hard nothing happens. I found it required quite a bit of pressure to make it work, and then given the force you have to use it becomes very imprecise so I often found myself pressing the wrong button by mistake. The N97′s touch-screen is really quite clumsy. It’s got no multi-touch and Nokia cheekily bundle a little stylus with the phone – suggesting that Nokia are well aware that this touch-screen is not intended for touching.

The iPhone has already set the standard for a touch-screen.  Everybody knows how well the iPhone works – you can touch it with one or two fingers. You can manipulate images on screen with easy to learn gestures. You do not need a stylus or any special accessory to use it. Like most modern touch-screens the iPhone, HTC Magic, Palm Pre and pretty much everybody else uses a “capacitive” screen which can sense the presence of your fingertips without the need to push. The N97 uses an older generation of screen known as “Resistive” – it’s the same kind of screen that you find on a Nintendo DS. This cheaper sort of screen relies on actual pressure in order to register input.

Please do not mistake me for an Apple fan, it’s just that I recognise that they got it right whereas Nokia got it wrong. And that’s a real shame because the screen was supposed to be the biggest selling point of this new machine. I cannot think why Nokia decided to go 2nd best for the phone’s main feature.

The N97 is packed with features, cool things like a built in FM transmitter, the best mobile-camera on the market, and an email application that easily rival’s Blackberry’s flagship. On paper this looks like the best phone ever made however silly design mistakes frequent annoying bugs makes me reluctant to recommend this product. Other than the screen (which a great many people will not find a problem), all of the phone’s problems are to do with it’s software so in theory Nokia could release an update which corrects all of the phone’s faults. Rumor has it that they will be releasing a refreshed version of the N97 with an improved screen (but without the joypad) – I hope that Nokia can pull it off second time around.

Finally, it’s been said that the N97 is one of the most eccentric products that Nokia have ever made: The week before I had to give it back they sent me an even more bizarre product to review. It’s supposed to be an “anti-theft” device for the N97. You clip your state of the art Nokia into what looks like an early 1980′s phone and then run an application which is intended to make the N97′s screen look exactly like an old-fashion phone keypad.

 

The end result is that your N97 is made to look like something that Cybill Shepherd in Moonlighting might have used.  My kids love it.  It shows that even if they did not get the N97 completely right, Nokia has a sense of humour.

 

Category : Electronics

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10

AUG

I am a PC and I am 4 and a half

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

I am loving the evolution of the I am a PC campaign.  Its warm, personal and positions Microsoft as a champion of humanity rather than a cold, distant high functional technology brand which mainly appeals to men. Women use technology as a means to creativity and to provide meaningful human interaction in their life.

 

One of the ads features a 4 and a half year old Kylie (too cute for words) who uses Windows Live Photo Gallery to send a picture of her fish to her parents.  The strategy is simple: technology so simple that a 4 and a half year old could do it.  Another features a small boy has a large construction ranged all around the kitchen, and demonstrates taking lots of pictures of different parts of it, transferring those from the camera to a laptop, and then stitching them all together to make one.

Its a thankful departure from Microsoft’s unsuccessful retort to the Apple ads which was the wrong strategy for a myriad of reasons I have discussed before.  This is about what Microsoft stands for and gives them a narrative that goes beyond their product.

Its not about the piece of kit.  Its about how you use technology to enhance your home.  Its not about the spec.  Its about what that spec enables you to do.  Its not about the photo.  But the memory and signal you are sending to those who you send it to.

It starts to take Microsoft from being part of ‘my office life’  to being at the ‘centre of my home. ‘   Not a bad place to start.

 

Category : Uncategorized

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5

AUG

Why don’t women want careers in IT?

Posted by nadia (0) Comment

I’ve spoken to several people at universities and most people admit that they don’t really know what drives women into (or away from) IT careers. There are a number of assumptions that form the basis of recruitment drives, but it seems that very little research has been conducted amongst female IT professionals to learn what they find genuinely rewarding about their work.

Here are a number of assumptions that I have encountered so far:

• Young women don’t think IT careers are cool, and still imagine the industry to be populated with uncool ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds’.
• High schools struggle to present up to date, interesting IT classes and fail to engage the interest of young women.
• Women want creativity and meaningful human interaction in their work, and they don’t feel that IT careers provide either.
• Women enjoy using gadgets (eg mobile phones) but are not interested in the technology behind them.

These seem fairly reasonable, and widely held theories, but while so few people in education really know what women find rewarding or off-putting about IT careers, and while they base their recruitment drives on assumption it is no surprise there are so few ladies entering IT careers.

 

Category : Women In IT

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5

AUG

Smart girls don’t choose IT

Posted by nadia (0) Comment

On June 22nd I spoke with Anna Liu, Associate Professor at UNSW. Anna’s career in IT spans 15 years. I will be posting more from my conversation with Anna, so watch this space.

When asked how she first became interested in IT Anna says that it was in the third grade when she chose to go to a Computer Summer Camp. She also sites an earlier episode, when her father identified her interest in mathematics on a first-grade enrolment form. Did she really stand out as a mathematician so early on or did she respond to proactively live up to her father’s expectations? She doesn’t know for certain, but it seems that she certainly had her parents’ encouragement from an early age.

“But what,â€ I asked, “about the coolness factor? Were you not worried about what your peers would think?â€
Anna laughs “Well I think I was already classed as one of the geeks!”

We chuckle; neither of us were trend setters at school. But does Anna still see the coolness factor as an issue for female high school students with the potential to enter IT studies and careers? Is there still a perception that IT is uncool and does that really prevent women from pursuing IT studies?

“I think that perception has changed a lot” she says, “IT is the cool thing right now, and I can see women getting into it, particularly the social networking aspect.”

We decide that coolness is not so much the issue at the moment, but Anna raises another point:

“We don’t see enough female participation in the IT industry because we are failing to attract the hardworking female with good HSCs…”

“Generally speaking, girls who get good marks and who enjoy science and maths go straight into medicine. Those who enjoy the communications and English language aspects go straight into law. I don’t know if it’s a matter of dollars or that we haven’t publicised and marketed top IT executives.”

It seems a valid point; most of us know lady doctors and lawyers, and I dare say could name a few fictionalised TV characters in those professions too. But there are fewer recognisable people, in real life or TV who demonstrate the success and enjoyment that women can achieve in technical roles.

So how can we encourage women in technical roles to come forward and share their experiences?

 

Category : Uncategorized

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5

AUG

IT Careers and cultural stereotypes

Posted by nadia (0) Comment

Veronica is a successful software developer. Here she shares some of her experiences in the gender-stereotyped world of IT:

“During the first year of my Computer Science course at USYD, there was no shortage of female students — the ratio was about 50/50. Most of them Asians, very few of Anglo-Saxon background. I think in Asian culture, “geeky” girls are not classed as uncool at all (at least not in Hong Kong, where I grew up — they are often viewed as well informed and thus cool).

“After the first semester, numbers of females started to drop drastically. I have asked a lot of friends why they dropped out, and they generally say how they don’t really care about IT as much as say Economics or Commerce, or Law, so they switched. Of those, there are also many that felt like it’s hard to compete with people (mostly guys) who grew up programming and full of “techniness”, while they are just starting to take an interest and learn for the first time.

“My Computer Science course in uni was full of guys who were proud of their hard core programming abilities, and often they would paint females as ‘noobs’ and ‘wannabes’ — in a group work intensive uni course, this is a big disadvantage for female students who are generally interested and want to do well, but were labelled as lame and pretty much ostracised from the group.

“Many I found, dropped out thinking “I don’t have to put up with this crap”, and end up in other courses where they felt they were taken as equals.

“I also think fewer females start being interested in IT when they’re young because of that mental image of a computer nerd with thick glasses who can’t communicate — can’t help that, it’s a popular stereotype.”

Thanks to Veronica Luke for sharing her experiences.

 

Category : Uncategorized

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3

AUG

Buying An Object of Desire

Posted by elisabethkelan (3) Comment

I treated myself to an iPhone. As many objects of desire, an iPhone does not come cheap, so the shopping experience could be expected to enhance the status of the object of desire as, well, desirable.

An advantage of getting an iPhone is, indeed, that you can buy it in an Apple Store and avoid other technology stores. I would have been able to buy it online, too, but I wanted the in-store experience. So I went to Apple’s Regent Street store after making an appointment with a personal shopper first. Given how crowded the store is, that was a good decision.

I was quickly assigned my personal shopper and led to the cordoned-off area for the personal shopping experience. Although I had done my research beforehand and knew exactly what I wanted, he took me through all the options. I, playing the role of the customer, engaged in the ritual of the sales pitch. My personal shopper was a mid-twenties guy. He explained all the options to me in an unpretentious way. This would make it easy for people who are not sure what they want to make their choice.

After getting a brand-new boxed iPhone based on my choice, my personal shopper set out to register it. Sadly, he had to open the box for this. This meant that my unwrapping experience at home was diminished. But who would complain about this if he then does all the admin for you and you can use your phone straightaway?

He told me the process would take 15 minutes, however he did not consider o2. There was some website problem and we were always kicked out of the registration system. My personal shopper finally rang them using his personal BlackBerry (a bit ironic given that it was an Apple store) and registered the iPhone. It was rather 45 minutes than 15 minutes. However sitting in the personal shopping area of the Apple Store that was not too much of a problem.

Although the box had been opened, my personal shopper put all the material carefully back into the box and gave me a nice shopping bag to carry it home. I could bring my new iPhone home in style and could start using it straight away.

We have said many times that Apple as a brand appeals to female customers. Apple Stores are unlike other technology stores. Apple understands that technology should be an object of desire. My whole shopping experience was not unlike a personal shopping experience in clothing stores on Regent Street. I can imagine that women do like shopping in the Apple store. I did not feel patronized like in other technology stores. The shopping experience had some style to it. The purchase was wrapped beautifully. This makes the object of desire even more desirable. Particularly for women.

 

Category : Articles | Mobile Phones

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20

JUL

What do women care about

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

The idea that women are afraid of technology or that they do not use technology as much as male consumers is outdated. In business and in personal use, women make up a large percent of tech users, especially in computer and Internet use. So how, as a technology business owner or marketer, can you attract this large customer base at the same time you pursue teens, male consumers, and other demographics? In order to successfully make your tech products and systems appealing to women customers, you need to understand the ways in which they are influencing the market and other buyers.
1. Women care about “greenâ€ technology products. Studies have shown that women are more likely to boycott products that do not implement fair trade practices or that ignore environmental protection recommendations. If you want to keep up with the competition, make sure your products are energy efficient and that your business makes a point to recycle, give back to the community and produce technology through systems that do minimal harm to the environment.
2. They look for products that are multi-functional. Women who are active in the workforce as well as full-time caregivers look for products that can meet all the demands of their lives. You will need to prove that your product can handle extra applications, customizable features and other tools that streamline a customer’s entire life.
3. They monitor what their kids buy. Women who are savvy customers don’t just research their own purchases: they also monitor the things that their kids buy, or the tech toys that they buy for their kids. Remember that when marketing to kids, you’re also marketing to parents, so include features like parental controls, safety and privacy settings, and heavy-duty hardware.
4. They’ve amped up the desire for attractive tech toys. Now that women are investing more and more in technology, tech marketers need to come up with new designs that are aesthetically pleasing. Clunky, awkward laptops that aren’t attractive will never sell to a modern, mobile woman.
5. Women like being informed. Don’t make it impossible to find information about your product, including price, the types of materials used, tech support and energy efficiency. If you bury all of that information behind a snazzy ad, your customer will just head to another seller who is happy to share product information with the customers.

This post was contributed by Tara Miller, who writes about the best online degrees; TaraMillerr00@yahoo.com

 

16

JUL

The Death of Dixons?

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

 

Women want brands that offer certainty and trust. Tesco have levels of trust reaching 70%, higher than any financial institution. My research has highlighted women are reassurance addicts when it comes to technology- they will rely heavily on the sales staff or “phone a friend” before they buy technology.

Tesco entering the IT support market is a smart move.Positioning it as a female friendly service is an every smarter strategy. My research with 800 British women highlighted women often feel dumb walking into Dixons or PC World. It’s hard to ask a spotty teenager what “RAM” means. As one women said to me when I asked her first impression of Dixons: “There was a strong scent of man”

But give women a female friendly environment where they feel they can ask silly questions and they will buy. Not only will they buy but they will buy along with their eggs, meat and the rest of the shopping. Hence tech shopping stops being a painful diversion and becomes a less-scary add-on to the shopping list. The no commission business model will also stand Tesco in good stead as so many women talk without feeling under pressure to buy.

My advice to Tesco would be to extend this service to compete with the Geek Squad and offer women help installing and servicing their consumer electronics in their home.

1) Demystifying technology.

2) Going to women’s environments rather than asking them to come to yours.

3) Using women to recruit other women.

4) No commission based business model.

With a strategy like this, who ever needs to smell the scent of man in Dixons again?

 

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15

JUN

Women know your place: The Boardroom

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

 

I feel like a Russian doll. I get smaller and smaller as the testosterone in the boardroom gets bigger and bigger. I tell myself I am a confident woman yet the environment I am in makes me feel I must change my persona and adapt to my ‘male’ surroundings. I must cut across people when they speak. I must hammer my point home with authority. I must emit an odour of superiority. I must show the world I am King. After all, this is advertising. ‘Cojones’ are the order of the day.

So many women behave like men in the Boardroom in advertising agencies. They feel they must emulate men to be successful. Many of the senior women I work with are not women I would aspire to be like. More like men in drag. This lack of appeal is one of the reasons why only 6% of women make up company board members in the UK compared to a directive in Norway where 40% of all board members have to be female. The reason Norway has chosen this approach is that a boardroom with women on it, improves turnover and attracts more talented women.

I want to propose a new style of Boardroom where women can openly use the traits they have: femininity, intimacy and authenticity. To create an agenda that is open, transparent and supportive. The Boardroom should not be a place for corporate politics but a place for productive intimate business.

Gestalt talks about how boards of directors tend to operate in ways that seek to minimise ineffectiveness. Trevor J Bentley, in relation to Gestalt, says

“Relationships on boards are often tenuous, superficial and dishonest. They are quite often transitory subsytems of people who support each other out of personal interest. The best that most boards achieve often through share option schemes, is to align the self interest of individual directors with the interest of shareholders. This approach tends to create a short term price focus that is nearly always to the detriment of the long-term sustainable growth and well-being of the business.â€

This pretty much sums up why we are in a financial crisis. A group of money hungry men had short term personal goals of becoming richer without thinking about the long term consequences of their actions.

I want a far more ‘intimate’ and ‘authentic’ environment: Bentley states that there are 2 parts to working in an intimate system.

The first is knowing what I am prepared to offer others is what they want.

The second is knowing that what I want is what others are prepared to offer me.

My experience is that most people in meetings are never clear or open about what they want. It takes a series of long pointless and frankly ineffective meetings before you start to find out the other party actually wants. You have to “play the gameâ€ (countless times I have been asked to “play the gameâ€-each time I am told this, I feel myself revert back to my Russian doll).

Once you are finally clear about what the other parties want, the quality of contact increases and people relate to each other with a degree of authenticity. Its a bit like when you have the frank conversation with your new boyfriend about what you want from the relationship. Once the hazy fog of second guessing has been lifted and everything is so much simpler and more enjoyable.

Today in the boardroom in agencies, I watch women emulate men, leaving the men to dictate the rules of the boardroom. Women must be prepared to use their feminine skills in a productive way and men must be prepared to build cultures that thrive on diversity and tolerance not conformity.

More senior women will attract talented women. Women want role models and female mentors that can support and nurture them. Not to mention, women will design products for other women. And when according to the New York Times, 80% of all products are bought by women, this is a profitable and commercially sound strategy.

 

Category : Games | Uncategorized

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7

JUN

Being Digital Conference Tues 9th June

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

I will be joining a top line up at Being-Digital ’09 on 9th June at Centre Point in London. We will be bringing together some of the best digital minds and demos. The conference focus is on debate and discussion; both in person and via SMS or Twitter feedback. I plan to be about most of the day – so hope to see you there.

Links for the programme, registration and website are below:

Website: http://www.being-digital.com
Programme: http://www.tinyurl.com/beingdigital09
Tickets: http://www.being-digital.com/register/
Twitter: @mashupevent

 

Category : Interesting

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3

JUN

PC World not selling PC’s

Posted by belindaparmar (3) Comment

It seems that the UK is falling out of love with the kings of out-of-town box-shifters, PC world. This is a typical comment that I found on YouTube.

The sad truth is never purchase any computer, laptop, or components from PC World. They are the cowboy’s of the computing industry, who over charge, mislead, and sell awful products often to those who know no better. Thankfully, I’ve heard they are in some deep brown stuff financially. Source: YouTube

 

These days almost nobody has a good word to say about this troubled retailer. The company has built-up a reputation for low standards of service and an unimaginative lack of innovation. Do they have what it takes to re-invent themselves for the post-crunch era? Yes, if M&C Saatchi continue to have their way:

However, their latest TV ad and print campaign by is a real creative departure because it presents an actual business strategy (TV is much better than the print). The campaign is all about home-media and entertainment. It shows a PC user who loves films and how he can use his PC to download movies and other kinds of entertainment. PC World is positioned as a company that can help him design his media-centre, and it positions the PC as the new focus of the living-room.

Its a smart realisation on 2 counts: Firstly. that the PC market is totally commodified. It’s no longer profitable to sell generic “beige-box” PCs as there are hundreds of web-retailers who can sell a similar product cheaper than PC World. Secondly, that people, in particular women, do not buy technology in a functional way. Its an emotional decision. It may often be justified by a set of rational criteria but that is very rarely why people purchase technology. People need to be given a reason to want a new PC.

For a DSG company to realise and act on this is a paradigm shift. For a long time, we have been led to believe that people buy technology akin to how they buy technology in a vending machine. My research found that its the opposite. Its emotional, intuitive and for women, often impulsive.

As to how the store experience will change in line with the more emotional and human campaign, I am yet to be convinced. Today’s PC World looks more or less as it did a few years ago. But if DSG were to believe in their new positioning they could use it as a basis to transform themselves into a place of computer-driven entertainment. They could finally move away from their current ‘cowboy’ box-shifter image. PC World’s goal should be a champion of trust akin to what Martin Lewis has done for financial services.

When I shop for technology, I want an authentic experience not a functional per-functionary transaction. I want to be spoken to in a way that does not make me feel stupid but gets to the heart of what I need. I want an environment that is akin to my home and the place where my technology will live. I want to know and understand the magic that this technology will bring for me and my family. And not trying to flog me a PC on its spec is a good start!

 

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30

MAY

The New CEO of Xerox

Posted by elisabethkelan (3) Comment

 

There are not many female CEOs of companies around. Although women are traditionally underrepresented in technology professions, there were a number of high profile CEOs in the US in recent years. We can think here of Carly Fiorina, formerly of HP, and Anne M. Mulcahy, of Xerox. Now Xerox has entered history books by appointing the first African American female CEO to lead a major US corporation: Ursula Burns. Interestingly enough she is also the first female CEO who succeeded another female CEO.

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Burns had a long-term career at Xerox. Burns, who holds degrees from NYU and Columbia University, joined Xerox in 1980 first as a summer intern and then in product development and planning. In 2000, she was named senior vice president, Corporate Strategic Services and in 2007 she became president of Xerox.

Business Week suggests that part of reason that Xerox appointed two female CEOs in a row is Xerox’s commitment to diversity. 30% of Xerox’s executives are women and 22% are minorities. Xerox has a long tradition of affinity networks. Xerox also had a Executive Diversity Council early on. In addition there are leadership programmes that foster diversity and managers are evaluated in their performance reviews on their ability to recruit, retain and promote underrepresented groups. If they fall short of expectations their chances of promotion are diminished and they pay is negatively affected. This shows that diversity programmes do have an impact – even though it might take decades for them to unfold their power. Â

 

 

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28

MAY

Della; doomed to fail or destined to succeed?

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

 

My WARC conference presentation stressed that the best way to market to women is to be inclusive rather than to simply overtly exclude men. Nevertheless, most marketing activities aimed at women do so simply by shutting-out the other gender. It’s a mirror-image of the current marketing worst-practice. Della, the new netbook sales portal from dell is a pastel-pink feminized counterpart to the unapologetically ultra-masculine Dell.com. It’s a perfect example of the current trend of exclusion marketing.

I remember interviewing one Lady Geek who told me in no uncertain terms that the ‘Dixons Women’s Only night’ was her idea of hell.

“What are they going to do, give me cheese and pineapple on a stick and tell me how to turn the telly on?â€

Not exactly the response that Dixons were looking for, and in my experience a strategy which never works quite as well as the men who invented it might expect.

Marketing to women should not feel like “an initiativeâ€ i.e that a group of 40 something balding marketing men have been sitting in the boardroom and some bright spark says ‘We need to appeal to women. I know, lets create a portal for women, pink up and dumb down our products…we could even call it Della…(guffaw guffaw)

I admire Dell’s intent. Its brave. It shows that they recognizes that in the current environment, its a smart strategy to improve your bottom line by targeting women. I’m skeptical that Dell will achieve their objectives for two reasons:

Firstly,  do they really have a long-term commitment to growing the female market? Dell has a history of superficial and short-term business strategies such last year’s half-hearted flirtation with Linux . Is there any commitment to go beyond the shell of rebranding and create something which will profoundly appeal to this new market? As Elisabeth Kelan states, when you open the Inspiron artistic shell, its just an ordinary dull Dell laptop underneath.  How much of the products and community parts of the site have been specifically developed with women in mind rather than been re-skinned to appeal to women?

Secondly, I do not think that Dell have achieved a depth of understanding of their new female audience. Evidence of this is the handy lifestyle tips which state the excessively obvious. We also find the usual marketing copy cliches such as ‘giving extension to your digital life’ (I don’t want a digital life, I want a life with technology in it) and ‘enhance your life with technology’ and the ‘giving’ section – it’s the kind of vacuous text that means absolutely nothing.

From a product perspective, the site makes a big deal of their pretty new Inspiron Netbooks, however there’s not a whole lot else on the site – yet another echo of Dell’s failed Linux strategy which also presented an absurdly limited subset of Dell’s quite massive portfolio of products.

My research conducted with Jupiter found that a third of British women are frustrated, alienated and bored by the way tech companies market to them. Despite this most tech marketers are in denial about what must be done: There is plenty which can be done- it just needs to be executed and approached in the right way.

Strategies tech brands need to apply;

1) Go for an implicit strategy appealing to women rather than creating an overt exclusive ‘silo’. Overt branding such as Della, Dixon’s Women’s Only nights and Comets Angels give out wrong signals. Nintendo spent hundreds of dollars understanding women and their fitness regimes but never overtly positioned Wii Fit as ‘gaming for girls.’

2) Make women the heart of your strategy not the icing on the cake. Nike Women has invested millions and is part of a strategy which demonstrates Nike’s long term commitment to women. It goes beyond flogging products and starts to offer real benefits.

3) Develop an authentic understanding of women and what they want before you embark on women only strategies. Employ experts such as the Lady Geeks (shameless plug) who will help you go beyond the superficial and can deliver your proposition in a way that is not going to get women irritated. Dell have lost touch with the reality of those women its trying to sell to.

4) Position technology as entertainment rather than a female or male pursuit. Jeremy Clarkson, has equal appeal and ratings amongst both sexes. Rather than talk about the technical aspects of a car in a dry way, he has used humour and entertainment as a way to make cars appealing.

Della is a somewhat superficial step in the right direction. Lets just hope Dell listen to their customers and radically overhaul Della the concept before it becomes yet another of Dell’s six-month flirtations.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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16

MAY

Della or Does It Take a Recession for Marketers to Take Women Seriously?

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

Historically women were often seen as the reserve army of labour who take men’s jobs in factories and offices while men were at war. In a crisis women’s labour power was deemed important.

A similar thing seems to happen in regards to women’s purchasing power. Often ignored in good times, The Economist claims that marketers realize the importance of women as customers during the recession.   In the article entitled ‘Hello, girls’ echoing the iconic ‘Hello, boys’ Wonderbra adverts of the 1990s, it is mentioned that women buy 90% of food and 55% of consumer electronics and in fact most new cars. Women are thus a major force when it comes to purchasing power.

Marti Barletta, who authored ‘Marketing to Women’ points to three reasons why women are the new target market. First, brand loyalty which is apparently higher with women. Second, women are good at spreading the message about products they like. And third, most of the job losses in the States were in male-dominated areas.

The examples of recent campaigns quoted in the article includes Frito-Lay. Frito-Lay is enticing female customers with the slogan ‘Only in a Woman’s World’ to get away from the masculine image that crisps apparently have. McDonalds’ is sponsoring the New York Fashion Week to promote new hot drinks for women.

However the article also mentioned that changing the brand image through associating it with women can have negative effects: when Porsche designed a car for women, this increased sales with women temporarily but many male customers were lost – on the basis that the brand was too feminine.

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In relation to technology, Dell seems to get the message. They launched a website called Della, where they sell amongst other devices the Inspiron Mini 10 Netbook explicitly to women. The exterior seems to be a far cry away from the appearance of the Dell laptop I used to have from work. It is available in many colours and patterns. Many of those are designed by artists. Della laptops allow customization and while your netbook might look more artistic, once you open it, it looks as dull as many other Dell computers. Maybe companies need to be a bit more creative in marketing to women – particularly in a recession.

 

 

14

MAY

WANTED: Lady Geeks for post in Sydney

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

Our client, one of Australia’s most successful boutique trading firms is looking for C++ software developers with the following experience:

* 3+ years C++ Software Development
* Having worked on fast-paced C++ / C# Development Projects
* Contact with latest Technologies: Front Office Trading Applications

We are keen to hear from Australians who want to return home, and who already have the required PR or citizenship status.

This opportunity will see you working as a productive member of an extremely talented Sydney-based software development team, working with cutting edge technologies and joining in with numerous social activities designed to keep you happy, alert and energised.

Duties involve working very closely with traders to produce algorithmic applications to support their electronic trading activities. You will be part of a close-knit team of highly skilled developers and will also liaise directly with traders to better understand their needs.

Culture is very important here; enjoy a family-friendly work/life balance and casual dress code. Candidates who are returning from maternity leave / paternity leave can feel confident that they will be able to return to their families at close of business without worrying about overtime!

If you are a smart software developer who wants to further develop your career in a supportive, engaging environment, do not hesitate to get in touch.

For more information email Lady Geek Nadia Priestley:  nadia@stodge.org. Nadia will be in London next week and able to meet candidates.

 

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11

MAY

Every Brand needs a Moral Contract to attract Women

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

The latest N-vision data highlights 50% of women buy fair trade products compared to 35% of men. Women are 10% more likely than men to boycott those manufacturers who contribute to pollution. Women are 5% more likely to consider themselves as ethical shoppers compared to men. Younger women (under 35) and older women (45-64) are far more likely to disagree or disagree strongly compared to men with the statement ‘Most companies in this country are fair to consumers.’

 

There has been a change in the nation’s mood over the last 30 years: In 1980, only 12% of women and 15% of men agree with this same statement about fairness. By 2008, it was over 40% of men and 42% of women.

There is now a sense of injustice about the way women feel companies treat them. A feeling of being cheated by those corporations who have power. A sense that they should be ‘doing their bit’ for the people and their ‘bit’ should be much more significant than it currently is.

I predict women will lead the movement from a ‘me’ society to a ‘we‘ society. Women no longer want a society with naked greed at its heart. They want generosity as its core value and will seek out brands that offer this.

Brands which are seen to lack this moral dimension are loosing out on more than just a sales opportunity: Brands which are known for their morality are more easily forgiven, or at least given the benefit of the doubt in the event of rumors and bad-news. Take the opposite extreme: Brands such as Monsanto which have allowed themselves to be known for doing things which are not entirely ethical are more easily embroiled in yet more whispering campaigns. There’s a huge cost to appearing immoral.

Brands such as Kiva.org (the micro-lending exchange) are leading the way with a moral contract at the heart of their proposition. Technology brands,with the exception of Google’s “Dont Be Evil”, are trailing way behind with moral propositions.

But why should tech brands care? We are used to buying our tech-products from anonymous sounding foreign brands of whom we know very little about. What could these companies benefit from being seen as ethical? I think there is still a great deal to win in a world of undifferentiated products in commodity markets. You might as well flip a coin when choosing between an Asus and an Acer, but what if the manufacturers could find a way show their differences which appeal to the “slacktivist” sense of moral consumers?

The cynical amongst us will call it green-washing, but the fact remains that people will often choose a higher-priced product if they feel that it is more ethically sound, even people who’d never attended a protest march in their lives. Shopping is a form of passive-activism.

Tech brands must take the advice of Bill Bernach and:

Stop believing in what we sell and start selling what we believe in.”

The fact remains women are still more loyal to companies than men. Men are approx 10% more likely to agree with the statement ‘I am less loyal to companies that I previously was’. If tech brands want to attract and retain the most loyal sex, they must start with a moral contract and set of values.

This is no longer niche idealism but corporate realism.

 

Category : Mobile Phones | Uncategorized

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24

MAR

Ada Lovelace Day

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

Women’s contributions to the development of technology are often forgotten or written out of history. It is all too easy to forget that women had a significant impact on the development of technologies we use today.

The Ada Lovelace Day is celebrated today by more than 1,600 bloggers who have signed up to blog about her today. We at LadyGeek want to support this initiative and are proud to raise awareness for this exceptional woman.

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Ada Lovelace (1815-1852) is rightly acclaimed to be one of the first  computer programmers. She wrote programmes for a machine  -  an early mechanical general-purpose computer - envisioned by Charles Babbage. Ada Lovelace was one of the visionaries who anticipated the power that computers can bring that go beyond number-crunching.

Ada Lovelace can be seen as a role model for women in technology and some of today’s role models are mentioned in this article in Computer Weekly.

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23

MAR

Women are reassurance addicts

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

 

The latest research I have conducted with Syracuse university
highlights some interesting findings. Whilst most younger women
under the age of 21 feel comfortable with technology and rate
themselves at 6 out of 10 on a tech literate scale, they are not
confident to buy technology without seeking reassurance from others.
They will rely heavily on the advice of either the sales assistant or
a friend.

Women want to know they have made the right decision when they buy technology. They want to see the product. Touch it, feel it, imagine using it. Is it going to enhance my life? How does it fit into my life?

Men do not rate themselves much higher than women, 7 out of 10 on the
tech literate scale but do not need any reassurance at point of
purchase. They are more likely to have researched products online and
checked out online reviews. Men are willing to take a gamble. They more likely to take risks when it comes to technology.

The process is completely different both in terms of perception and
behaviour. Yet tech brands know nothing about these gender
differences and neither do they spend any time conducting ‘decent’ research.

Tech brands support a very male and traditional buying process. A great emphasis is placed on traditional review sites such as CNET and IGN. These sites are almost exclusively read by men.

Currently the retail experience supports what men
want: a transaction. Stores like Game and Dixons continue to be a “vending machineâ€ which relies on you knowing and be confident about
what you want. Rather than provide encouragement and expertise, the
sales assistants try to flog you a certain game or piece of kit that
only increases need for reassurance. And I wont even mention PC World
as I will come out in an allergic rash. I need therapy to get over
the ‘experience’ of trying to buy a hard drive there.

Tech retailers must create a culture of reassurance which is present in the attitude of the staff and the way women buy.

Forget the Genius Bar, bring in the Reassurance Bar where you can sit and have coffee with a member of staff. Have a Try Before you Buy section where you can see your kit in action. Make the stores feel like women’s ideal
home, not their idea of hell.

And last but not least, recognise that men and women are different in their wants and desires from technology.

 

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1

MAR

Inclusivity in Technology Advertising and the Effects of the Dot.com Crisis

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

The current economic crisis has raised many questions in regards to whether it fosters or harms gender inclusivity. Recent reports seem to suggest that it harms rather than helps the diversity and inclusivity agenda. However what can we learn from previous downturns?

The technology industry faced a crisis after the dot.com bubble burst. Sarah Dempsey, whose article ‘The Increasing Technology Divide – Persistent portrayals of maverick masculinity in US marketing’ was interested in what happens to gender inclusivity in times of crisis. She studied advertisements in Wired, the flagship magazine of the technical revolution, in 2000 and 2006.

Prior to the year 2000 the assumption was that the digital revolution is leading to an egalitarian lifestyle where everyone regardless of gender, race or ability could enjoy the newly found freedoms of technology. However by 2006 the industry had gone through the dot.com bust.

Sarah Dempsey’s detailed study of advertising in Wired in 2000 found three portrayals. First, men were seen as the main consumers of technology and women were mainly used as objects. Second, in an attempt to attract a wider audience more ‘Average Joes’ appeared in the adverts. Finally, technology was portrayed as empowering for men and women but the portrayals followed strict gender guidelines. Men were empowered as users of technology though maverick figures that resisted the mainstream. Women were empowered through technology through ‘damsel in distress’ narratives. Here a victimized woman would be rescued by technology.

How did these portrayals change in the year 2006? In the year 2006 the adverts were dominated by nerds and geeks. This supports the ideal of the masculine maverick figures. In contrast to the 2000 adverts, women were less likely to be used as objects. This might be related to the fact that many companies became increasingly aware of stereotypical gender portrayals of women. However the research found that overall, technology adverts were much less inclusive in 2006 than in 2000. Many more adverts were targeted at the white, male consumer. This research indicates that in a crisis, people tend to convert back to mainstream thinking leading to less diverse and inclusive gender portrayals.Â

This clearly shows that advertising portrayals of men and women engaging with technology have to change. Women need to be seen in active roles as users and creators of technology. We also need to see more variety in the portrayals of men. Instead of just confirming the tired cliché of the masculine maverick, men have to be shown in relevant contemporary situations which allow men with different background to identify with them. The media plays a crucial role in shaping our views of the world and it is therefore crucially important that there are realistic yet aspirational role models for women and indeed men in technology that are displayed in leading magazines like Wired. Particularly in a crisis.

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9

FEB

Carrotmob anyone?

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

People come to together in a time of crisis. The Internet is enabling the spirit of mutuality but more interestingly the recession is driving people towards collective buying.  A strategy that people have little time for when the economy is good. In harsher times collective buying could turn tables on companies who are seen to be greedy.

 

Last week’s Economist describes how the residents of the San Francisco have been signing up enthusiastically for a new green energy campaign called 1BOG- short for “One Block off the Grid”. It asks homeowners to switch solar energy one block at a time by organising them into buying-clubs. The more people who sign up, at any time the bigger the discounts. Finally the contract to supply, install and maintain the system is put out to tender the “Carrotmob” outsources the work to the most competitive bidder.

Marketers have long harped on about the shift of power moving from the company to the consumer, but it’s not actually happened until now in any great measure (with the exception of a few groups on Facebook).  The fact remains that the majority of technology companies are still interested in what interests them rather than what interests their customers.

So many women tell me that technology is “way to complicated” “designed by men for men” “lacks any intuition” “is frustrating and dull.”

Imagine another world, where women Carrotmob for intuitive and sexy technology.  Technology that was made with women in mind.  Where substantial numbers of women gather together and say what they want. Where ten-thousand women were to draw up a list of their ideal next phone/TV/PVR/console and pledge to buy it. Where tech brands bid to build and support this product knowing that they had guaranteed buyers, and in return women would have to honor their contract.

It’s about time we carrotmobbed for intuitive, human technology that reflects what we are interested in.

What would your ideal phone/TV/PVR/console/piece of kit look like?  How would it feel using it?  How would it be different from whats out there now?

 

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8

FEB

Digital Mom

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

Marketers seem to have finally come around to see that mothers use the Web 2.0. The insightful report called Digital Mom was produced by Razorfish and CafeMom.

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The first part of the report is based on a survey with 1,500 mothers who are users of Web 2.0. The report produced some interesting findings:

1.    65% of mums use social networking sites, 56% SMS and 52% game online or via a game console. This is for me the most striking finding showing that gaming is no longer a niche activity for adolescent boys but has gone mainstream.

2.    There are also age differences. Moms over 35  are more likely to use the web as an information tool while moms under 35 are more likely to use social network sites. Also women with children over 12 tend to game more (57%) than women with children under 12 (51%).

3.    The mothers’ interests go beyond parenting. These women retain many interests. In the last three months the surveyed mothers had researched or purchases fashion items or clothing (40%), food and cooking (31%) and baby/parenting (26%), banking (22%), computer and electronics (21%) and medication/medical condition (20%).

Part 2 is based on an in-depth survey of 1,750 women active in CafeMum.

4.    Digitalmoms spent 18.5 hours per week online.

5.    These mums are active in social networking sites not passive consumers.

6.    The report develops five segments of digital mums: the self-expressor, the utility mum, the groupster, the infoseeker and the hyperconnector.

Marketers seems to have discovered that mums online a worthwhile target group. I wonder when we will see the Digital Dad.

 

20

JAN

Tech Porn is dead

Posted by belindaparmar (5) Comment

This is the 21st century right?. I pick up the T3 2009 calendar and can’t believe what I am seeing. I check it is 2009 and I have not found a vintage copy of the 1979 edition. Each month has a gadget of the month with a erotic shot of a girl ‘wet’ with excitement holding a strategically placed gadget in her legs, arms, breasts. January we have a woman with a see through slip on in water holding an android phone. February we have a women kneeling in hot steam holding an ‘eco gadget’. March shows us a women with a touchscreen strategically placed in her bikini. Do I need to go on?

 

In my previous post, I demonstrated that women are a growth market while male markets are saturated. Marketers missing out on a £5billion pot of gold (a conservative figure according to Jupiter), I predict T3 will be out of business in a year. Their magazine relies on its core audience of “sexually repressed nerds” according to Wikipedia. All of whom have the skills to download real porn from bit torrent and don’t need this half-hearted house tech-porn.

Showing the calendar to some male colleagues, one told me the only place he could see the calendar was “on the wall of kwik fit”. Hardly an aspirational image for your average man with disposable cash. If you are trying to woo a girl, and she walks into your bedroom and see a copy of T3 or worse, the T3 2009 calendar, what sort of signal does that send? Even a sexually repressed nerd can think that one through. Some of the advertising in T3 is no better, this Asus ad being a good example.

 

Rather than default to a out of date, lazy way of selling technology to men at the expense of attracting women, technology brands need to be more innovative with their media strategies. Technology has become so accessible and embedded into our culture, that the hard sell of technology is no longer needed. There is no such thing as Early Adopters.

Tech brands need to think innovatively about to communicate to both men and women and buying a media strategy of tech porn like T3 just ain’t going to cut it. What brands need to do:

1. Leverage the blogging community as they are the key influencers. Panasonic are doing this at CES. Who are you more like to trust for a product review- a blogger or a paid for reviewer?

2. Connecting your audience to like minded people is a great way to earn their respect and ultimately their trust. Hewlett Packard used ‘brandalists’- legal grafitti artists to get their HYPE message across and generated so much positive WoM.

3. Be brave. Be rebellious. And dont waste money on advertising in magazines like T3. Goodbye T3 and Good Luck.

 

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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18

JAN

Designed by Women for Everyone

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

Belinda mentioned in one of her recent posts that the consumer tech industry is now at a stage the car industry inhabited many years ago. Many car manufacturers have indeed started to take women as consumers seriously. For a long time, most cars are implicitly or explicitly designed for men and by men.

 

At London Business School, I have conducted some research with Volvo. A group of women at Volvo thought it was about time to show the world what a car designed by women may look like. This produced the first concept car designed by an all women team to provide the world with a practical example of how women would design a car. The car was presented in 2004, but there are some valuable lessons to learn here.

The task was to design a car that would not be futuristic but realistic in terms of the needs of women as well as men. Their research has indicated that in the premium car segment women are the hardest group to please and building a car that meets their expectations also means to build a car that will please men.

The team conducted an external and internal study to explore what women want in cars. The central idea about the project was to ask questions in a different way.

Research found for instance that women like an easy to park car not because they cannot park but because they park a car much more often during a day.

The team also challenged the idea that cars are designed with men in mind fitting their bodily features much better than those of women.

The concept car was very innovative because the team re-thought fundamentals of car design such as where the hand breaks or the washer fluid were situated or how the doors should open.

In addition a new concept of headrests was introduced allowing people with ponytails to sit comfortably and the layout of the car was a 2 by 2 version with the rear two seats being moved in slightly to allow the driver to see the rear passengers.

The team wanted to create a car that felt more like a living room and decided to include having movable cushions and different fabrics for the upholstery of seats.

Although it was never intended to be built, the concept car provided a lot of thought provoking ideas which influenced the design of other cars. Tasking women’s perspectives into consideration challenged how things had always been done. The result was a concept car that was built by women for everyone.Â

 

 

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18

JAN

Where Computing is Not for Men

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

In most Western countries studying computing has long been seen as a male endeavor. However this is not the case across the world. Vivian Lagesen’s research in fact shows that in Malaysia computer science is populated by women. In her summary report for Women-nomics, she stresses that in Malaysia computing is not seen as masculine but instead a good employment for women. In fact, faculty in computing degrees is often female. There are perceived to be plenty of jobs in computing and the office environment of IT jobs is seen as safe.  Vivian’s research shows how flexible the social construction of computing can be.Â

 

 

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9

JAN

Goodbye Men, Hello Ladies

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

Jerry yang, Yahoo’s ex chief exec announced that the advertising industry was facing the toughest downturn in decades. The age of extravagance is gone. The age of the hangover is here. No more big marketing budgets with money to trial and test cool ideas. Its about ROI. Its about bold, strong brands having a clear positioning. Tough times need solid, focused leadership, a lesson that Woolworths learnt the hard way.

Napoleon declared the essence of strategy is sacrifice. Never has this been more true than in the current climate. And the sacrifice should be allocating marketing spend to men- a well saturated market. Lad’s mags are already pregnant with tech-brands competing for their attention. Women are the financial opportunity and Jupiter estimate marketers are missing out on £0.5billion by not marketing to women.

Out of every 10 gadgets, 4 are bought by women. And no before you ask we are not talking about fridges and washing machines. More women than men play games between the age of 24-35 than men now And we are not just talking the Sims. World of Warcraft now has 50% female players.

The research I conducted with Jupiter highlighted (now Forrester), ownership is on a par with men in most categories. Couple that with the fastest growing segment on social networks is married women with children. And according to an N-vision survey, December 2008, approx 40% of women are transacting on the Internet (ie spending money rather than just using the Internet for communication, information and entertainment) compared to 30% of men. Hence, Women are no longer a niche audience – they are the budget-holders and drivers of growth.

 

The editor of marie claire is right when she says:

“When it comes to tech brands and women, technology companies are in the same place the cars industry was 20 years ago.”

With the exception of Nintendo and it’s Wii, Apple, no other brand is talking the female language. I agree with Hilary Chilura when she says:

“Like nervous teenage boys at a junior high-school dance, tech marketers haven’t figured out how to talk to women”.

Ask any family who was in charge of buying the Christmas gifts, and you’ll find out its women not men. Women are not only buying technology for themselves, but as the Chief Household Officer, are buying for kids, husband, gran and friends. Women are in charge of the house, but more importantly are in charge of the living room (see Battle for the Living Room) where many of the technology lives: PVR, console, HD TV…. In my house, its my husband who lives in ‘his’ world but its me who lives in the ‘real’ world. I am deciding what we should cut back on, how much we can save and what we will buy when it comes to technology.

If tech brands want to be successful, they should focus on women at the expense of men. Women are no longer ‘the Second Sex. ‘ Rather the most profitable sex.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics | Games | Home Entertainment

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8

DEC

I am a PC

Posted by belindaparmar (4) Comment

At first when I heard about the Microsoft “I am a PC” ads, my first instinct was that the world’s biggest computer company should not feel the need to respond to Apple’s “I’m a Mac and I’m a PC” ads which had aired more than six months ago. It signified that not only that they gave a damn but also they were likely to loose control of the debate.

After seeing the hundreth Apple ad mimicking and stereotyping the Microsoft user, I started to see Apple as the bully of the playground. Poking fun at the perceived ‘not so cool’ Microsoft user was like the ‘IT’ girl in the playground with the cooler nike trainers picking on others. Microsoft approached me to be in the I am a PC – you can see my VT here:

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I wanted to do it not only to get the Lady Geek brand out there but more importantly, I am tired of the unconditional and undeserving love people have for the Apple brand. The original reason for the Apple brand being so desired, was clearly a great product but also this idea of being the underdog and a brand for the non conformist.

With Apple’s growth rate surpassing Microsoft, has Apple become the brand for the lazy conformist? The person who can’t think past the mac tax and see the new sexier brands like asus and acer chomping at their heels? Is Apple’s behaviour precisely the behaviour of that which they criticized Microsoft? Have the tables turned? And ultimately, do the I am PC ads successfully connect women with Microsoft?

I showed some Lady Geeks the ads and they got an encouraging response. With comments from ‘I love the stories behind the technology’ to ‘it made me reappraise the role of technology in my life.’ If its objective is to build the brand ethos first and foremost, its clearly successful. It has managed to move away from the technology and product specs and talk about what technology means to women and what they care about. It achieves Malcolm Gladwell’s fundamental question of what can Microsoft mean to people over and above being a software developer.

But if its aim was to get people to reappraise Vista, then there is a fundamental problem to solve. I asked my female colleagues at work what they knew about Microsoft Vista. All are tech literate, bright and articulate 20 and 30 somethings. I got answers ranging from ‘is it a credit card?’ to ‘something on my computer but I am not sure what.’ The majority of women don’t know or care what an operating system is, and could not identify Microsoft’s flagship product as an example of an operating system.

Meanwhile Apple seem to have no difficulty communicating the value of OSX – it seems as if every insignificant widget is trumpeted as if it were the greatest development in computing since the invention of the mouse. Apple are fortunate to have fans who create a reality-distortion field through which apple’s products appear magical – and under the same lens Microsoft’s products are by definition the exact opposite.

Lovers generally tend to overlook the faults in the object of their affection and Apple have been very good at building that kind of affection amongst their audience. Microsoft have never invested in building any kind of emotional connection with their audience – which is what makes their new campaign such a significant departure from their normal product-focused, conservative advertising. With the imminent launch of Windows 7, Microsoft claim to have fixed the technical issues that disappointed so many Vista users – now the goal should be to fix the marketing so that women understand and care about this thing that Microsoft have made, and understand how how it enhances their life.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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18

NOV

Power to the Powerless

Posted by belindaparmar (4) Comment

This weekend I have been very upset about Baby P. As a mum, I struggle to understand how anyone can fail to protect and cherish your own child. A child’s love of its mother is unconditional. A child is powerless. A child just wants to be loved, sheltered and protected. A lot of mums feel overwhelmed by the sadness of this story, it seemed to be the biggest topic on the social-networks last weekend.

 

One group on Facebook (with over 5000 members) used it’s collective investigative power to expose the identities of the mum and ‘carers’ of Baby P. Another group which was less investigativly inclined was entitled entitled “Death is too good for [the mother's name], torture the bitch that killed Baby P.”   Instinctively I felt that this was deserved retribution.  But then I wondered how this could be a good thing.

Do Facebook vigilantes or any other social network have the right or power to bring justice to those who ‘deserve’ it? Is it a case of mob rule or just desserts being served? Is this the downside to a democritisation of media?

Most Facebook groups focus on the benign and trivial: I was amused to see a group who want John Sergeant be their granddad. This is Britain at its eccentric best.  A disrespect for the rules of “Strictly Come Dancing” may be a bit of harmless fun, but what happens when Facebook communities start to openly challenge the rule of law?

The role of social networks has changed. No longer are they restricted to being a ‘social utility’ connecting friends for a big night out. Facebook’s users are a collection of single-issue political-parties, each akin to the gun or knife-control lobbying groups.

Once upon a time, you needed to be in position of power to make things happen. Now, you and me can make a change for better or worse simply by asserting opinions online – on anything we believe passionately about.  Whether its to bring back Laura back to the X Factor or or to send a virtual lynch-mob after the villain of the moment. Social networks are proving themselves as serious enabling tools that put power into groups who were once considered to disparate, too obscure or too apathetic to become involved with a political process.

But are we witnessing technology enabling democracy at its best?

 

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16

NOV

Female Flight from Computer Science?

Posted by elisabethkelan (5) Comment

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The New York Times reported this week that the number of women studying computer sciences has fallen. 28% of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women in 2001. However by 2004-5 women only gained 22% of the degrees. This number is even lower at elite institutions like the MIT where only 12% of the degrees go to women. And according to this article, many computer science departments now report that women make up 10% of the newest entrants. This is in stark contrast to 25 years ago when – as the author claims – women made up up to 50% of computing classes.

Interestingly enough the article quotes figures stating the number of women in science and engineering has increased to 51% in 2004-5 up from 39% in 1984-85. Why is it that the numbers of women in science and engineering are rising while those in computing are not?

I found this very surprising because computing has changed significantly in recent years. Particularly the advent of Web 2.0 seems to attract more women to the internet in general and to working on Web 2.0 technologies in particular. The Fast Company magazine was celebrating women in Web 2.0 just this week.

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However Web 2.0 might have little to do with what computer science is all about. The number of female web designers is sizeable but web design is by most tech specialists not seen as real programming and – as the article points out – it pays much less than software engineering.

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Reasons for the lack of women in computing have been discussed widely. It includes that computers are seen as toys for boys, the constant questioning of women’s ability to engage with technology and the geeky and nerdy image of computing – to name but few. With more women using technology to get things done and technology becoming more intuitive and humane, one could have thought that the image of computing is changing.

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Maybe women are voting with their feet against the way computing is portrayed and taught and instead chose to engage with technology on their own terms. Like with technology design, women might want different computing courses or a different marketing of computer courses. It might be time to explore why computing was a more interesting choice for women 25 years ago than it is today despite of the fact that computing is now omnipresent.

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4

NOV

Obama: senator for the ladies

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

According to the US polls, women are the most important and difficult voter to win over. Not only are they in the majority (53%), they are more likely to be undecided in the run up to the election. Recent events show that Obama has been successful with women, particularly young women (Senator Obama won 35 percent of women, while Senator Clinton won 30 percent).

Why is women are drawn to Obama in a way they are not drawn to McCain or Hilary Clinton? What is that Obama has that is appealing to women that McCain does not have?

Obama has already been voted marketer of the year by Time magazine. His “organising idea” is focused on a clear and consistent message: Change. And he delivers it in an inspirational way through the media women use (youtube, blogs, facebook etc). But more fundamentally, the reason Obama is successful is because he focuses on what women care about.

Terrorism, the main theme of McCain’s messaging, is the kind of distant threat that only very wealthy, comfortable people can afford to worry about. Terrorism now occupies a lower rung in the heirarchy of fears suggests that people really are worried about more fundamental things, such as whether they can afford food, petrol or christmas presents. This is even more the case for women, particularly as most women are in charge of the day to day managing of the household expenses.

Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, states:

“Women see themselves as more economically vulnerable than men, more likely recipients of the social safety net at some point in their lives, and they see a larger role for government.”

As a working mum of two, I often find myself cooking the tea, washing up, shoving in some washing, on the phone paying a bill and doing the shopping online- all at the same time. Its me, not my husband, who thinks about the cost of food and energy going up. Its me who thinks about how to cut back this Christmas on presents. And its me who thinks that we should eat in rather than get a take out.

With women as the Chief Household Officer, Obama is making a relevant connection that brands could learn from. With Oprah behind him, Obama appears to be a ladies man.

 

Category : Articles | Interesting | Uncategorized

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29

OCT

Are you a narcissist because you are on Facebook?

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

 

Are you on Facebook? If yes, chances are that you are prone to being narcissistic. This is at least what the BBC reported based on new research. A PhD student, Laura Buffardi and her advisor associate professor W. Keith Campbell from the University of Georgia found in their research that people with Facebook accounts score higher on a scale measuring if you arenarcissist or not. The full research is reported in the academic journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. They gave a personality questionnaire to 130 Facebook users (rather on the small side). In addition to these self-reports, the Facebook sites were coded based on objective and subjective content features. Then the Facebook pages were shown to people from the general public who had to assess the owners narcissism based on different scales.

 

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Those who rated highly on the narcissism scale had more social contacts online and put more self-promoting material online. The researchers found that the number of Facebook friends and the number of wall posts correlate with the measurements of narcissism. Like in other research narcissist were shown to have many friends but not deep relationships.

 

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So Facebook users are self-loving and fall in love with their own reflection on Facebook? One could assume that this is a bad thing. Who wants to be seen as a narcissist after all? However I felt reminded of Granovetter’s strength of weak ties. He argues that people with many but weak relationships can access contacts that are not accessible through strong ties.Narcissism or not, weak ties might be an advantage. In that light it might be interesting to explore scientifically what type of persons are not on Facebook.

 

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28

OCT

No-one knows a woman better than her phone

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

I’m often asked about good examples of tech brands connecting with women. Unfortunately there are very few tech brands that understand what women care about. This new Nokia campaign is a wonderful exception: It invites people to explore the lives of three fictional women in intimate detail and in real time, through their Nokia 7610 smart-phones.

We are invited to follow the lives of the three characters as they make-friends, party, send text-messages to the wrong-boyfriend, break-up, flirt, make-up and do other gripping soap-opera-ish things that somehow nearly always seem to involve the use of mobile technology. The story unfolds through a series of multimedia-messages left by and on the three characters mobile phones. If you’ve got enough time you can piece together what happened on their latest night out. Nokia clearly hope that this will inspire phone users to use their phones more like Anna, Jade and Luca on their next night out.

I have to confess that I didn’t have time to work through the whole campaign – each of the characters have hundreds of messages to work through – but I was impressed by the tasteful design and immersive appeal of the whole thing. It’s full of neat touches, like the fact that you can customize the site by activating a number of tastefully selected tunes as the story unfolds – all of which are on sale at the new Nokia music store.

 

The TV ad and accompanying on-line campaign are great work and seem to be pitched well for a young-adult audience. I think Nokia will need to work really hard if they want to make their products as appealing to the next generation of phone-buyers as Apple’s much-hyped iPhone.

What I love about it is they have really understood the role of the mobile phone: “its a window into a woman’s life.” Women use their phone to film, flirt and play. I’ll never forget one woman telling me that no-one knows her as well as her mobile phone. I also love the idea of everyone secretly wanting to be a voyeur and wanting to go through someone’s phone. Everyone’s curious. I know I am. My new nanny left her phone in my house and I was so tempted to go through her phone to get an insight into who she was. I refrained. But had the phone been in my view for much longer who knows….

 

Compare this Nokia campaign to the lackluster Blackberry campaign – which looks like a messy pastiche of something Apple might have done five years ago.

The idea is similar ‘Life on Blackberry‘ but suffers from a lifeless execution which is unsure of it’s target audience. It’s little more than a visual idea and sadly lives and dies only on TV. Nokia’s latest campaign was born to span all media and truly captures the intimacy that women feel towards their phone.

For all of the project’s interactivity it’s not truly interactive: As far as I’m aware fans cannot text their favorite characters and get involved with them… the character’s facebook page has a kind of ghostly silence that contrasts wrongly with the fast-paced hedonism of the main campaign web-site. Users seemed to be confused as to whether these are real people or merely actors playing characters – how very post-modern to blur that line.

Lastly, I think Wieden could have promoted the idea a bit harder. It feels like they have missed the opportunity to release this via bloggers and create a real buzz around the campaign. For all the work they have done it would be a shame if this became the best campaign that nobody got to see.

 

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21

OCT

The Dream of the Paperless Office

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

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A couple of years ago I had a debate with a colleague at the UN World Summit on the Information Society about the paperless office. I voiced my frustration that despite of the fact that we now do so much online, we still print so much paper. I wondered if the paperless office would remain a dream. My colleague said that people just have to try it seriously but so far they have not. We then talked about how society has to adapt to technological change and how this might take time. That was in 2005.

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What we did not know then is that since 2001 the paper consumption in the US was according to the Economist declining. While the paperless office is an idea of the 1960s, it has never really caught on – despite of the fact that new technologies like the Internet did not seem to rely on paper. However what happened is that many people printed their emails and treated them just like paper letters which were delivered via email rather than a postal service.

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People need to adapt to new technologies and need time to change their established behaviours. The decline of paper usage is linked to the rise of a new generation. Generation Y or the millennials grew up with new technologies like the Internet and many of them adopted Web 2.0 applications readily. They do things online. They are not only paying their bills online but also network online. This younger generation is confident in reading on screen and filing documents virtually rather than physically. All is tagged and stored in the virtual cloud.

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According to the Economist not all paper consumption is declining because people are still keen on printing for the special occasion. Sometimes it seems that good ideas just need time to develop. It needs time until people adapt or rather until the younger generations get rid of many routines and practices that influence how we interact with technology.

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21

OCT

Every Brand Needs an Enemy

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

Adam Morgan writes very eloquently about the value of monsters and the value they have in stories: raise the stakes, add drama and conflict and most importantly give the ‘hero’ an adversary and position the hero as being the virtuous one to save the day. An enemy is a threat to you, but a monster is a threat to the larger community. Adam then goes on to talk about how “small human brands fight a large and faceless monsters” with the example of brands who have explicitly created monsters in order to position themselves as the champion of the community.

Dove’s monster is the artificial fashion industry. Richard Branson’s monster is BA, Sky and the Goliaths. Method’s monster is toxicity. Apple’s monster is Microsoft (explicity shown in their latest campaign.) Google’s monster is evil. Nintendo’s monster is Sony & Microsoft.

Do all brands need a monster, an enemy to fight, metaphorically or physically? Is it a common enemy – or is simply something that coalesces us into a concerted action with one another? And are brands that have a shared ‘agenda’ whatever that agenda might be, are they more appealing to women?

The academic and autism specialist Simon Baron Cohen writes: women tend to empathise, men tend to systemise.

“The female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems. Systemising and empathising are different kinds of processes. You use one process – empathising – for making sense of an individual’s behaviour and identifying others feelings and responding to them. Systemising – is about analysing and constructing a system and predicting. They are not mystical processes but are grounded in our neurophysiology.”

Based on this premise, it seems women are likely to respond to a situation where they can identify with the feelings of others. A community that they can feel part of. A movement that they can belong to. A safe haven for them and for those around then. In short, a shared agenda.

Every brand might not necessarily a monster, but to connect with women, they certainly need an ally.

 

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13

OCT

Cleavage Geek?

Posted by elisabethkelan (3) Comment

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Is her cleavage the ultimate signifier of a Lady Geek? Last Thursday I attended a Girl Geek Dinner and this was the question that led to a huge debate among the 100 plus women who work mainly in the area of technology.

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Julie Lerman talked about her own journey as a woman in technology. She mentioned how her girlie interests were slowly relinquished to become one of the boys. She wanted to fit into the tech community and therefore she did not want to stand out as a woman. Over time she discovered how she can be a woman and a technical specialist and what combining these two identities means.

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However she asked if some women in technology go in fact too far. Julie talked about how one female technologist used an image as her speaker photo for conferences which revealed her cleavage (the head of the woman was cropped to protect her identity). Julie commented that this sexualised image might go a bit too far. I somewhat shared her discomfort with it.

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Some women in the room found this photo rather liberating. One woman said that men should get used to the fact that women have breasts. Others said that the cleavage shot is actually too sexualising and men would see the woman merely as a sex object rather than a serious speaker with a message. One woman replied that this might just be a clever way of advertising herself. But would that be an appropriate tactic for drawing attention to your work?
The issue came quickly to authenticity and being yourself. One woman said that the female technologist might just want to be herself. For her, this might mean to show her femininity through her cleavage. Is showing cleavage then the latest Lady Geek chic?

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The discussion resembled debates around feminism and postfeminism. While feminists would stress that showing cleavage is demeaning to women because it objectifies them, postfeminists would say that it is actually liberating for women to show their cleavage and also – in a further step – to control men through it. We can think here about the Wonderbra ‘Hello Boys’ adverts with Eva Herzigova: many women found them empowering whilst others saw them as demeaning for women.

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What would that mean for women working in technology and selling technology to women? Should technology being sold using women and their cleavages? This would be very similar to how technology actually used to be advertised. And these adverts speak mainly to men. Based on that, I would assume that only a fringe group of women would think that cleavage is geek chic.

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There is also a professional dimension to all this: Women in the workplace in general have to navigate a narrow path of acceptable behaviour, and from my experiences, using too much of a cleavage is doing nothing for your professional image. It will position you mainly as an object of male desire rather than as a professional. That does not mean hiding your femininity but finding a way to emanate professional femininity.

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7

OCT

Topshopisation of Tech

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

I am sure people are bored of me eulogising about my Asus eee 901. Now I have a new Asus product to rave about: the Asus S101- the Macbook Air that you can actually afford. It retails at $699 for the 16GB Windows version or 30GB for the Linux version, that’s less than half the price of the “designer” product which it is imitating. This is great, for the same reason that Topshop is great.

 

Topshop is well known as the retailer that is famous for selling cheap clothes that look almost exactly designer styles. It’s uncanny how quickly they manage to replicate every season’s look. The reason that Topshop’s clothes are so cheap is that unlike original designer product, they are only intended to last for exactly one season. Is that a problem? It depends on whether you like old clothes.

In the past buying a laptop was like buying a very expensive designer dress; It cost so much you’d want to get a lot of wear out of it. You could buy a cheaper laptop but it would look unfashionable – not the sort of thing you’d want to take into the Executive Lounge. The new “netbooks” are different: They look great, they turn heads but they are still cheap.

When fashion becomes cheaper it changes the way we think about it. I used to carry my old Powerbook in a custom-made hand-decorated case. These days I carry my Asus in whatever I have with me. A handbag or an M&S carrier-bag. Anything will do. I haul it around like a piece of meat and I will discarded it when it’s no longer of any use. It will be ‘upgraded’ within a year and forgotten.

Rory Sutherland commented,

“The point is that it is cheap enough not to worry about all that much. As a result you discover that, never mind the weight and size, a £200 laptop is simply more portable than a £1,000 laptop. For instance you can carry it around in a carrier bag, not in a padded case.”

A government survey found that the majority of Britons believe that most products are not designed to last a lifetime. Sixty-five per cent feel that products do not last as long as they did 25 years ago, and that even larger items like washing machines will only last a few years before they must be replaced.

While others lament the passing of a ‘slower’ society the unmistakable fact is that people are quite comfortable with planned obsolescence. Who amongst us has a phone older than two years? Even if you could make a phone last that long would you really want one that old? If you wouldn’t use a three year old phone, would you want a three year old laptop? When was the last time you wore three year old clothes?

A laptop is no longer for life, but could be just for Christmas. 1

OCT

The battle for my handbag

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

Nintendo’s new DS will feature a camera, possibly a bigger pair of screens (both of which will be touch-sensitive) and a slightly improved WiFi system. I’d expect at least one surprise – my bet will be some kind of motion-sensor.

Naturally some people will be disappointed that the platform’s features will still be low-end or that it does not include a free magic-pony, but its hard to please everyone. Nintendo have always been very good at incremental updates. This will be another money-maker.

 

It probably will not look as good as this Gizmodo.com mock-up, but I share their desire for something that looks less like a toy.

The real question I have is not whether people will buy it, but whether people will carry it – the electronics market is flooded with pocket-sized devices. And the more interesting question is what would you leave behind in order to take your DS with you? Would you leave behind your digital camera because Nintendo have built one into the DS? If the new DS had a good enough web-browser might you leave behind your laptop? What’s the hierarchy of technologies for your handbag?

Ultimately it comes down to who your competition is. Whilst most brands look to their immediate competition, the woman on the street does not view her competition by category. Nintendo will be competing with the obvious rival Sony but will also be competing with everything in a women’s handbag: Keys, Digi-cam, Purses, Phones, Laptops, Music-Players, Sunglasses and make-up.

Jan Chipchase has done some interesting work in this area. Keys, cash and mobile phone are considered essentials irrespective of culture and gender. Keys and money provide access to shelter, food and warmth whilst the phone enables convenient communication with someone who can provide access to these. Forgetting these when shifting to one situation to the other is the most critical thing for most people.

I often pick up my overfilled handbag and leave stuff out and my DS is usually the one that gets eliminated first. Then in order: my mini laptop, camera, paper notebook, any baby toys/dummies and finally paracetamol. My Blackberry, purse and make-up (vain I know) are the things I take everywhere.

Whilst Nokia and Apple have been banking on the importance the phone hence turning it into a hand held gaming platform, there’s an interesting piece of work to be done understanding which items women are prepared to be loyal to and those they are prepared to abandon.

As we begin the quest for loyalty beyond reason, the battle of the handbags begins.

What’s in your handbag and what’s your handbag hierarchy?

 

 

Category : Articles | Games

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29

SEP

Top 50 Women in Mobile Content

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

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Last week I had the pleasure to be invited by ?What If!, an innovation company, to join a good number of the Top 50 Women in Mobile Content. Jessica Sandin, who heads up mobile at ?What If! was named as one of the top 50 women in mobile content and to celebrate their success ?What If! invited them to the ‘Old Laundry’, one of their offices.

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Offices sounds way too stuffy for ?What If!. It feels more like a mix between a living room and a playground. I wrote a case study about ?What If! a while ago and was impressed with how they generate innovation. Much of how they work resonated a lot with how I work with ethnographic methods in an academic context.  The difference is that we do not bring products and services to market but write academic articles.

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The evening started with drinks and we then gathered around in a circle of sofas. We were not allowed to rest a long time because we had to complete a task: learn as much as possible about two women in the room. This was great fun.  We then heard more about what ?What If! does and Jessica started a discussion on what it means to be a woman in mobile content. The discussion resembled many of those ‘women in a male dominated environment’ discussions I witnessed before. At first there was some hesitation as to whether it is different for men and women in mobile content followed by a string of interesting stories which showed that being a woman does matter.

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After an insightful discussion, we continued the evening with delicious canapés and fascinating conversations. All in all a fantastic evening to celebrate great achievements!

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21

SEP

Wireless

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

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I love taking my iPod to the gym because it gives me the freedom to listen to music that reflects my exercise mood. However when using the iPod on the cross trainer, one of my favourite cardiovascular machines, I often manage to almost strangle myself. I wear my iPod with an armband around my upper arm (the earphone cables are dangling around and can get caught easily in the cross trainer). The armband looks a bit like an oversized sticking plaster but is overall quite stylish and does the job – as long as I don’t do anything where I need the biceps. The cable issue remains annoying and I developed a rather complicated system of keeping the cable out of my way.
However I then came across a much nicer solution: the Arriva headphones. You basically wear the MP3 player at the back of your head and have small cables leading into your ears. This does solve the cable problem. The downside: it is only available for the iPod shuffle and not for other iPods. Other iPods might be too big to wear them at the back of the head. It might also be difficult to change tracks. But it is a nice idea. Apart from using these headphones for sports it might also come in handy when you don’t want other people to know that you are listening to music. Particularly if you have long hair.Â

 

 

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16

SEP

Girl Geek Dinner

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

I have been invited by Sarah Blow to contribute to a Girl Geek Dinner alongside Julie Lerman who will talk about what it means to be a geekette. The Girl Geek Dinner will take place on Thursday, October 09, 2008 from 06:30 PM – 09:30 PM and is generously hosted by Microsoft, London. I hope to see many of you there.

 

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8

SEP

“When you are going through hell, keep going”

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

Ok, it wasn’t hell. But it certainly wasn’t heaven; it was something in between. I was shopping for a new digital ‘point and shoot‘ camera. Like many women, I didn’t have much time to research different options online (Lady Geek research found than men research technology purchases more than women) so, like most female shoppers I came to my “retail experience” with no preconceptions. Since it was the only shop likely to be open on a Sunday morning, I went for Curry’s.

I wanted a camera indulge in my fantasy of being an undercover researcher. I told Vinesh, the shop assistant, I needed something small within the £100-150 price range, light and easy to use. Vinesh was quite informed and didn’t make me feel dumb or ‘female’, explaining that the type of lens was more important than the pixels. He showed me the Panasonic Lumix and the Sony CyberShot – The obvious choices – the most reputable brands.

Vinesh failed to ask me a fundamental question: whether I wanted to use the camera mainly indoors or in sunlight which I think is pivotal to anyone’s choice when buying a camera. I told him I’d heard about Fujifilm’s cameras being particuarly suitable for the kind of indoor photography that interests me.

He agreed; I ended up buying the Fuji.

I received my camera in a drab box.

 

I rummaged inside the box for the soft-case so I could at least protect my exciting new purchase. I was dismayed to find out that having paid two hundred quid for a camera it did not come with the most essential of accessories. I felt let down. It was as if I had just had a trip to the dentist. I was relieved it was all over. It wasn’t exciting. It certainly was not fun.

Compare this to the buzz I got when I bought a new dress the week before. I could hardly contain my excitement in the shop. I felt like a small child in a candy store. I got a posh bag. My dress was wrapped in tissue paper and smelt expensive. I even got a free magazine for ‘valued’ customers. It felt luxurious.

I love my camera. I love what I can do with it. Its seems pretty intuitive to use. My excitement comes from using the product. But what could have been an ‘experience’ to be enjoyed and savoured post-purchase was one easily forgotten.

If tech brands are asking women to divert their spend to technology, they need to provide a sensual, tactile and intimate experience with marketing that appeals to their senses as well as their purses.

Part of this is the whole experience, which includes not only the retail environment but the unveiling and ritualistic opening of the product when you get it home and peripherals are a big part of “making something my own” for women (The Japanese are particularly good at recognising this market.) So whilst I won’t rush to go technology shopping for a while, I am keen to get taking some good pictures for this blog.

 

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2

SEP

Just trying to be one of the boys

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

 

It does not relate that much to technology, but Alison Maitland has just published an excellent article based on my research in the FT. The research explores how female MBA students want to be one of the boys to fit into the masculine culture of the business school. Enjoy reading…

 

 

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2

SEP

The Jungle of Facebook

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

 

I feel old. Ancient. Positively archaic. I am doing some ethnography research for a client in the area of technology. I am spending the day with Amy. Amy is 18, turning 19 and just received her A level results. Amy is confident and incredibly articulate for an 18 year old. I am asking Amy questions which she dutifully answers in a very text book way. She then mentions facebook and her whole face lights up. Amy comes alive at this point. She runs over to her Dell laptop and logs on to Facebook. She shows me she her 353 ‘friends’ on Facebook. She tells me that Facebook is as important to her as chocolate. Its an addiction. Its a craving. She wakes up in the middle of the night and thinks about what happened that day in Facebook. She asks me if I want to speak to any of her friends on Facebook.

This got me wondering, are social networks a much more effective and authentic way to research young people? Are online omnibus studies and traditional ways of researching teenagers less effective in an age where the currency of the ‘yoof’ is through the lens of Facebook?

Amy shows me today’s events. Jo has split up from Anthony (I am shocked that people put when their relationship ends on Facebook. Do people dump people by Facebook as well?). Emma has tagged her in her holiday photos. The guy she met in malia has written on her wall. Amy is organising a ‘results’ party for 200 people (she has just done her A-levels). She couldn’t organise a party without Facebook. I ask her if Facebook is a fad. She tells me undeniably its not. MySpace was a fad but now everyone has moved to Facebook. Facebook has the ‘durability’ factor. The ‘talkability’ factor. She has 33 friends online at this moment. I feed her questions to her friends. I get answers from her friends immediately. I then ask more questions. Its rich information. Its visceral. It is not pre-determined. Its authentic. Amazingly, its free.

I recently completed an online research study for the Future Foundation. Not only was it incredibly boring to complete (and I am a researcher by trade so god knows how boring it was for everyone else), if I am totally honest I felt compelled to write the ‘right thing.’ To write the ‘intelligent thing.’ Most importantly, to write ‘the expected thing.’ When I received the final report, many of the things I had said I actually disagreed with. To really go ‘one floor down’ as a pyschotherapist would say, surely we need to get that visceral instantaneous reaction which is not going to come from a online omnibus or a focus group? If you want to see how the tiger hunts, don’t go to the zoo. You need to go to the jungle. Or in this case, the jungle called Facebook.

 

31

AUG

The Nerdette

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

 

 

A while ago Newsweek ran an article on a new breed of nerd: the nerdette. The nerdette is a girl nerd. These nerd girls are a growing group of young women who make the term nerd their own. They subvert the negative stereotype of the nerd either by not seeing it as derogative at all or by creating a new, more feminine version of the nerd. Instead of being social outsiders, they are social, enjoy networking and are often fashionable and stylish. And counter the stereotype of the nerd, they are not male. The male image of the geek, nerd or hacker seems to be outdated with this young generation of women who have grown up with new technologies. These young women take technology by storm whereas the few women who broke the glass ceiling in the tech industry – like Meg Whitman or Carly Fiorina – are slowing exiting as a recent article lamented. However there seem to be many women in the starting blocks to take on leading positions in technology if we are to believe Business Week or USA Today.

 

From academic research we know that what I have called ‘reprogram stereotypes’ is one way of overcoming stereotypes. Reprogramming stereotypes means to give them a different meaning. This meaning should not be a radical departure from the original meaning but a playful reinterpretation. This is exactly what the term nerdette does. It uses the stereotype of the nerd giving it a new meaning which is that women can be nerds too. Instead of conforming to the masculine undertones of what it means to be a nerd, being a nerdette gives you license to be feminine. The article mentions things like having been a cheerleader or wearing pink pumps as examples of this femininity. These are traditional qualifiers for being feminine. It shows that women do not have to be masculine to be a nerd/ette and can endorse traditional feminine attributes. However these attributes are feminine stereotypes in themselves.

 

The problem with stereotypes is that it restricts who can count as a certain type of person. Traditional nerds were defined on the idea that they are not women and therefore this definition excluded women from being nerds. The nerdette definition now includes women but only those who fulfill traditional expectations about femininity like being a cheerleader or liking pink heels. Nothing wrong with this per se, but many women might not want to use these classifiers of femininity – and might prefer flat shoes.

 

I also see another problem with this over-feminisation. This over-feminisation goes hand in hand with certain expectations of being sexy and available to men (this piece seems to suggest that nerd girls are particularly appealing to certain men and their main characteristic it to be beautiful, to wear glasses and to attend Star Trek conventions –Seven of Nine is of course their role model). However we know that if a woman is too sexy in the workplace, she generally is not seen as competent. Sexualising being nerd might therefore not necessarily be a beneficial subversion of a stereotype.

 

However the Newsweek article suggests that most of these nerdettes do not rely on over-feminisation but rather combine being a nerd with being a woman as part of who they feel there are. Being a nerd is now chic. At least to be a female nerd.

 

 

 

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16

AUG

R4, the taboo technology that downsizes your DS

Posted by Sally (5) Comment

There’s no name more feared by the makers and vendors of video games than the “R4″, the cheap, popular add-on to the Nintendo DS that allows gamers to load approximately 100 illegally downloaded games onto a single ‘cart’.

Naturally for some, the allure of this technology is the ability to get something for nothing. There are others who claim that they only use this technology for legitimate ‘homebrew’ software. I think there’s another really good reason that gamers like these things:

 

As you can see from the demonstration above, the DS is not quite as portable as it’s makers claim. Users of R4 cards have the advantage of combining many games into a single package, effectively allowing them to carry an entire collection in a tiny handbag.

The thing that Nintendo seem not to have noticed is that the pirate product really is delivering a better user-experience than the legit product sold in shops. The R4 cards and their many imitators have freed DS gamers from constantly needing to swap easily lost game-carts.

As a gamer whose happy to spend money on games but really appreciates not having to carry a load of crap with me, I’d like to see Nintendo respond to this threat not by the usual litigation and threats to ban products which hurt their business model. How about some innovation?

Nintendo needs to release it’s own R4 killer. Imagine an official game-download service like WiiWare for the DS that allows affordably priced games delivered directly to the hand-held, plus it should allow a large number of games to be stored on one cart.

That would kill my R4 envy and make room in my over-filled handbag, which would be a real bonus for many women, considering the average woman’s handbag is now 40% heavier than 5 years ago.

 

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14

AUG

We are our choices

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

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.

 

Category : Electronics

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31

JUL

Ode to Nokia’s BH-503

Posted by Sally (3) Comment

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).

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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27

JUL

Vocational Training on the Rise – Gender Segregation Remains

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

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.

 

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23

JUL

Move over Barbie, the “Smart Berry” has arrived

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

 

I want to cry into my coffee. Japanese little girls of between 6 and 8 have eschewed Barbie and now want a Smart Berry. Its a new ‘mobile communicator’ and is a ‘girly’ version of the BlackBerry made by Bandai.

Its got a touch screen and a slide out keyboard and Wi-Fi. The device registers user profiles so that Smart Berry owners can only send and receive mail from friends. It also has a function that allows users to raise a virtual pet. Other functions include a scheduler, calculator, alarm clock and address book. The toy costs $97.

 

I can’t work out what I am most upset about. Is it the fact that the Blackberry has become such a symbol of status and ‘success’ that a 6 year old would even know what a Blackberry is, let alone want one? Or is the fact that they have taken an intelligent piece of technology and dumbed it down and pinked it up for young girls? I think I am most aggrieved about Bandai not using any imagination or depth of understanding of young girls other than they like pink and want to communicate with their friends and nurture animals. The Smart Berry has a virtual Tamagotchi-like pet you can play with.

I have no problem with young children using technology and gaming as a way to stimulate and fuel their imagination. And living with a hard core gamer, I will have no chance in vetoing games when it comes to my children. I’d much rather my daughter play on the Wii than dress up an anorexic Barbie doll. But why can’t product developers and games designers come up with new and interesting ways to keep children’s imagination alive beyond the obvious?

I have a 7 year old niece, Lila. Lila is beautifully ‘unbranded.’ Lila loves art and creativity. She loves fantastical role play with her friends. She loves feeling like she ‘belongs’.

I have no doubt that she would want one of these as she loved her Tamagotchi. For a few minutes. For a few weeks. A few months at very best. But it will be a fad. Another toy that gets thrown into the playroom with other ‘deleted’ toys which cannot capture her imagination for more than 5 minutes. When the technology that surrounds us is so much more advanced and accessible compared to use than days gone past, how is that companies can just churn out gadgets that do nothing more than dumb down and imitate the world of the adult. Surely the generations that follow deserve more?

 

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3

JUL

Honey I shrunk the Mac

Posted by belindaparmar (3) Comment

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…â€ all I can say is: “I know, Baby… I know. I gave you a bad command, and I’m sorry. Let’s try again.â€

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?

 

29

JUN

How People Live their Lives

Posted by elisabethkelan (2) Comment

 

It seems to be increasingly important for businesses to understand how people live their lives. I recently came across this video podcast featuring Karsten Jonsen. He talked eloquently about how social change is relevant for management. He referred to the blurring of the private and public sphere through new information communication technologies as an example. This blurring of boundaries was also the topic of a seminar on Humanizing Work hosted by the Lehman Brother Centre for Women in Business. The seminar was convened by Professor Judy Wajcman who invited Professor Richard Sennett and Professor Lord Anthony Giddens to give keynote speeches.

Both of are sociologists and Stefan Stern, columnist at the FT, wrote after the event that managers can learn a great deal from sociologists. Anthony Giddens talked about addiction. There is a clear technology angle to this because Giddens referred to that when people wake up at night, they are often so addicted to their BlackBerry that they check for new emails first before going to the toilet (Stefan Stern has written about this in his column too).

 

Email and the internet can become like a drug which Belinda has discussed. Dr Ivan Goldberg has coined the term Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) for this phenomenon and psychologists classify IAD as a mental illness. There is of course always the danger of creating the mental illness one speaks about. What is central however is that the knowledge of how people live their lives is important to create insight into what kind of products and services people might be interested in and also in what kind of work environment they want to be.

 

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26

JUN

A router that looks like no other

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

Linksys invited me to the unveiling of their new Wireless-G Broadband Router WRT54G2.  I went to the event with pretty low expectations, I mean how sexy can a router be?  Its not exactly like my PSP or my prized possession: my Internet radio.  In the hierarchy of technology, surely the router is at the low end with the cables and bits of kit that I know I have to own but don’t particularly want to think about?

 

The dream: Will customers fall in love with their networking technology? Might we feel the same about a router as we do a well-designed sofa?

Firstly, I was really impressed by the fact that Linksys are taking the female market seriously and want input from Lady Geeks and those who work in the field. Linksys have conducted some research and recognised that over half of all women with broadband have a wireless network and want a simpler way to connect all their technology together.  95% of women with a wireless network have a PC/laptop, 68% a digital music player, 52% a DVR/PVR, 50% a games console and 14% a digital photo frame. This company has realised that women are clearly no longer a niche market but the drivers of tomorrow’s growth.

Secondly, having always classed routers as ugly things with strange antennae to be hidden, I was really impressed by the look and feel of the new Linksys product.  It’s piano black, sleek, sophisticated and smooth to the human hand. Gone are the outlandish “cyberman” antennae and the garish colour-schemes. Linksys have gone for a minimal look: The rounded form has a set of LEDs that shine through the dark plastic and a simple button which when pressed automates the configuration of many devices.

In the press event Linksys made a big show of their bundled configuration software: EasyLink Advisor. Unfortunately I could not use it because it only supports Windows XP and vista. I have have a Linux based PC. Fortunately a call to a geek friend revealed an alternative setup method that required only a web-browser. Even without the helpful software it was pretty easy: Go to a web-page and fill in a form. After that, it just worked.

I was impressed with the attitude of the designer: He stated that ‘Technology has to exist on the same terms as furniture.’

It’s clear that Linksys are genuinely attempting to apply this philosophy to their product-design, however they do not apply this consistently: For example, the packaging is quite ordinary: It’s cluttered art-work and flimsy shrink-wrapped cardboard gave the impression of a product that does not stand out from the crowd. First impressions matter – and companies that focus exclusivly on the functional attributes of their products fail to make that impression.

This led me to ask some questions: Is technology equally or more important to women than the furnishings in their home?   Would women prefer to get a new HD TV than a new sofa?  Are we a nation of geek obsessed individuals who can’t think past their front door?  If in the 50s people defined their houses by the cars parked in the drive, is the naughties about whether you have a WIi or an Xbox?  Will there soon be more conversations about the type of router you should have rather than your choice of carpet?

 

The reality (for now) – The router’s design values are ruined by the fact that it’s permanent home is a dusty corner of my attic.

In light of these questions – have Linksys achieved their goal?

I think they are on the right track but will need to apply the principle of emotionalising the product right through from the packaging to the in store experience to the web-based configuration interface. It’s going to take a few more years of this kind of design refinement and a deeper understanding of women before router-manufacturers will have made a device that women will choose over a designer sofa.

 

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18

JUN

My first date with the E61i

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

I received the Nokia E61i to review with an attitude of nonchalance.  I previously considered myself as Blackberry slave and resigned myself to the fact that my children will grow up to be Blackberry orphans. I begrudgingly removed my Sim card into my new E61i in the spirit of goodwill.

My initial impression was that it was a bulkier, sturdier blackberry, and kind of geeky looking.  As one Lady Geek told me, it looked like a Casio calculator.

Within 5 mins, without reading the manual , I had figured out how to put a photo of my baby daughter as my background on the screen.  In 10 mins, I had made my first call.  Within half an hour, I had downloaded the Gmail application.  This was intuitive design.  No manuals.  Minimal frustration.  My previous reluctance had been totally overcome with a rush of love.  Admittedly,  this wasn’t love at first sight but this was love within the first half an hour. This got me thinking.

What level of gratification needs to achieved in the first 5 mins for a piece of technology to play an indispensable role in your life?  How important is it that women can make technology ‘feel their own’ within the first 5 mins of owning a new gadget?

Meeting your new phone is like going on a first date.  You have to connect in the first five minutes otherwise, its pretty much an uphill struggle.  First impressions do count.  In fact, they are crucial.  I spoke to my Lady Geeks about this and so many of them struggle with initial set ups.  They talk about “wanting technology feeling like their own.” Once they are shown how to use something or have worked out just one thing on their own, they feel comfortable.  Secure.  Protected.   Comforted.  Most importantly, they are saved from phoning the company or asking a man and feeling completely stupid.

Drescher states that there are 3 components of a successful relationship: Comfort, Safety and Sexual Tension.   The comfort and safety elements are crucial for a woman’s relationship with a phone.  Comfort of feeling relaxed with my technology.   The safety of knowing it is there when I need it and has my life in it. Â

In hindsight, I never felt the same about my Blackberry.  It is an absolutely necessary part of my life.  However, I would not say I had a particularly emotional relationship with it.  Blackberry have been so clever by targeting the Enterprise market- my company does not support the E61i so I could never use it to check my work email and calendar.

Reluctantly, this morning Nokia told me they want their E61i back: I had to return the SIMM card to the Blackberry Pearl.

I miss the E61i’s qwerty keyboard even if they are quite hard to press sometimes – true love can overcome flaws like that.  I miss the intuitive nature of the device and I miss the photo off my baby on the background (I’ve not yet managed to do the same for my BB’s tiny screen).

If companies want their users to feel an emotional connection with technology, why don’t they focus on that first crucial 5 mins? Why not think about how to make a woman fall in love and not get caught up in product spec most of which most people will never use?  Why can’t every phone or piece of technology come with a small handbag size card with top ten tips to getting started?  What about a demo mode that explains the basic principles? Why can’t their be a hot-line button on your phone to a helpline?

Companies must understand that for women first impressions count and if instant gratification isn’t found in the first five minutes through the design and usability, its very difficult to engender true loyalty.  As Elbert Hubbard said (1856 – 1915)

“An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.”

 

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17

JUN

Beyond the Impartial Observer

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

Belinda and I were involved in a seminar a couple of weeks ago which looked at involved observational research in practitioner and academic settings. Here is a summary of the inspiring event.

The film Kitchen Stories portrays what many people think about observational research. In the film, the researcher tries to find out how kitchens should be designed and to do so he sits on a high chair and observers and takes notes of the object of his research, a single man in his kitchen. The researcher is as neutral, scientific and invisible as possible and is not allowed to talk to the researched. However the inevitable happens and the researcher develops a friendship with the researched.

An Economic and Social Research Council funded seminar, organized by the Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business, shows that ethnographic research, full of observations and interviews, has moved away from such clinical assumptions. The seminar, which took place at London Business School on 5 June 2008, is part of an ESRC seminar series on emotions and embodiment, and was the third seminar in the series, organised by Dr Elisabeth Kelan. The seminar was entitled ‘Gender, Power, Embodiment in Research’.

The seminar brought together academics and practitioners with an interest in ethnographic research. The rationale for which was to explore the differences and similarities in approach and to learn from one another.

The keynote speakers were Professor Catherine Cassell (Manchester Business School) who talked about how interviewees and interviewers co-construct one another and Professor Mats Alvesson (University of Lund) who addressed the issue of reflexive methodology and taking multiple perspectives to the material generated in research.

Dr. JK Tina Basi. Director of Mehfil Enterprise and freelance researcher with Intel’s Digital Health Group in Ireland, discussed the role of identity in shaping the research process and outcomes. Her talk, entitled, ‘Identity at Work and Play: Conducting Ethnography for Commercial Enterprise’, looked at the way in which research design could better include and make space for the co-construction of both the researcher and the research participants’ identities. Drawing upon a range of feminist academics (Haraway, 1991; Stanley and Wise, 1993; and Wolf, 1996), Dr. Basi pointed towards the feminist epistemological critique of positivism and ‘value free’ research, which argues that the subjective/objective dichotomy is false, and that objectivity is simply a name given to male subjectivity.

“Interviewing is the art of construction rather than excavation; thus the task is to organize the asking and listening so as to create the best conditions for constructing meaningful knowledge (Mason, 2002). Research cannot be ‘hygienic’, and knowledge is best created as a co-production between the interviewer and interviewee (Collins, 2000), as two intersecting dialogues: dialogue number one is the ethnographer’s interviews with informants or the observations of people’s lives; dialogue two is between the ethnographer’s written work and the readers (Smith, 2002: 20) or the clients. Such an approach paves the way for greater reflexivity, which isn’t just about presenting the self and being reflexive about the self, it is about exposing power relations and the way in which these relations shape knowledge – a much more authentic way to conduct research, yielding sharper insights and deeper meanings. â€

Dr Basi presented two examples from Intel’s research in the healthcare sector to show the strength of a dialogic approach to data collection. Intel’s research work on transport and mobility in rural Ireland was designed in part by the Rural Transport Programme and the research on social care services in England was heavily influenced by the experiences of elderly people using the services provided by Age Concern.

“Ethnography is just as much about the interview as it is about the setting, it is about building a rapport, yet you do more than just talking. You see things that people cannot articulate, what they don’t know they are trying to articulate. Ethnographic research provides a view of the rituals, practices, markers, and triggers in intimate settings and important environments – the situatedness of ethnography however, calls upon the researcher to become vulnerable in the process too.â€

Belinda Parmar, a Planning Director of Saatchi & Saatchi and author of Lady Geek

http://ladygeek.org.uk, presented two case studies where Xploring, a Saatchi research tool, was used to discover insights that overturned stereotypes long upheld by traditional research techniques.

“I apply theories and methods of ethnography to the corporate realm. I take a unique participant-observation approach where I immerse myself in people’s lives to discover meaning about real people’s lives in the real world on their terms. I develop relationships based on mutual trust and move from an ‘outsider‘ looking in, to an ‘insider’ uncovering truths about human behaviour and gender differences. I am concerned with the wider aspects of people’s lives and their eco-systemsâ€

The results: practical and actionable insights that have developed into award winning ideas for clients.

The product: stories, films, books that tell the stories in rich and colourful detail to stimulate brand ideas.

Overall, the seminar has shown how to take research into a real life context and depart from the view that the researcher is an impartial researcher by exploring this question from an academic and practitioner side. Please also see London Business Schools‘ news section and Putting People First blog for views on the event.

 

 

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11

JUN

Technology…a politically correct addiction?

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

I was sitting in a restaurant and I felt agitated.  Nervous.  Jittery.  Stressed.  It took me a while to figure out what was wrong.  And then I realised.  I hadn’t checked my emails for over 30 minutes.  I looked around at the table next to mine – half of it’s occupants were staring into their smart-phones or tablet PC’s.

Admittedly we were a geeky crowd but this was a fancy French restaurant in an upscale part of the city, not some a nerd-fest in a seattle coffe bar. As Hamlesh noted, the Crack berry has replaced smoking.  Whilst it was once considered OK to smoke, now its not. It is acceptable however, to check your Blackberry every five minutes.   If they remade Mad Men for today’s advertising world, would they be checking their phone for emails rather than lighting up another cigarette?

Have we become so dependent on technology that it is no longer an empower and enabler but the root of an addiction society?  A replacement for the cigarette?

One of my Lady Geek contacts admitted to me that she checks her Blackberry at traffic lights.  Another told me what without her phone she feels like there is no oxygen in the room.  Another wakes up and has to check Facebook before she has her breakfast.  I have to admit I check my phone every half an hour when I am with my children, which I feel guilty about.   According to a recent You Gov poll, 90% of Blackberry users describe their Blackberry is a lifesaver.   Technology is a lifeline for many of us and brings many benefits..it connects us to our friends and families and many women talk about their phone as the modern day rape alarm.  Its a security device.  The reality is that if someone is to attack you then your phone is not going to be of any use.  But it provides many women with reassurance and peace of mind.

But not being able to live without technology, is that really good for society?  I remember that scene from Sex in the City when Miranda comes home and Tivo hasn’t recorded her favourite programmes and she behaves like a demented neurotic.  I feel like that when my PVR doesn’t record “The Apprentice”.

Surely ‘balance’ in all aspects of our lives is what we should be striving for?  And if we are always ‘connected’ how do we switch off?   We need to make sure technology serves as an enabler, as a facilitator to someone or something we love doing.   Now let me just go and check my mail….

 

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4

JUN

Mummy, please can I have a …Blackberry?

Posted by belindaparmar (4) Comment

 

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.

 

Category : Mobile Phones

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1

JUN

Feminising or Humanising Technology?

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

The Telegraph featured an article on 30 May 2008 entitled ‘Feminised gadgets: An eye for the ladylike’. The article claims that women become more and more interested in gadgets. Figures seem to support this. Sony Ericsson claims that women spend more money on gadgets than on shoes (£391 per year or £17 billion in total). Based on the article two-thirds of the Nintendo DS users are female.

The article assumes that feminised technology is something new in the West yet well established in Japan. DoCoMo asked women what they want in mobile phones and subsequently produced a hugely popular, small clamshell handset with an integrated camera. At that time few people understood the value of cameras in mobile phones but that has changed of course dramatically.

Women do seem to hold the key for many design innovations in the gadget market simply because they are often not asked what they want from technology. The article also quotes Ladygeek research saying that women do not want pink products but useful, easy to use products. They want phones that are also fashion accessories and beautifully designed.

 

The classic example is Jonathan Ive’s iMac design which showed that computers did not have to be beige or grey boring boxes but can be design features. My first generation iBook does indeed look stunning in my room and is regularly admired by visitors.

What appeals to women often does appeal to men too. The article claims that indeed ‘gender barriers are becoming blurred’ suggesting that men and women both want beautifully designed, easy to use technology. Rather than becoming feminised it appears that technology is finally being made fit for humans rather than just a certain group of technology savvy and nerdy men.

 

28

MAY

A solitary moment for two

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

 

 

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.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics | Home Entertainment | Mobile Phones | Uncategorized

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23

MAY

Is Web 2.0 pink?

Posted by elisabethkelan (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.

 

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21

MAY

Attracting Women or Girls?

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

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.

 

 

Category : Articles | Mobile Phones | Uncategorized

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21

MAY

Touch Me

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

 

With the collaboration between Best Buy and Carephone Warehouse (Best Buy bought half of the chains retail arm for £1.1b last week), the competition to deliver better customer service within the technology retail environment is on.

With the exception of Apple, service is much of a muchness whether it is John Lewis, PC World or the Sony Stores. It wouldn’t take much work to lift a retailer above the disappointing average.

I agree with Charles Dunstone , chief exec of Carephone Warehouse when he says

‘I think the consumers of Europe are ready for someone to do a better job selling electronics’

And if anyone needs to deliver a more inviting retail experience its Carephone Warehouse. As one Lady Geek said,

“I feel like bait walking into Carephone Warehouse dreading the first sales person to pounce.”

Interestingly, Best Buy moved their staff from a commission based sales structure, where customers were put under pressure to buy, to a more laid back approach with a focus on providing advice.  Perhaps Carephone Warehouse will adopt this model.

Even with internet online sales reaching 18% last year (ahead of the expected 15% of the market), expectations of the store experience are higher than ever.   Women particularly, talk about technology as they would any other purchase, they want to see it in the flesh.   Women want to feel the product.  See the weight of it.   Experiment with it.  Play with it.  Actually see what they are buying.

The physical environment is also about reassurance for women and many women will go back into the store once after they have decided what to buy as “they still feel a bit wobbly about it“

We have just conducted some research for Comet: We discovered different archetypes along a skills and confidence axis- confidence in their attitude to technology and skill in terms of their knowledge.

When it comes to high confidence and high skill, more men fall into this category.  Whats interesting is that when it comes to high skill and low confidence, women are much more likely to fall in this space.   Women do not have the confidence to buy technology, whilst many have the ability.   Women I have spoken to start their sentence with “I feel so stupid…” or “This is all jargon to me” but when you dig deeper, many women are more informed than their male counterparts.

The other important point is that as technology becomes more exciting and desirable, the desire and enjoyment of buying it is much greater, whether that is in store or online.   I know I really looked forward to buying my HD TV.  Its by no means a ‘distress purchase’ which much of the white goods fall into.

If BestBuy are willing to invest and re-invent the Carphone Warehouse experience the hum-drum mobile-phone retail marketplace could be in for a shock: Mobile phones are amongst the most desirable tech products and nobody is selling them in a particularly interesing way – on the other hand I just wonder if BestBuy appreciate how much sales they are missing because of the unfriendly high-pressure environment that their latest acquisition has become famous for.

 

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18

MAY

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

Posted by elisabethkelan (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.

 

Category : Articles | Games

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12

MAY

Technology can be beautiful

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

 

I am in geek envy again.   Keyboards are usually dull boring functional devices.  Not these.  These hand painted keyboards are really beautiful.  £75 a piece.  Technology doesn’t have to be a piece of kit but something more akin to art.  The fusion of art and technology would make a great exhibition.   Check out Gizmodo for more info.

 

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8

MAY

Technology Women honoured by BlackBerry Awards

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

 

I was glad to have been invited by Maggie Berry from WomeninTechnology, an online job board, networking and event group for women working in technology jobs in the UK, to attend the glamorous BlackBerry Women & Technology Awards. This was the third edition of the event celebrating women’s achievement in the field of technology.

 

Maggie Philbin, who used to be a presenter of Tomorrow’s World, led through the evening and various speakers such as Glenda Stone, Aurora and Charmaine Eggberry, VP and managing director, EMAE for Research in Motion.

 

The evening started with a reception and then we were asked to sit at the tables for a wonderful meal. The WomeninTechnology table was fabulous with a variety of people ranging from representatives from NBC and the WISE – Women into Science, Engineering and Construction to Suzanne Doyle Morris who offers coaching for female leaders who also authors an interesting blog.

 

After the dinner the award ceremony started. The winners were

 

• Best use of technology by a woman within the corporate sector: Jayne Opperman (Lloyds TSB)
• Best use of technology by under 30 year-old woman: Lisa Ditlefsen (Base One)
• Best woman in technology (public sector and academia): Professor Lizbeth Goodman (SMARTlab)
• Best use of technology within the multimedia industry by a woman: Beatriz Alonso-Martinez (Avid Technology Europe)
• Best company advancing women in technology: BT Group
• Best use of technology by a woman in small to medium business: Polly Gowers (Everyclick.com)
• Best female mentor: Kate Bishop (Dell)
• BlackBerry outstanding woman in technology: Professor Lizbeth Goodman (SMARTlab)

 

 

 

What I found particularly interesting was Charmaine Eggberry talking about research commissioned by Research in Motion with girls aged 11 to 16. 90% of these girls described technology as ‘cool’. 38% of the girls talk about the latest technologies daily. However only 28% of girls in contrast to 52% of boys wanted to work in this area. Girls simply saw technology work as too geeky. We know from research on stereotypes that role models have a major impact on perceptions and honouring women of achievement in technology is one way of changing the image of technology and encouraging more girls and women into the area.

 

8

MAY

The Nokia E65 and the Second Phone Syndrome

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

I thought I am overdoing it a bit by carrying around two phones. One smart phone, in my case a BlackBerry 8820 which I got from work, and my private phone. However I do not seem to be such a minority as I thought. A report by Rubicon Consulting shows that 36.4% of iPhone users have a second phone with them. Reading the comments of a review which looked at this phenomenon, it seems that many people carry two phones. Most of them are just like me because they have one for work use and one for personal use.
The workphone is usually a smart phone like a Blackberry. Like Belinda, I was sent a Nokia E65 for review purposes. Like her I am a bit disappointed by the device. While the N-Series got a lot of coverage including a blog, the E-Series is still uncharted territory. The E-Series is marketed as a Nokia for business needs. It is seen as a phone where substance meets style. It comes in a range of colours such as white (what I was given), red, pink, mocca, purple and black.

How does the E65 do in relation to my BlackBerry 8800? The E65 is a slider and although overall smaller it appears rather bulky and heavy. The overall appearance is almost a bit tacky in contrast to my BlackBerry. The 8800 is larger but slimmer and I really appreciate the qwerty keyboard which makes answering emails and messages much easier. The E65 is a bit of a let down in this respect as a smart phone without qwerty seems to defeat the objective. At least for me. However my BlackBerry lacks a camera and I was really impressed by the quality of the two mega pixel camera the E65 has. Overall, I prefer my BlackBerry due to ease of use with typing and also it takes less space in my handbag.

So the E65 maybe as a second phone? For most people it would probably be a good second phone and a good entry point into the smart phone area. However I am less convinced by this because the E65 feels quiet heavy. It also does not look very stylish and if you have a private phone you want to have something that is a good accessory.

 

Although the E65 is not a bad phone, it does not fit into my lifestyle. Neither as a business phone nor as a private phone. A true innovation would be to make the two phone syndrome obsolete. Given that lots of people fill their pockets with phones and despite of the fact that big handbags are in fashion for women, it seems like a waste to carry around two phones and other electronic gadgets like an iPod. Convergence might mean that future smart phones are truly smart and include different profiles for the same user such as one for work and one for private use. At least it would de-clutter handbags.

 

Category : Interesting

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8

MAY

Nokia’s business anthroplogy

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

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.

 

Category : Articles | Mobile Phones | Uncategorized

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6

MAY

Mum’s the word

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

A recent report called “Women and Digital Lifestyles in the US” highlights not only the importance of the female dollar in the tech sector but specifically the way women and children choose their tech products.

More US women download TV shows than men (15% compared to 11% of men).   More women use their DVR’s than men (9.3 times per week compared to 8.3% of men).   And of these segments, women with children make up the greatest proportion of frequent users.

I think many tech companies overlook women with children and go for the corporate professional woman with time and money.  This is a mistake. Whilst doing the most recent Lady Geek study, I met mums who became gamers whilst on maternity leave, usually DS or PSP players.

Mums need a quick fix, something to do when baby is having a nap: Especially something that can be paused or finished quickly. Films are too long, daytime TV too dull.  An episode of Desperate Housewives streamed to my portable device is great.  A 10 minute game on my DS is just perfect.

As a mum, I know that every minute of my time is spoken for.  Whilst on the phone, I simultaneously need to make baby’s bottle.  I order my shopping online at the same time as I feed my baby. Women also want entertainment technology  that keeps their brain’s active while attending to life’s many duties.

Nintendo are unarguably the kings of ‘snack gaming’ – however their positioning does not stress the pick-up, put-down-ability of their products. Microsoft’s XBOX 360 has the most technically sophisticated video download store but their prodcut selection does not address the preferences of a modern woman – nor are most mums going to be able to watch a whole movie within the arbitrary 24 hour window they impose.

What I’m trying to show here is that only small fixes are required to make today’s technology more mum-friendly – it’s a really easy win.

 

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1

MAY

The democritisation of film

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

Great idea from Nokia:

They are working with director, Spike Lee to make a series of short films comprised of video captured by regular folk on their mobile phone.  Nokia intend to create the world’s first social film. People will be asked to film content on their mobiles (which need not be Nokia devices) and submit them for consideration. The end result will be a film in three acts around the theme of humanity.

I love the idea that power is in the hands of people now.   All you need to be a filmmaker now is a mobile phone. Nokia claims that by 2012, “one out of every four consumers will create, edit or share entertainment with friends, instead of getting it from traditional media outlets like television or movie studios.”

Pundits and corporate spokespeople have been making claims like this for a very long time, and despite my most profound yearnings big-media is still around. I’m not fully convinced that the mobiles of 2012 will be able to replicate the cinema experience, nevertheless the trend is clearly in Nokia’s favor.

 

This is where most brands seem to be going.  There are 3 elements to this strategy.  First, to get real people to be part of the brand story and inspire user generated content.  Secondly, rather then tell and sell (the old advertising model), to inspire people to tell their story demonstrating the capabilities products (like the Sony foam ad).    The third element is not a new one: to get people to be part of the distribution of their story. This is clearly in line with Nokia’s strategy to be much more than a phone, more of the swiss army life for the information society.

As Spike Lee states, all films will be made like this in 5 years.  Technology has made this possible.  What an exciting time to work in the technology space.

 

Category : Mobile Phones

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30

APR

One is born a woman, one does not become one

Posted by Sally (0) Comment

Â

Rosie Boycott wrote an interesting piece on how women and men’s brains are wired differently, how she has changed her view from believing it was nurture rather than nature that determined a woman’s success and ultimately we are all born equal in line with Simone de Beauvoir.  Now, she concedes, after reading The Sexual Paradox by Susan Pinker, that the reason that most women in the their early 30s choose to opt out of the career game is that women are

“wired to resist the demands at the top of those fields.   Women care more about intrinsic rewards, more service orientated and are wired for empathy.”

Nature wins over nurture.  It is to do with the levels of oestrogen that women have, along with prolactin and oxytocin which surges in pregrancy, breastfeeding and mothering.   These produce a ‘natural high’ and tests have shown that female rats experience a greater rush of pleasure from being with their newborns than from cocaine!  As a new mum myself, I never for one moment dreamt that I could feel such intense and strength of emotion for another human being.  I found the whole experience completely overwhelming.

Women are looking for inherent meaning from work, as opposed to domination which is more what men look for.    Pinker asserts that we need to accept and honour differences amongst the sexes and not mark everyone according to the accepted standard of money, success and drive.

Brands must understand that women’s and men’s brains are wired differently and their buying behaviour and reasons for purchase are not the same as men.   Technology brands must respond to these differences rather than play lip service or fall into cliche land i.e pink it up and dumb it down.   A woman I spoke to today, echoing hundreds of women, told me how the fear of not wanting to feel stupid was what prevented her from enjoying and experimenting with technology.  So much of the fear that women have when it comes from technology is from being self-conscious and not wanting to get ‘that look’ which involves eyeballs rolling from a 19 year old at PC world.  Whether the reality of the experience is actually like that is irrelevant, that is how women feel about technology and tech brands must realise this and put changes in place to make women feel comfortable about buying technology.

 

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25

APR

Nokia’s E65 and the ugly sister

Posted by Sally (3) Comment

Consider two siblings: One of them is beautiful and receives lavish affection. She is universally adored. The other left with only her wits and natural abilities to survive in a tough competitive world.

 

Nokia N95 and E65

The first child is artistic and is encouraged from an early age. She is famous for her talent and ability to entertain. Meanwhile the second finds it difficult to compete. She struggles to live up with to her more successful sister’s fame and reputation.

The first receives constant acclaim from a legion of adoring fans, while the other is dismissed as a cynical copycat, or worse an impostor riding on the coat-tails of the more talented and interesting older sibling. Such is the relationship between Nokia’s popular N-Series phones and it’s relatively unknown sibling the E-Series.

 

Nokia N95 and E65

Nokia sent me the E65 to review. It’s positioned as an alternative to the Blackberry (which I use as my main business phone). It’s Nokia’s attempt to capture a slice of the ‘Business Professional’ market place.

I was anticipating something sleek, beautiful and stylish. Something as classy as the forthcoming N96. What I got was a wannabe phone: sturdy, ugly and quite plasticly. It came in a standard cardboard package, and the un-boxing was free of drama or excitement. It’s almost impossible to believe that this product is an offspring of the same family that bore the N95 and it’s glamorous successor the N96.

Compared to the Nokia N95, the interface is small with buttons placed ever so slightly too close together for hurried fingers. It’s saving grace is the navigation – its intuitive and simple and you don’t have to read the manual to do basic things such as send messages, take pictures and videos and access the web. Nokia have evolved their phone interface over almost a decade and anybody who has used a Nokia phone during that time will find it instantly familiar and comfortable.

Underneath the serious packaging the E65 is essentially the same sort of thing as the N95 – they both run exact same Symbian operating system however Nokia have decided to distinguish the two product lines by having slightly different initial configurations. For example, the N95 comes with a podcasting application, a selection of games and a great media player. The E65 comes with… well I’m not sure what. There seemed to be a bunch of links to download ‘business software’ but there was nothing actually loaded onto the phone that the similarly priced N95 didn’t have.

The operating system may be virtually indistinguishable, but the hardware is dramatically different. The E65 is like a cut-down N95. Take away the N95′s GPS, the 2-way slider (with extra media buttons), the stereo speakers and the dual-cameras, the support for advanced Bluethooth Profiles and the handy Stereo Headphone socket and you would be left with something with approximately the same feature-set as the E65…

… Almost because the N95 has the uncanny ability to connect to almost anything while no amount of network-trickery and calls to tech support enabled me to make a reliable WiFi connection on the E65.

The model’s position is ‘Style with Substance.’ I showed some of my Lady Geek friends and interestingly before they even spoke about the functions of the phone, the conventional design had put them off. One Lady Geek felt it was very masculine. She wanted her phone to be something she could show off – the E65 is not a phone that Lady Geeks will want to show off.

If Nokia want to capture the female audience, the first thing they need to do is not think of them as ‘business professionals.’ Women’s personal and corporate lives are merging -most people use their mobile phones to stay in touch with family and friends while at work. Instead of letting work into their private life, people seem to bring their private life to work. See previous post by Elisabeth for more detail.

Nokia need to find insights about their audience; they must see beyond “business user” cliche and get to the truth of how women feel about their mobile phones.

The second thing they need to think about is packaging. The packaging should feel like a box of delights. A luxurious item. If you are asking women to choose between a pair of Jimmy Choos or the E65, you need to think about every aspect of the experience: right from the product through to the packaging. The choice of the E65 or a pair of Jimmy Choos- I know which one I would choose!

The E65 is not a bad phone, it’s merely disappointing compared with Nokia’s flagship products. All it takes is some imagination to show how the N series is probably a more appropriate business communicator than anything in E-Series (with the notable exception of the E61i).

I think Nokia are also making the big mistake of under-selling the business potential of their more well-received N-series phones. While primarily designed for fun and entertainment these more powerful phones have all the processing clout required to accomplish mundane business tasks. Why not mention this fact in their advertising?

 

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24

APR

Sony Foam ad

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

Finally the long awaited Sony Foam ad. Miami is transformed into a giant bubblebath, filling whole streets with foam.

Sony’s Foam ad

Its an epic of an ad and I love the idea of inviting real people to frolic and film their own stories within the ad.  Director Simon Ratigan of HLA enlisted the services of 200 temporary employees in the form of locals, armed with the latest products to shoot their own footage. The idea was that all participants would then upload their film and pictures onto an online database, however, anticipating the leakage of this content, they actively encouraged sharing across the digital space – the ad has had 40,000 hits on YouTube in just over a week.

Its fun, watchable but most importantly, its a demonstration of the quality of the products in mass media (Handycam, Cyber-shot and new ‘a’ range of digital cameras).   The world has moved on, advertising can’t just sell, it needs to demonstrate even within mass media.Â

What I love about Sony is that they are doing everything that ad agencies advocate: build a brand, create a Lovemark, take your brand on a journey.  Make people find your product irrestible.  In the tech sector, very few companies with the exception of Apple, are doing this.  Most tech companies tend to be very tactical in their approach and focus on the specific features of the product when most people have no clue or interest in the finer details of what they are buying.  For example, 70% of people think that once they have bought their HD TV that all the programmes they watch will be in high definition.

Sony not only have improved their advetising in last few years but they have changed the way the way they do business and made their stores a much more inviting place for women Not only that, they are redesigning their retail outlets in Switzerland to include couches and offer child care services (that would be heaven for me and most mums) and their staff are being trained to ask about interior design tastes and wishes.

My only begrudging critique is that it feels that the strategy has been streched somewhat to fit this ad.  I think the reason Colour Like no Other is so successful is that is such a simple link to the product and everyone (including my mum which is always a test of simplicity) gets the message. SImple, clear and elegant. This ad has a much more tenuous link to the Sony products on offer – images like no other feels one floor down from the original thought.  Very powerful ad nonetheless. Â

 

 

 

23

APR

Do you remember your password and is your memory helped by chocolate?

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Ars Technica reported that Accenture recently surveyed internet users in the UK and the US by (just) phoning them to explore how they dealt with internet security issues. Some interesting country differences emerged. In the UK 70% remembered their passwords yet only 50% of the US population managed to do the same. US citizens were more likely to write down their passwords. And apparently there is a gender story too: women tended to write down passwords more often than men in both countries.

 

Another just-approach-them study conducted as part of the Information Security Awareness Week outside Liverpool Street Station in London tried to entice commuters to provide personal information in exchange for a chocolate bar. Overall only 21% were willing to give this information. However 45% of women and only 10% of men were willing to enter the chocolate-for-information deal.

 

The studies did not speculate on why this is the case. Is it that women are just more friendly and willing to help strangers when they approach them and are asked for their passwords? Might they just have too many things to juggle in their head already to remember all the passwords and therefore write them down? Difficult to tell. But remember to change your passwords from time to time and if a stranger asks you for information offering a chocolate bar, be vigilant!

 

 

Category : Interesting

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21

APR

Bluetooth: empowering yet frustrating

Posted by Sally (0) Comment

As David Pogue said in the NY times, Bluetooth earpieces remove….

“any remaining visual distinction between a busy executive and a lunatic.”

I read this and laughed.

 

I love and hate my Jabra Bluetooth headphones. I love them because they allow me to do what women love to do: multitask. I can chat to a work colleague whilst changing a nappy. I can make a cup of tea and talk to my mother-in-law. Not to mention phone calls sound amazing.

Since having babies, my life has become just one long to do list which I never seem to get to the end of. So when I can get them to work, its amazing. I can forgive the odd stares I get from people along the street (I think I fall in the lunatic category not the busy executive).

But most of the time, I can’t get them to work. I struggle with tapping them once or twice to get them to connect, i struggle with getting them in pairing mode. They have far too many buttons and lights that flash mysterious, baffling codes.

 

Admittedly, I have not read the manual but like most women, who has the time or inclination? I want to plug and play. I want technology to be instinctive. I get so frustrated. Yesterday after re-pairing them for the hundreth time, I was ready to throw them in the bin. Thats how irriated I am by them.

The Flip camera has so few buttons you can’t fail but to understand what each one does. The ipod is so instinctive you can’t not learn how to use it. Bluetooth headphones are such a wonderful idea but why cant they be as simple and reliable as a wired headset?

My friend I was chatting to this morning, had to put the phone down half way through an important conversation as she couldn’t push the buggy and chat to me at the same time. Bluetooth headsets are a GREAT IDEA – it’s just that every bluetooth headset I’ve tried has been poorly implemented.

The opportunity for brands is to make their bluetooth products reliable and intuitive. If I technology-literate women like me struggles with these devices, what must it be like for other women? I know so many women who would love this product, but I won’t be a product advocate until companies like Jabra start undertsanding the need to make these things ‘just work’.

 

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17

APR

Changing the face of gaming

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

On Wednesday I read an article in the Metro called ‘’. The article is based on a report produced by Gamesvision. This report claims that 23% of people aged between six and 55 play computer games and 41% of gamers are female. These are encouraging statistics.

 

The article argues that this is due to more women who join the labour force and program and develop games. The games have in turn become more realistic. This means that the busty Lara Croft went from a 36DD to a 36B. Well, she still fulfils the ideal of slender femininity and has still a perfect wais to hip ratio. However Lara Croft is now a bit more realistic than before.

 

This makes business sense for game producers. If they alienate half of their potential consumer market, it does not make sense to have stereotypical representations of women. Having more women programming games together with consumer demand might thus change the face of gaming or rather the representation of female characters.

 

A fascinating topic. The university of Warwick will host a conference on Women in Gaming from 10 to 12 September.

 

Category : Articles | Games

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16

APR

Enslaving or Liberating?

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Last week I attended a change management course which was taught by Richard Jolly. When we talked about personal change, we discussed how the BlackBerry and other technologies transformed how we work and live.

 

On the one hand the BlackBerry means that boundaries between work and home life are removed. Earlier work was clearly contained by the physical space of the office. You had to work in the office and were kicked out when the offices were closed. This has changed, however. Now we can be always on and we expect other people to be always on too. If your boss sends you an email on a Sunday you better have an answer when you meet him or her the following morning or even better for your corporate brownie points, reply straightaway. Replying instantly to an email is seen as a great achievement and celebrated in society. However this constantly on phenomenon leads to that people burn out easier and work takes over all aspects of life. This all contributes to what is called hurry sickness. Hurry sickness is the feeling that everything has to be done instantly and that it cannot wait a couple of seconds.

 

There is the other side to it. The liberating aspect of technology. You can now answer emails while playing golf and pretend to be at work. Working mothers often celebrate that their life has become now more integrated when they are able to have a BlackBerry. They can type emails from home or while on the tube. Yes, a BlackBerry allows you to use your time more efficiently. Especially when your time is limited.

 

In reality, life is probably not as black and white but has many shades of grey. You have to work hard to not allow technology to take over your life.

 

Switch off your BlackBerry and give yourself some time! There must be times when you are just not available. Some of the most successful business people I know regularly take time for themselves when they are just not available and this time is non-negotiable. This times saves them from burn out, allows them to recharge their batteries and makes them more focused and productive when they work.

 

If you manage people you need to think about what kind of example you set them. If you send emails on a Sunday, your employees will work for you then. It might be wise to write emails off line and send them on a Monday morning and most things can wait.

 

Decelerate your life and still use the benefits of technology!

 

Category : Articles | Mobile Phones

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15

APR

N-gage me please

Posted by belindaparmar (3) Comment

 

Nokia has finally unwrapped its N-Gage mobile games service globally, allowing users of their newer smart-phones to download some half-decent games for their mobile phones and providing a real alternative to console and PC gaming.

Mobile gaming is on the increase: Its a great way to attract ‘snack’ or casual gamers, of which a large proportion are women. I have seen many women on the bus, train who play games on their phones. I do not think these women would ever be seen in public playing a DS or a PSP – playing a game on the phone is more respectable (even if it’s that boring breakout game on the BlackBerry).

Travel time is ‘dead’ time for women – they don’t have the same guilt and feeling of indulgence that they would have if they were to ‘surrender’ an hour of valuable home time to play Mario Galaxy. Home time is too valuable, and this is why the hand-held gaming market is skewed towards female gamers.

The genius of N-gage is that Nokia have delivered a fully portable game-platform that allows players to try before they buy. Like the XBox Live Arcade at home, this feature of the new N-Gage takes the risk out of choosing games, as buyers are safe in theknowledge that they will not be mis-sold. You always know what you are going to get before you hand over your cash.

The new N-Gage games are just downloads. There is no need to visit a game store (hooray as they are not exactly inviting to women) and there are no game packs to be lost or damaged.

According to Mintel data (2007), women are far less likely to spend money on gaming, particularly on a subscription model that dominates the hardcore gamer market. Nokia have sensibly adopted a pricing model similar to Nintendo’s Wii, that is once bought games are free to play online.

While I think Nokia have got much of this right, it’s still going to be a tough sell: The Nintendo DS is the hottest selling games platform right now, and shelves are literally bulging with many lifetimes worth of casual games.

Having the N-Gage platform pre-installed on all future phones will make a big difference – however even then I think Nokia will need to advertise heavily in order to help women understand the clever features that are buried deep within their phone’s memory.

 

Category : Articles | Games

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10

APR

Is the Xbox 360 failing to deliver ‘entertainment’?

Posted by belindaparmar (5) Comment

I bought an Xbox a few months ago and I was quite excited at the prospect of having it in my living room. My husband enthused that it was ‘something for the living room to watch films on’ which would replace our DVD player’ – this seemed like an an interesting prospect. Being a film aficionado, having lots of new films/TV shows and video on demand is very appealing.

 

The first thing I noticed about the Xbox Marketplace was the selection of films are very limited and not that appealing to women. Its mainly the hardcore men titles with the occasional “chick-flick” (Miss Congeniality) thrown in for good measure. The selection is designed to appeal to adolescent boys – there’s a surplus of action films and high-octane thrillers. The movie store was a dissapointment, but what about all the other content that Microsoft sold us on?

There’s a TV and short-films section which mainly consists of pop videos and the kid’s show “Viva Piniata”. These are the same pop videos you can watch for free on any of the Freeview music channels, except in the Xbox marketplace you pay a few pounds for the same content you can get for free on TV or via YouTube.

The value of these official downloads is further diluted by XBox marketplace’s vague licensing: Downloaded movies must be watched within a week of the original download or else the movie becomes unplayable. Likewise a move which has been started must be finished within 24 hours before it expires and becomes unplayable. Does the same restriction that applies to a Will Smith movie also apply to a Britney pop video? Who knows – I wasnt going to waste money trying to find out!

On the subject of payment once again the Xbox marketplace is confusing: Microsoft have decided to invent their own currency which is neither Pounds, Dollars nor any other familiar currency but “Microsoft Points” whose rate is arbitrarily set by Microsoft. This means we never really know how much an Xbox marketplace costs until we check the latest points to pounds exchange rate. How much money is two-hundred Microsoft points? I’ve absolutely no idea and I doubt that most Xbox 360 owners do either.

So far, I haven’t downloaded a single paid-for film – that’s only partly because Microsoft’s commercial media proposition is a failure. The other reason is that the XBox 360 can play XviD and DivX files – these files can be downloaded from a huge selection without payment and then kept forever (or until I decide to delete it). The XBox 360 is such a superb movie player that nobody who knows this would ever be tempted to waste money on the sub-standard good in the Xbox Marketplace.

This is a massive missed financial opportunity for Microsoft. The Lady Geeks I spoke to were similarly impressed by the XBox 360′s media player abilities but felt let down by the range and restrictions of the marketplace. Ultimately YouTube and illegal downloads offered a better value proposition than Microsoft’s half-hearted offering. Microsoft should offer a wider selection of movies which appeal to more than just the traditional adolescent male gamer, plus they should price their downloads in real money rather than confusing points. These are all modest changes (compared to the technical difficulty of building the system in the first place) that would dramatically extend the Xbox 360′s appeal to women.

 

Category : Articles | Games

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7

APR

Yahoo wants women to Shine

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

Yahoo has launched Yahoo Shine, a site for what Yahoo says is an “underrepresented demographic.” It will combine Yahoo’s food, astrology, and health, content with fashion, beauty, and parenting sections, stories from publishers like Conde Nast, Hearst, Rodale, and TIME, as well as original content. The site will feature blogs submitted by users, as well sections on work and money and tips for the home.

 

“We’re executing on Yahoo’s starting point strategy by ensuring that women who start their day with Yahoo! are offered a more relevant experience,” Scott Moore, senior VP and head of Yahoo Media.

All of this is music to my ears. I went on the site and was slightly disappointed with the reality. They do seem to have fallen into the usual traps of talking to women. The first advert that pops up is ‘Fancy Lingerie that you can afford.’ Everything on there was expected…from spring cleaning tips, to pregnancy, to fashion, to how to spend more time with your husband without the kids. I was hoping for something a bit different to the usual “women’s portal” rubbish.

I also searched hard and found no tech site or tech news which I think is a huge missed opportunity: As one lady commented, “really, yahoo? astrology, fashion, and beauty? this is sooo exciting for us gals. i’ll check it out tonight after i do the dishes. as long as my husband says it’s OK to use the computer.”

I wonder how sensible this strategy is: Portals were big news in the late 90′s when there was a clear need for the Internet companies to offer the average internet user a guide to the best of the ‘net – however a decade later the Internet has been transformed: Sites like Google Reader and Bloglines allow anybody to put together their own ‘portal’ with content increasingly selected from the diverse “bloggosphere” rather than major publishers like Conde Nast. Shine seems like an attempt to revive the popularity of big-brand content at a time when the trend is clearly against the publishers.

I think the Inquirer is a bit harsh when it states “Shine appears to be a shallow façade of a site, pretending to offer women something new, when it obviously doesn’t.” I wouldn’t go that far but my advice for Yahoo is to deliver on its vision of offering something new. Inspiring Chief Household Officers (I love this!) to enjoy technology is a good place to start.

 

2

APR

Bound By Stereotypes?

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

I am regularly struck by how important stereotypes are in our daily lives and how unaware we often are of them. Stereotypes are powerful and they bind us. The Lady Geek research has indeed found that gender stereotypes are also costly if wrong assumptions about women are made. However this does not mean that we cannot change stereotypes. In an article I recently published in the Business Strategy Review, I show the sustained importance of gender stereotypes in our (working) life and I also offer ways to work with these stereotypes creatively to overcome them. Please let me know if you have any feedback!

 

Category : Interesting

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31

MAR

Flippin’ heck thats small

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

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I am in gagdet envy again. Pure Digital have made a “Flip” video camera, perfect for the youtube generation. Its the size of a digital camera.   The beauty of this camera is its simplicity.  There are no tapes or discs, no menus or settings, no lens cap, no memory card, no headphone jack.  You turn it on and it’s ready to film in two seconds.  You press the red button to record and once to stop and play to review the video.  When the memorys full (30/60 minutes depending on model) you slide a button and a USB jack pops out and you are spared the hassle of finding a USB cable.  Amazing.  As the NYT states “Its the very definition of less is more.”  In the US, you have 5 year olds along with 80 year old grandmothers using it.Â

Women love it.  Because they can put it into their handbags, coat pockets, beach bags.   Rather than make it more complicated with extra features due to the “forces of the feature creeps” that no-one will ever use like most technology on the market, the Flip goes back to basics.  Its simple, convenenient and good value and its flying off the shelves like hot cakes.  According to the NYT, it has captured 13% of the camcorder market in one year.Â

I want one.   My husband is in the habit of carying a very heavy and inconvenient Nikon D200 – he says that even though he loves it, it’s a nuisance to get out of his bag and set up.  Most dSLR cameras sit on a shelf and gather dust.  I want the equivalent of a point and shoot, plug and play that I can use spontaneously to capture my son’s first steps and slip into my handbag.   We bought a JVC camera when my son was born and have hardly used it.  It’s quite bulky, quite complicated and the first time I used it I was frustrated as I couldn’t master it and I felt out of my mental zone.  Since then, it mostly lay on the floor of our office.Â

 

I agree with Hawkins, referenced in the NYT “If you are successful at something the first time you try, you fall in love with it instantly in love with it.”  So many of the women I spoke to feel frustration and annoyance rather than a sense of pride and happiness with much of the technology on the market.   Once they have had a bad first experience, they default to their partner or a male friend or they give up completely.  The Flip will continue to make women fall in love with it.   I hope the marketing strategy is as good as the product!

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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27

MAR

Styled for life? What are you talking about?

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

I am often asked for good examples of how tech brands should commuinicate with women: The fact is that good examples are few and far between. There is of course Apple, but praising apple is now a marketing cliche, but Apple always seems to get their tone right: They make technology simple but more importantly, they make technology inviting to women.

We might compare the minimalist elegance of Apple’s advertising with this trade ad from microsoft which so desperately attempts to appeal to women.

 

It fails on multiple levels:

Firstly, I am affronted by the thought that Microsoft think they have to make it feel like a fashion ad to make women interested. It smacks of a group of middle aged marketing men appealing to the same old stereotypes and assumptions, spesificaly that women do not care for technology.

I can imagine the moment in the team meeting where the oldest guy in the rooms suggests: “Why don’t we disguise the products and sell them as if they were…wait for it…SHOES!”, only to be met by raturous applause from his colleagues who are all relieved to get this messy business of female marketing out of the way.

In my own extensive research I found that women are interested in technology but are put off by exactly this kind of stereotyping.

Secondly, Microsoft need to make fundamental changes to their company that makes women feel that they are interested in talking to them rather than just paying lip service to women with one ad. This goes right from looking at ensuring women are in leadership positions (Sony now have an Executive Women’s Committee, Yahoo new president is Susan Decker and Google have promoted the first female enginner to VP status- Melissa Mayer) to designing products that are intuitive, instinctive and emotional.

Its clear that this product bundle has not been designed with women in mind. Maybe I am wrong, but this seems to be more about off-loading some excess stock than opening up new markets.

And lastly, from an advertising perspective, there is no compelling and relevant idea in this ad. What does ‘Innovation Styled for Life’ actually mean? This sounds like vacous marketese.

Where is the innovation in this product bundle? How are these products styled for my life? I can’t relate to the life of the women in this ad. She looks more like a Pop Idol contestant than a real person who might have a compelling need for these products. The women I spoke to do not want technology ‘styled for life.’ They want technology to fit in their lives not style their lives around technology.

My advice for Microsoft – encourage your agency to spend some time investigating how women really engage with these products. There’s no shame in selling a product on it’s aesthetic appeal – however Microsoft need to find a way to lift themselves above the level of nonsense established by the fashion industry.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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25

MAR

“Brain Training” in class: WRONG

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

As “Dr Kawashima’s Brain Training: How Old Is Your Brain” hits the Five million mark in unit sales at the begining of this year and “More Brain Training” gets to 2.8 million units, I am wondering if the world has gone mad…

… And then I see this story in the Times; Primary school children are being encouraged to play Brain Training in class to boost their “cognitive skills”. I have no problem with girls or boys playing games. But Brain Training is one of the dumbest games in the whole DS catalogue, and despite it’s maker’s claims I think it’s the least likely to boost any kind of skills.

I have played Brain Training. Its very basic and repetitive – I’d barely even qualify it as a game. Its mind blowingly dull. I can think of a number of DS games that have a greater potential to challenge a young mind.

Brain Training challenges players to quickly answer primary-school grade arithmetic puzzles. The puzzles in Zelda or the strategic challenge of Advance Wars both encourage a more useful kind of logical thinking than Brain Training requires. All Brain Training seems to do is rote-learning of basic arithmetic.

 

I teach my nieces and nephews French. At school, they learn to recite the numbers. They can count up from one, but they cannot translate simple random numbers. That’s just one example of how rote-learning does not work. It’s a dumb, boring and ineffective way to study.

I think we should applaud Nintendo for recognizing a role for their technology in the classroom – but surely our children deserve something better than this?

 

Category : Articles | Games

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25

MAR

Pixel Qi’s Sunlight Readable Displays

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Mary Lou Jespen, formerly the founding chief technology officer of One Laptop Per Child, has recently set up her own company, Pixel Qi. I had the chance to meet Mary Lou at the Women’s Forum in Deauville in 2006, where she talked about her invention, the sunlight-readable display used in the OLPC project. Pixel Qi aims at bringing a new generation of sunlight readable, super high resolution, low-cost and low-power screens into mainstream applications like laptops, e-books readers and digital cameras. Everybody who has tried to take his/her own laptop to the garden to do some work there will immediately recognise the value of such new displays. And they are prone to have a major impact in the developing world too. I have therefore no doubt that Mary Lou will be very successful with this new venture.

 

Category : Uncategorized

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18

MAR

DAB’s sinking ship

Posted by Sally (1) Comment

 

I heartily agree with The Register’s report last week on DAB’s failure, despite ten years of hype by Britain’s most powefull media monopoly. The Register’s Andrew Orlowski writes:

Well, DAB has to be the best thing to happen to the Corporation in the past decade. It screws commercial radio rivals, who hand over £100,000 for a property (licence), and then must give the “penthouse suite” back to the public broadcaster. The paltry audiences for DAB mean the commercial operators must bleed red ink, while the BBC runs its own deeply subsidised digital broadcasts. Trebles all round!

That’s why you’re unlikely to hear the true extent of the digital radio fiasco on the Beeb itself, and why the digital propaganda is likely to continue.

It’s not just commercial broadcasters who find themselves excluded from DAB – the extortionate cost excludes community and non-commercial projects who simply cannot afford to pay for the license and the high-end equipment needed to broadcast via DAB.

From the consumer’s perspective the future of DAB continues to look grim – prices of DAB sets have come down from their original crazy prices (the first Pure Digital branded radios cost in excess of £500), however at a time regular transistor FM radios can be bought for pennies the cheapest DAB tuner is closer to £40.

The reason for this is that DAB is a quaintly British standard – that has not been adopted in any other country. Accordingly few of the major foreign electronics firms have seen fit to develop a product which could only ever be marketed to a single country.

Orlowski argues that Britian might have been better off DAB+ or the popular AAC format as our next-generation digital audio platform, however I think this just misses the point that there are already so many other kinds of affordable devices that might soon be able to do a better job:

My Nokia phone has an internet radio receiver which can pick up far more stations than my kitchen-bound DAB receiver, and companies like Recieva alread market devices which look exactly like DAB radios but which work on entirely open standards.

If only the BBC had spent the taxpayer’s money advertising a standard that everbody can use then they might not have got themselves into such a pickle.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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14

MAR

BlackBerry’s Initiatives for Women and Technology

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

The BlackBerry is a recurrent theme on this blog. One way in which BlackBerry aims at attracting women is by sponsoring an exhibition that is currently taking place at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The exhibition is entitled ‘Brilliant Women – 18th Century Bluestockings’ which also includes ‘Modern Muses’, an exhibition photographs of contemporary women of achievement taken by Bryan Adams. I went to a private viewing this week and enjoyed the way in which the National Portrait Gallery links inspirational images of women.

 

Research in Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry, also sponsors the annual BlackBerry Women in Technology Awards. I think such initiatives might help raising the profile of women and technology and more is needed to change stubborn gender stereotypes.

 

14

MAR

Shadowing Lady Geeks

Posted by elisabethkelan (3) Comment

The skill shortage in the ICT sector has for some time been used to argue that more women should join the sector. The European Commission decided to counteract this skill shortage through encouraging young women to participate in so-called shadowing days. These shadowing days give young women an insight into what careers in ICT could look like through spending a day with a woman working in ICTs. The website claims this is “strictly for geeks!”. In fact, it seems to be strictly for Ladygeeks!

 

Category : Uncategorized

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11

MAR

“Take me seriously” screams the Blackberry

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

 

I am suffering from geek envy. I have a Blackberry Pearl. I used to love it. I still love it to some degree although lately I am falling out of love with it.

Its great for reading my emails. It is good for texting. It takes OK photos. But its devoid of fun. Its a corporate device. It has very limited multimedia player functions. I can’t listen to podcasts on it. I can’t watch videos from YouTube on it. It has no instant messenger. I see my husband’s one-year old Nokia N95 which does all of these things and more, and I am suffering from geek envy.

He shows me videos of our son on his phone. He shows me nostalgic 80′s pop videos (sadly i remember dancing around my living room to Bros). He chats to me on instant messenger while he is on the move.

 

But I tell him, the N95 is not sleek and sophisticated like my piano black Pearl. It looks out of place in the office – it’s just a bit plastiky. Unfortunately this argument will seem redundant in a few months. The N96 (the upgrade from the N95) keeps Nokia’s technical lead but borrows some of the iPhone’s good looks.

Its already set mobi-geeks into quite a frenzy. And got the Mobile World Congress buzzing. This tiny box of tricks seems to support every current standard of communication, entertainment & media on the market today.

Clearly Nokia are trying to out iPhone the iPhone. The first thing they fixed is it’s appearance. I’m not complaining about the N95′s looks (well I am actually as its boxy and chunky) – on the other hand the N96 is a great deal prettier. It has an impressive 16GB internal memory – that’s the same as the current generation of iPhones, however unlike the iPhone it supports removable memory which effectively allows users to double their storage of music and movies. Check it out on YouTube.

It’s also got something called DVB-H – a standard that allows users to receive live television, I’m not convinced that anybody wll actually bother with this one.

As an earlier post on Lady Geek highlighted, most people use their mobile phones to stay in touch with family and friends while at work. Instead of letting work into their private life, people seem to bring their private life to work. Many of the problems people face at work are related to that they cannot express part of their personality at work and have to be someone they do not want to be. This is particularly an issue for women.

Blackberry needs to realise that the boundaries between home and work life are blurred. Women want a fluid device that is not just a ‘tool’ as many previous research studies claim. Women want technology to be fun. They want something that will make them smile, stay connected and that they can play with during meetings. Women don’t only want technology for the boardroom, they want technology to enhance their life. With the iphone and N96 as strong contenders for the female pound, Blackberry needs to take themselves a little less seriously.

 

Category : Mobile Phones

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4

MAR

Lady Geek Squad

Posted by belindaparmar (5) Comment

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I’ve just spent the last hour chatting to a Geek Squad ‘agent’- Lee.    The company has grown in the US for the past 13 years and has now done a tie up deal with Carephone Warehouse and will be rolled out to over 100 of their UK stores, which quite frankly are not the most inviting and female friendly and you get pounced on as soon as you walk in the door.  As one woman told me, “I feel like bait when i walk into a Carephone Warehouse.”Â

The Geek Squad is a great concept.  They will help you for a small fee with your IT issues in store or remotely.  They also offer a home service for £70 a visit.  They will sort out all your IT problems.  They describe themselves as a ‘Dr Doolittle, surgeon and witchdoctor’ all in one.  They are geek chic, they have to wear white socks (!), short sleeve shirts, have police style ID badges, clip on ties and call themselves agents.   Out of 40 agents, sadly only 3 are women but even so, they seem very friendly and don’t elevate themselves to a superior status.  We chatted to Lee who was obviously brilliant at his job and made us feel at ease asking what we considered very dumb questions (its funny how women begin their questions about IT with the prefice ‘I know this is a stupid question but…’   Men don’t seem to ever seem to do this).

Lee told us one example where he was trying to help a women who was getting so frustrated that she shouted at him when he told her he would have to charge her a nominal fee for setting up her Blackberry ‘IS THAT A WOMAN TAX YOU ADD ON?’  Women do get frustrated by technology.  It’s so much easier to default to a man/friend/partner and not feel stupid but in this way we will never feel comfortable with technology.   Women have to embrace technology.  Its up to women to take the lead and sort out their technology needs…and if they get frustrated…there’s always the Geek Squad.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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4

MAR

Yet another video games “for girls”

Posted by belindaparmar (8) Comment

 

As if we needed another video game for girls “Guppylife for girls”

The purpose of the game is to look after the furry inhabitants of the planet; what an innovation! I do agree with Alice though, the design looks great but please, its bad enough creating another video game for girls (have a look in any games store at the DS titles and you will agree) but to brand it “for girls” is not the best way to market it. Women and girls are put off by anything which overtly targets them as women. Not only does it put women off, but as one Lady Geek told me “just because I have breasts, doesn’t mean I gravitate to other breasts.” Nicely put i think. Apple never brought out the ipod and marketed it “for girls” but they did alot of research into understanding what women would respond to. Sony Bravia are positioning their TV as “a piece of furniture” not as “a piece of furniture for women” but their strategy is very much to appeal to the female market. The opportunity is for brands to understand the subtleties of connecting with women. Its complicated. Women are complicated. And an overt “girls only” approach just ain’t going to cut it.

 

Category : Games

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3

MAR

CeBIT offers women free entry

Posted by elisabethkelan (2) Comment

The CeBIT, one of the biggest trade fairs for digital solutions, takes place in Hannover, Germany. It offers women free entry on 8 March to celebrate women’s day. The fair should inspire women to use technology and entice them to enter information communication technology professions to fill the skills gap in this sector. It is at least a good place to explore the newest technologies.

 

Category : Uncategorized

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3

MAR

Work, Life and the Mobile Phone

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

Academic research has always assumed that mobile devices lead to an overflow from work into private life. In consequence life becomes more like work and is frenetically planned. However recent research by Professor Judy Wajcman and colleagues has shown that this is not the case. In this Australian study they explored how people use their mobile phones. What their found was astonishing: most people used their mobile phones to stay in touch with family and friends while at work. Instead of letting work into their private life, people seem to bring their private life to work. Many of the problems people face at work are related to that they cannot express part of their personality at work and have to be someone they do not want to be. This is particularly an issue for women. Technology – be it a mobile phone or Facebook – might change that and might make the boundaries between work and life more fluid.

 

Category : Mobile Phones

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23

FEB

PinkBerry

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

 

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The BlackBerry is often said to have transformed how business is done. People can now be always ‘on’. However some have warned of the addictive aspects of ‘crackberries’. I have used a BlackBerry for various months now and have to say that I like it to be able to read emails and to retrieve information wherever I go and I like the navigation function. Women in general praise the BlackBerry for allowing them to stay in touch with work while at home.

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Given these benefits of the BlackBerry, it is not surprising that Research in Motion, the creator of the BlackBerry, has started to make more stylish BlackBerries that should appeal to women. Yes, they have done the obvious and created a pink version, but the BlackBerry also comes now in a range of colours including red. While a pink BlackBerry might not be entirely appropriate for, say, a female banker, she might like a red one and who knows maybe her male colleague prefers a more colourful BlackBerry too.Â

 

22

FEB

HD-DVD vs BluRay: Who cares anymore?

Posted by Sally (2) Comment

According to the leading tech bloggers, HD-DVD is officially dead and Blu-Ray has emerged from the battle victorious. This seems to be a Pyhrric victory – that is a victory which has come at devastating cost to the victor.

 

In this case the cost is not merely the vast sums that the two warring consortia spent on promoting their formats but the fact that three years after the initial hype behind Blu-Ray and HD-DVD began I do not believe anybody cares who won. While Sony and Panasonic / Microsoft squabbled over what kind of disks we should use, movie fans seem to have flocked to legal and illegal movie download services.

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD have both lost. The real winner seems to be DivX whose file-format has emerged as the universal standard for internet movie downloads. Neither Sony’s PS3 or Microsoft’s XBox 360 support each other’s disk standard but both support DivX. Every kind of home computer can play a DivX movie and most low end DVD players can play the format direct from old-school DVD disks.

The folk-wisdom that movie fans demand some kind of physical object in return for their money seems to have been proved false by the undeniable fact that the download market is booming. The idea of going to a shop to buy a disk seems like an irrelevant, obsolete idea from a different century.

 

Category : Home Entertainment

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18

FEB

Gentlemen, are you sitting comfortably?

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

The Times last week picked up my Lady Geek report along with lots of surprising and somewhat dismaying points about how even fewer women are reaching boardroom status and failing to put their talents to use. In 2006 the Women and Work Commission calculated that if women’s skills were better harnessed, the country would gain £23 billion. It also states, to my horror, Rwanda has a higher female representation in its parliament than does the UK (49 per cent to our 20 per cent)

That is the question posed and answered in Why Women Mean Business: Understanding the Emergence of our next Economic Revolution. Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, the author of the book, states that men need to become ‘gender bilingual’. “When a major business moves into China, it tries to learn and understand Chinese culture and language. That’s no different from learning to work with female differences in terms of aspirations, vocabulary, attitudes and priorities.â€

Companies that have adopted this ‘gender bi-lingual‘ approach have seen the positive results in the workforce. PwC has more than doubled the number of women who return after maternity leave. Quite a feat as most men in business in my experience really believe that your brain disappears along with your pelvic floor muscles. I remember being introduced in a meeting after my first week back after maternity leave as “This is Belinda, and only half her brain works since she has had her baby.” Not quite the confidence building introduction I would have hoped for.

Work has taken on a new meaning in my life since having children. I am much more focused. I am less likely to talk corporate bull. I am less tolerant. I am better at multi-tasking. I deliver more albeit in a shorter worker week. I refuse to sacrifice time with my children unless it is for something I believe in. Something I believe that is actually going to make a difference.

 

In the 1990s Deloitte, the professional services firm, organised a two-day workshop on gender issues for 5,000 staff. It cost $8 million (£4 million). Douglas McCracken, the CEO, said: “The message was out: don’t make assumptions about what women do or don’t want. Ask them.â€ There are numerous studies on how women in business positively impact the bottom line but many companies still fail to realise the potential of women especially after they have had children.

I love the quote the Churchill quote they end with in the book, “Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.â€

 

Category : Uncategorized

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4

FEB

“I like women, I really do. I just don’t understand them”

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

I read an interesting post from OCMod Shop which highlights the fact that many women are being ignored by technology companies even when they are often the key influencers of technology buying decisions even for male early adopters. Men may still control the boardroom but women definitely control the living room, bedroom, kitchen when it comes to buying technology. Its true that marketers have pretty much nailed the tweens, teens and older people with devices like the Wii, but very few with the exception of Sony Bravia, Apple (boring I know), BestBuy in the US and some of the UK department stores are doing exceptional things to inspire women to actually enjoy technology.

The article states that in the US, 84% of internet users now store digital pictures, 59% store music, 36% video clips, 26% store personal videos and 17% store movies and TV shows. We know that women are the drivers of capturing memories and personal videos of their families. In my household, this is absolutely true. It maybe be my husband who takes most of the pictures but its me who will store them on flickr. Its me that sends albums out to our families every 6 months. Its me that will go back to them time after time and marvel at how beautiful our sprogs are (even if they are not).

 

I don’t think that companies have succeeded yet in understanding what women use their technology devices for and why. Many companies, to paraphrase Sean Connery, just don’t understand women; what women are looking for and how to inspire them when it comes to technology. Listening to them, really listening (not just doing your average dull focus group asking the same old boring questions) would be a good place to begin.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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27

JAN

Diamonds are a girl’s best friend?

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

 

The new KMD Edition mobile phone takes the sparkling trend to a whole new dimension. It features 18 karat gold and real diamonds. This clearly confirms the tendency for mobile phones to become more like accessories and jewellery. Unfortunately, this model is a rather expensive piece of jewellery starting at 49.000 Euro (around £ 36.000) and probably out of reach for most of us.

 

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26

JAN

Bionic Woman

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Staying with the Lee Majors and The Six Million Dollar Man theme below, I just learnt that NBC’s re-invention of the Bionic Woman is coming to the UK soon. The original Bionic Woman was a spin off of the Six Million Dollar Man, played by Lee Majors. The re-invented version deals mainly with Jaime Sommers who is involved in an accident but saved from death due to bionic prosthetics and implants. Throughout the series the main character struggles to use this technology-enhanced body. I am sure such a technology-enhanced body would foster game performance even more. However the technology is portrayed in such a way in the series that it does not seem to be too much of desirable solution.

 

 

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25

JAN

A gamer pill

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

It seems there is no end to marketing opportunities and development of products that we clearly ‘need’ to keep your brain well oiled. From brain training to this.

 

A gaming pill to improve your first person shooter performance. Its been introduced by German PC builder Tomarni who state that their “staff use FpsBrain at least four times a week to enhance their mental performance and their work efficiency.”

From what is reported from Gizomodo, its just a load of vitamins with a shot of caffeine. I can’t see an audience for this, although I said that about brain training.

There may be a rationale for this product: If hardcore game-geeks exist on a diet of pizza and Dr. Pepper then A multivitamin supplement like this might be just what they need to live a slightly healthier lifestyle. As the nature of gaming is changing, this cliche of the nocturnal acne-faced game-nerd is on the wane – I’m not sure that there is a substantial audience who would identify with the need for this product.

Are we so vulnerable and dissatisfied that we would resort to products like this? I hope not. I am sticking to my decaff latte (recently told it was referred to as a lesbian latte)

 

Category : Articles | Games

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23

JAN

The business world benefits from a more disciplined approach

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Like technology design and consumption, business has been stereotyped as an area mainly for men. It is then not surprising that many leading business thinkers are men, too. However Stuart Crainer has argued The Times that new generation of business thinkers will be more diverse and include more women. This in turn will provide new inspiration and challenge old assumptions.

 

16

JAN

Diversifying Apple

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Many tech companies have long been criticised for the lack of diversity at the top. Notable exceptions are Meg Whitman at eBay and Carly Fiorina at formerly at HP. This is due to change with the appointment of Andrea Jung, chairman and CEO of Avon Products, to Apple’s board of directors. Andrea Jung is said to help tapping new markets: not only does she speak Mandarin fluently, she could also be a real asset in marketing technical products to women. Avon is after all a provider of beauty products through a direct seller networks referred to as the ‘Avon ladies’. Does this mean more pink laptops for women? Hopefully not. After Millard Drexler joined Apple’s board, Apple opened its retail stores. At that time most people thought it was a crazy idea but they seem to be rather successful. Andrea Jung is an experienced marketer and she will surely come up with very creative strategies to market technology to women.

 

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15

JAN

Facebook Fatigue

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

The latest research from the Future Foundation, presented at the Women & Technology seminar in Dec 2007, shows that whilst the frequency of Internet usage of men and women is similar, women & men use the internet for different things in different ways. For example, women are more likely to have uploaded photos, videos or music to a web-site. Women are more likely to have created a personal blog. Women are more likely to have created and updated a personal profile on a social networking site.

According to the Future Foundation, women use a social networking site on average 3 times a week (compared to 3.2 times amongst their male counterpart). Whereas men are more likely to consider “making my opinion heardâ€, “sharing viewsâ€ and “displaying personal creativityâ€ key reasons for social networking, women are more likely to use the sites to form communities and listen to the views of other women.

My own experience of Facebook echoes this. At first, I loved it. I discovered that I could get in touch with people that I had lost contact with. I enjoyed adding them to my growing friend list (which made me feel popular) and discover what they were up to. For a while I updated my profile religiously and I imagined that my contacts would be curious about what I was up to.

 

However, as my friend-list grows I found myself overwhelmed by updates from my modest list of friends. I began to realise that there is a very good reason I do not keep in regular contact with the extended cloud of contacts with whom facebook shares my updates.

The truth is that I’m not that all that curious about their lives and nor are they with mine otherwise we would have never have lost contact in the first place. Most of the ‘status updates’ consist of mundane activities of people I barely know any more. Consequently the more friends I add, the less valuable Facebook becomes.

 

Cory Doctrow was one of the first to debate the diminishing value of social networking: The more people get involved in a social network, the more users are likely to encounter people they’d rather avoid. And whilst it may be socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list, deleting them from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war.

The problem seems to be that Facebook treats a mundane update like ‘watching TV’ with the same degree of importance as ‘Getting married’. Likewise it cannot distinguish between my closest friends and people I’ve not seen since I was a child but thought it would be fun to add to Facebook.

My own usage of Facebook has declined rapidly after an initial bubble of enthusiasm. I no longer feel a desire to monitor my friends’ updates. The barrage of mostly meaningless email solicitations from 3rd party plug-ins. In Cory’s words, the social network has transformed into something which has “the social graces of a nose-picking, hyperactive six-year-old, standing at the threshold of your attention and chanting, “I know something, I know something, I know something, won’t tell you what it is!”

Obviously the social networks need to find a balance between 3rd party added-value and the proliferating nuisance from third-party extensions. That should be easy enough and a good start, but there is a much bigger problem to solve:

In order to make the networks more appealing to women, companies and brands need to find a way to stay relevant post that initial bubble. I’d like to see a social network which can recognize that not all friends are created equal.

 

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28

DEC

Women are new target of electronics makers

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Kevin O’Brian has written an interesting article on how women are the new traget of electronics makers. This is based on the fact that women influence most decisions to buy a consumer electronic product but consumer electronic producers just started to see them as viable customers. Kevin argues that women prefer stylish products and has some interesting examples of how consumer electronic producers try to sell to women.

 

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22

DEC

Turn me up

Posted by elisabethkelan (1) Comment

 

 

While I was in Germany recently, I noticed a campaign by Saturn, a retailer specialising in technology, called ‘We love technology! We hate expensive!’. This alludes to that technology bought at Saturn is allegedly cheaper.

What I found particularly intriguing is that they selected a female cyborg – a mixture of human and technology not unlike Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager – for their campaign. This character is a naked, slender and conventionally attractive woman technicised through lines on her body.

Saturn offers Screensavers for this female cyborg on its website entitled ‘you love her too’. The ‘her’ can grammatically refer to technology in German but also to the female character.

The musical elements to the TV spot come from Goldfrapp’s Ooh La La song but only the section ‘Turn me up’ of the lyrics is audible, followed by the slogan ‘We love technology! And We hate expensive!’.

One could assume that such a campaign for technology speaks more to men than to women but I would be interested in how other people read this campaign.

 

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20

DEC

Tech porn does not attract female customer

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

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 teknopornollaâ€ “Tech Porn does not attract female consumerâ€

‘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..

 

Category : Press Coverage

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12

DEC

Two articles

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Two of my academic articles appeared in the last week.

 The first one looks at how the new soft skills in information communication technology work are gendered. It argued that even though women are said to bring the soft skills needed to ICT work, they rarely get credit for displaying them as they are seen as just natural in women.

The full reference is:
Â

Kelan, E.K. 2008. Emotions in a Rational Profession: The Gendering of Skills in ICT work. Gender, Work & Organization, 15(1): 49-71.Â

The original article is available here.

The second article is about how ICT worker talk about the scarcity of women in ICT work. I show that gender is indeed something that is confusing for people. They have no easy explanations to account for the scarcity of women in ICT work as the problem is much more complex than that.

The full reference is:
Â

Kelan, E. K. 2007. ‘I don’t know why’ – Accounting for the Scarcity of Women in ICT Work. Women’s Studies International Forum, 30: 499-511.

The original article can be downloaded here.

Earlier versions of the two article can also be downloaded from my university website (under Elisabeth Kelan and publications).

 

Category : Interesting

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10

DEC

The Spectator:Girl Geek

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

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.

 

 

 

4

DEC

The Battle for your Living Room

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

 

I read an interesting article in this week’s International Herald Tribune about the growing purchasing and influencing power of women:

The Consumer Electronics Association in the US estimates that this year women will make 40% of consumer electronics purchases in what is a $200 billion industry. Indirectly , as spouses, girlfriends, significant others, daughters and mothers, they will influence another 21% of purchases, making their total involvement a whopping 61%, up from 57% in 2004.

That is a lot of buying power considering the average US household has 25 electronic devices. Many of the highest ticket items will reside in the living room such as the HDTV, PVR, Console, stereo and this is in the most part the terrain of the women. As the design of electronics gets better and better, women are more interesting in choosing the electronics and styling is a big part of this. I say part, as many of the electronics fall into the ‘colour’ or ‘fashion’ trap by thinking design=colour=pink and that women have no interest in performance and software.

And as Elizabeth Kelan, co-author of this blog, discusses the retail experience in the IHT article “…Walking into an electronics store is like walking into a men’s locker room. But slowly, progress is being made.”

Sony, despite being late into the flat panel market, is doing some ground-breaking stuff that goes beyond the superficial. They have clearly identified the financial gains to be made if executed well and have set up a gender steering committee of its’ top European executives to revamp product lines and better connect with women.

 

 

The new Bravia’s remote contol (on the left) has been designed to enhance a living room coffee table. The TVs have a single cable for all electronic communication. Not only that, they are redesigning their retail outlets in Switzerland to include couches and offer child care services (that would be heaven for me and most mums) and their staff are being trained to ask about interior design tastes and wishes. As Nichola Hinton puts it, “The Bravia is essentially a piece of furniture.” Where women largely control the home, in particular the living room, and what goes into it, this is a very wise strategy.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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4

DEC

Sony’s new Playsation 3 ads

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

After hearing that Sony Playstation 3 is set to spend a whopping £4million on its first Christmas TV campaign, I was intrigued to see what they had produced – would this campaign be effective in helping Sony attract a broader audience? Could they reach beyond the teenage and twentysomething audience they have traditionally been very good at reaching?

I wanted to find out if the ads would connect with women, who make up a large growing proportion of the casual gaming audience and whom in the main, with the exception of Nintendo’s activity, have been neglected or patronised up until now.

Their strategic positioning of ‘entertainment super computer’ was not particularly inspiring. I expected that the campaign would focus on the exceptional computing features of the campaign: i.e processing power, gigabytes and they would fail to sell me the overall benefit of how the Sony Playstation would enhance my life. However I was pleasantly intrigued when I watched the Dr Beautiful ad which is based on the idea of the world being a stage and Sony being the entertainers. Its designed to showcase the wealth of entertainment available on PS3. The commercial will run in 17 territories in Europe and Australia.

Executionally, this is a visual treat; using old fashioned theatrical music which contrasts to the state of the art technology. The message was benefit led, emotional and humanazied the technology and got me excited about the possibility of some of the exciting features of the console. And it certainly was unique.

My only critique would be that it feels like a teaser ad- it has the power to seduce and intrigue but the PS3 has been out now for 8 over months. The role of the advertising now needs to help a broader audience understand how its going to enhance their life, how its better than the Wii & Xbox, and how its so much more than a pure gaming platform.

I spoke to my panel of Lady Geek experts and got their visceral reaction to the ad. They felt in the main, whilst visually spectacular, it still wasn’t enticing them towards to the console and didn’t improve their understanding of why they should spend all that money. They think of the Playstation as sleek, fast, with the best games and newest technology (vs. nintendo-easy, cartoony and fun for all) (x-box, multi-player, graphics). They weren’t quite sure of this positioning. They wanted to see more of the social aspect of gaming, the PS3 as the catalyst for bringing the fun factor to their families, friends.

That’s a big job for one ad. Its a fully integrated campaign so I look forward to seeing what else Dr Beautiful has in store for us…

 

Category : Games

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2

DEC

Girl Gamers and Women’s Interest in Technology

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Â

In the recent article Would the ‘real’ girl gamer please stand up? Gender, LAN cafés and the reformulation of the ‘girl’ gamer, which appeared in Gender and Education, Catherine Beavis and Claire Charles look at girl gamers in a cyber LAN café in Australia. Earlier research in the field has suggested that gaming is seen as something that boys and men do. Women and girls just do not play. This article highlights how girl gamers construct their identities.

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What is interesting is that these girl gamers often claim to have started gaming due to their boyfriends or other male friends. This is very similar to what I found in my research on IT workers. While men regularly claimed to have a natural interest in technology, women claimed to have become interested in technology though fathers, uncles, brothers or boyfriends. I have analyzed this in my PhD thesis as a way in which gender norms are reenacted in society. Whereas it is normal for men to be interested in technology, women somehow need an excuse to be fascinated by technology.

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The article on girl gamers argues that these young women create new ways in which being a woman is performed in society. In the long run it might then be seen as less ‘odd’ that women have a genuine interest in technology and they might finally been seen as a target group for technology that is taken seriously.

 

Category : Articles | Games

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27

NOV

Guilt free technology

Posted by belindaparmar (7) Comment

 

I know what I want for Christmas.  A guilt free laptop that is small and yes I am embarrased to say it, but one I can carry in my handbag.  I want to take it to a cafe, pretend I am Carrie from Sex in the City, write stuff on long journeys and most importantly, I don’t want to share it with anyone.   For the first time you can buy an Asus EEE laptop for under £200 which is incredible value.  My previous laptop (which I share with my husband and he gets first dibs on) cost us around a £1000 - a price I could never justify for myself.Â

Naturally this is a much less capable machine than the latest macbook.  It’s screen is tiny and it’s CPU goes at a fraction of the Macbook’s speed. On the other hand do most people need all that power? It seems crazy that people are buying multi Gigahertz machines when many people, especially women, just want to browse the Internet, check their email and write a presentation.   Most women are not turned on by gigahertz, ram, horse power and all those phrases that baffle them into thinking that technology is something to be feared and intimidated by.

Also, changing the price-point of a laptop changes the way we think about it: Previously with laptops costing in excess of £1000 we would probably hope to get three good years of life out of the machine. If we only pay £200 for a machine we can upgrade the machine every year. By the end of the 3rd year, the frequent upgrader who spends less
would probably end up with a better machine in her bag.

If you are no longer asking women to choose between holiday abroad or a car or a laptop but sacrifice the equivalent of a posh meal, this makes the purchase much more appealing and to some extent takes some of the fear out of the purchase as it positions it as an every day purchase. Â

Lets just hope that Father Christmas is reading this and my wish comes true…

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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22

NOV

New video games for girls

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

“38 percent of video-game players are female, and most of the industry doesn’t know — or care — what they want” according to an article in Yahoo this week.

 

They review “Babyz” is one of Ubisoft’s “Imagine” series of girl-oriented games, which also includes “Fashion Designer,” “Animal Doctor” (can you believe that they didn’t want to use the word veterinarian as they thought it would put children off?) and “Master Chef.” I haven’t tried any of the games so can’t agree or disagree if its as dire as the reviewer makes out. What I do know though, is with the amount of “shovelware” targeting this group needs a deep understanding of what young girls want and like and this goes beyond the superficial of make it pink, girly and princess like. Young girls are so grown up these days, I am often shocked like most parents I imagine, at how sophisticated and complex my 8 year old niece is.As one woman writes in womengamers.com, “Most of the content sounds like “girl sanitized” versions of other games. I think this stuff is dreamed up in the minds of clueless marketing people that just see a marketing demographic and strategize how to make a game more “girly.”

Whilst there is clearly a market for this genre of games, otherwise games companies would not keep churning them out, there are girls out there who do not respond to this and companies have to be brave and be amongst the few to really push the boundaries and not end up sanitizing the game play. Lets hope that the Imagine range goes onto show a true understanding of young girls and the imagination of the marketers behind it.

 

Category : Articles | Games

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22

NOV

Technologies and Generation

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

Yesterday I witnessed an interesting incident on the tube. A young man found an empty space on the tube and sat down. In fact, he took quiet a lot of space and pushed me sitting on one side and the young woman sitting on the other side from the armrests. The young woman was completing a crossword puzzle and was very annoyed to be pushed aside like this. She complained and a little fight between the two evolved. It was interesting how different both of them were. He dressed in a suit like a property agent and she reminded me a lot of Amy Winehouse. However they were rather similar in other aspects: both of them were 20 years old, had an iPod plugged in their ears and got out their mobile phone as soon as the tube went over ground. Despite their many differences these two people from the iPod generation shared many things in common. Above all they are technology savvy and not afraid of using technology. Much of their social time is spent using technologies like mobile phones or they are on networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook. In previous generations there was always the assumption that women are less interested and less well versed with technology. Observing this younger generation that grew up with the internet and new technologies, the rules for gender and technology might be different. But maybe it is far less a generational thing than a question of how technology is designed, marketed and used.

 

Category : Interesting

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20

NOV

Sat Nav marketers are driving women away

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

The old adage about men not asking for directions has an element of truth to it when it comes to my husband. Having observed quite a few of women & men driving, its clear that men and women think very differently about getting directions, planning routes and the technology that can help them do that. Susi Weaser from Shiny Shiny mentioned this fascinating piece of research to me from Standford University which highlights significant differences between the way men and women subconsciously react to stimuli.

In the first experiment, the researchers examined how clothes shopping influences subsequent choices. They found that men who were exposed to the idea of shopping for a new wardrobe became much more focused on the end result in a subsequent (ostensibly unrelated) task of plotting a route for a cross-country trip, tending to choose the most direct route. In contrast, women exposed to clothes shopping were far more willing to take the scenic route. Many men tend to be “purpose driven” when clothes shopping (they shop for specific items and only when they are needed), whereas many women tend to be “possibility driven” (they browse and shop to “see what’s out there”).

I see a huge opportunity for sat nav companies to connect with the growing proportion of women who could be persuaded to own a sat nav, 17% of the women I spoke to own a sat nav, and according to Mintel, it is the gadget that women most frequently admit to wanting.

However, when it comes to product, retail and advertising, most seem to fail to target the female market altogether or those that put a toe in the water like Garmin tend to do the pinking up and dumbing down as shown in this ad.

 

(The Garmin 200 and 250 comes in ‘powder pink’ and ‘candy pink’ respectively, women also get their own matching accessory cases called Penelope Pitstop’s Compact Pussycat!)

 

 

However, these 2 functional ads are far more typical of the way the sat nav companies advertise their hardware. Specifically, they list out features and show huge pictures of the machine but do not attempt to create any emotional connection.

My relationship with my Tom Tom could not be more different. I love my sat nav. I had a Tom Tom Go and then upgraded to Tom Tom 1 v2. It gives me freedom. It makes me feel liberated. It gives me confidence. It connects me to my friends. As a mum, if I didn’t have it, like lots of fellow mums, I would be stuck indoors or restricted to only going to those familiar places. I’d like to get more women to see the benefits of using a personal navigation system. Many don’t really see the benefits of a sat nav until they have experienced one. The fear factor also comes into play. A lot of women are daunted by technology and questions such as ‘Am i going to be able to set it up?’ ‘What if it goes wrong?’ Not to mention when you walk into a place like Halfords, which is used to selling ‘kit’ to petrol heads, its not really surprising that women don’t feel they can get answers to their questions.

Women make technology purchases in the same way they make other purchases: its emotional, instinctive and intuitive. Looking at the advertising, I would say there is a fair way to go!

 

12

NOV

A Laptop for Women from Aldi

Posted by elisabethkelan (4) Comment

The German discount retailer Aldi Sued is selling a laptop (Akoya Medion MD 96359) for women from 15 November 2007.

It is similar to other models sold by Aldi. However it features an enhanced shell with 300 Swarovski crystals. It comes in pink/silver and black and with its own handbag. Aldi computers are very popular in Germany and this one retails at Eur 799, about GBP 560. I wonder how it will sell…

 

 

Category : Uncategorized

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7

NOV

Even tweens are anti ‘pinking up’

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

I was spending an afternoon with a group of young girls this week getting under the skin of whats its like to be a ‘tween’ for a client. I met Hannah 9, Emily 10 and Grace 10 years old. They have been friends for ages.

 

I was asking them about how it feels to be a young girl, what’s important to them and how they feel about technology. I was expecting the whole pink think to be super appealing but i was shocked to find out that at this age, ‘pink’ anything, let alone pink gadgets are NOT cool:

 

Neither are dresses, particularly not pink dresses, nor are boys (the gender thing kicks in around now), nor is Barbie or Angelina Ballerina. This stuff is reminiscent of their earlier years and is for ‘young girly girls!’ I got them to do some drawings of what isn’t cool.

 

What’s also interesting is what is cool. All 3 cited their nintendo DS lite as super cool and when I mentioned the new silver version (sorry to their mums in advance) they got really excited.

The other interesting thing was I asked all their mums if I could get them a game for their DS as a thank you, and all the mums said ‘it would be better to get them a book voucher’ which was insightful in itself. Clearly their is still prejudice as to the value of games and many parents still see them as a ‘waste of time.’

As Kitt, the frag doll highlighted, there is so much ‘shovelware’ out there and over 450 titles for the DS lite launching between Oct and Dec, a lot of which are targeted at the young girl (My Pet Dolphin, Animal paradise, I Did It Mum, Fashion Designer to name just a few) that there is serious competition for manufacturers, not only for the girls but for the parents who are so often the gifters. Games publishers need to really understand what is it like to be a young girl and what is going to have enduring appeal and the potential to be a true Lovemark for this audience not just a fad.

My advice for mums and dads is don’t go for the pink. It seems silver is definitely the new pink.

 

Category : Articles | Games

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2

NOV

Gender & Innovation

Posted by elisabethkelan (4) Comment

The new research of the Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business at London Business School was published yesterday.The press release it below and the full report can be downloaded in the next couple of days here.

 

 

PROFESSIONAL TEAMS AT INNOVATIVE OPTIMUM WHEN MADE UP OF 50% MEN AND 50% WOMEN:

NEW RESEARCH FINDS MEN AND WOMEN REMARKABLY SIMILAR IN PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDES AND ASPIRATIONS

 

Men are not from Mars and women are not from Venus. They are all from Earth, and are able to work much more effectively and innovatively together in teams than previously thought. However, the differences between them appear to be the contextual influences on their lives and this can affect their progress as team leaders and team members.

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New research looking into the gender differences in composition and leadership of teams, and the impact of their composition on innovation, was published today by the Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business at London Business School.

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‘Innovative Potential: Men and Women in Teams’ surveyed more than 100 teams of knowledge workers working for 21 cross-sector companies across 17 countries, and analysed the data at team level and at individual team member level[1].

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KEY FINDINGS:

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-          Team composition

 

‘Teams can be more innovative when they are made up of 50:50 even proportions of men and women’ says Professor Lynda Gratton, Academic Lead of the Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business at London Business School. The results demonstrate that optimal conditions for innovation are more likely to occur if the team benefits from group dynamics engendered when the team has even proportions of men and women.

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At the team level, the key drivers of innovation (experimentation, knowledge transfer, task performance and efficiency) stem from high team ratings for boundary spanning, a psychological safe communication climate and self-confidence. All these factors rated at their optimal levels with teams of approximately 50:50 proportions of men and women, regardless of whether the team leader is a man or a woman, with little difference in behaviour evident at an individual level in the broad selection of criteria studied.

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-          Team performance

 

‘Naturally, there are other influencing factors to consider. It’s a complex area’, says Professor Gratton. ‘We looked in detail, for example, at team member context and how that might influence behaviour at an individual level and possibly impact the performance of their team’.

Â

Gender differences can be a factor on innovative performance. Here the context in which team members work is fundamentally important. A number of factors can, in certain circumstances, hinder the performance of the team, including:

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·       Spillover from home – Whereas team members tend to consider home more important and generally experience a positive Spillover to create an “enriching cycleâ€ between home and work, team leaders appear to behave differently. Most team leaders identify work as more important than home and experience negative Spillover from home to work.

·       Men team leaders in particular show a strong ‘â€depleting cycleâ€ between home and work.

·       Domestic burden – Women carry most of the domestic burden, according to the findings. Women team members are four times more likely to do most of the domestic labour at home than their male counterparts.

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-          Leading teams

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These findings have implications when thinking about women as leaders. They show that:

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• Spillover – The results also show that 52% of women in leadership positions do not have children.  There is a strong suggestion of an impact on work/life balance to achieve their professional goals, especially when the comparative statistics are that only 4% of men team leaders do not have children.
• Domestic burden – Women team leaders are six times more likely to carry the domestic burden than men team leaders.

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These findings re-enforce previous research by the Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business at London Business School, which found that a minority of organisations were actively and adequately preparing women for senior roles[2].

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RECOMMENDATIONS

 

Professor Gratton recommends that organisations should address these issues by:

 

• Encouraging shared domestic labour – by offering and reinforcing ‘family friendly’ policies and practices
• Actively managing ‘Spillover’ – by reducing the pressure to adapt, to work under pressure and to work long hours; and by encouraging open dialogue, enabling family friendly policies (as much as for men as women) and encouraging male role models
• Managing and minimising the ‘Minority Experience’ in teams – ‘Companies and recruiters building professional teams must work harder to find the right skill sets needed to fulfil their team requirements, whilst aiming for the 50:50 guideline for gender composition’ advises Professor Gratton
• Opitimising teams’ innovative potential – by considering gender diversity; boundary spanning capability and psychological safety when constructing teams.

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FORUM:

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The research findings will be presented for the first time at a public Forum at London Business School on Thursday 1 November. Invited guests will include senior executives from Google, IBM Consulting, American Express and Lehman Brothers.  Katherine Garret-Cox, Chief Investment Officer of Alliance Trust, will be giving the key note address followed by a presentation of the research findings by Professor Lynda Gratton.

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The Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business is leading the debate on the emerging

themes for women in business, creating a dynamic interface between academic thought leadership and practice. One of the Centre’s key aspirations is to support and encourage the corporate sector and its senior executives to realise the potential of women by motivating companies to inspire women. A shared understanding of the actions senior executives in European companies are currently taking is a critical step in developing truly inspirational places to work, for women and men.

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For more information or to register as press for the Forum, please contact the press office directly.

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Kate Watkins

Media Relations Manager

London Business School

+44 (0)20 7000 7251

kwatkins@london.edu

 

Monica Fiumara

PR Officer

London Business School

+44 (0)20 7000 7252

mfiumara@london.edu

 

Mark Lane

Corporate Communications

Lehman Brothers International (Europe)

+44 (0)20 7102 1756

Mark.lane@lehman.com

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NOTES TO EDITORS

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Lynda Gratton, Executive Director, Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business

Dr Lynda Gratton is professor of management practice at London Business School and is founding director of the Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business. She is acknowledged as one of the world’s leading thinkers on business strategy and people management and advises companies across the world. Her most recent book is Hot Spots: Why Some Teams, Workplaces, and Organisations Buzz with Energy – and Others Don’t. She is also the author of Living Strategy: Putting People at the Heart of Corporate Purpose, published in 2000, which was voted one of the 20 most influential books by American CEOs. http://www.london.edu/womeninbusiness.html

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London Business School

London Business School’s Vision is to be the pre-eminent global business school, nurturing talent and advancing knowledge in a multi-national, multicultural environment. Founded in 1965, the School graduated over 800 MBAs, Executive MBAs, Masters in Finance, Sloan Fellows and PhDs from over 70 countries last year. The School’s executive education department serves over 6,000 executives on its programmes every year. London Business School is based in the most accessible and international city in the world and is one of only two UK business schools to have twice been awarded the highest research rating of five-star (5*), by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), confirming the School as a centre of world-class research in business and management.  The School’s website is at www.london.edu

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Lehman Brothers

Lehman Brothers, an innovator in global finance, serves the financial needs of corporations, governments and municipalities, institutional clients, and high net worth individuals worldwide.  Founded in 1850, Lehman Brothers maintains leadership positions in equity and fixed income sales, trading and research, investment banking, private investment management, asset management and private equity.  The Firm is headquartered in New York, with regional headquarters in London and Tokyo, and operates in a network of offices around the world. Lehman Brothers seeks to support innovative not-for-profit organisations that work to advance quality healthcare, promote excellence in the arts and culture, educate and help meet the needs of underprivileged children and youth. For further information about Lehman Brothers’ services, products and recruitment opportunities, visit the Firm’s Website at www.lehman.com.

 

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[1] The sample consisted of a wide variety of teams, from all male teams to all female teams and varying proportions of composition in between. The teams worked in different disciplines and functions within their organisations. We surveyed representative samples of teams from leadership executives, research and development, finance and accounting, legal, information technology, human resources and marketing.

The companies studied were: Accenture, AIB, AXA Ireland, AXA PPP, BDO Stoy Hayward, Cargill, Corning, Fortis Bank, GSK Biologicals, IBM Consulting, KPMG, L’Oreal, Lehman Brothers, Lloyds Corporate Banking, London Business School, Nortel, Orange, Reuters, Société Générale, Symantec, Volvo Cars.

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[2] “Inspiring Women: Corporate Best Practice in Europeâ€, Professor Lynda Gratton, Lehman Brothers Centre for Women in Business at London Business School, May 2007

 

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30

OCT

Girl Gamers: Seeking Narrative in a Male-Centered Genre

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

I found an interesting view on girl gamers. Brandy Lynn Stredder claims that video games are enforcing stereotypical assumptions about women and are targeted at girls rather than adult women gamers. She actually suggests marketing games more age- and gender-neutral instead of putting people into certain categories and she argues that key to this is creating engaging narratives. The article seems to be from around 2001 and I wonder if this ageism and sexism is still as prevalent in today’s gaming industry.

 

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28

OCT

Pink fluffy bunnies

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

I love this post by Alice. Funny how sophisticated women who used to love pink would not been seen dead using a pink bit of kit. The recent research I did highlighted how only 9% of British women actually want a gadget that looks feminine. Women want technology to be beautiful, sleek and sophisticated. I’d like to see the new silver DS lite although still think the PSP in piano black is gorgeous. There’s so many opportunities for tech companies to deliver the kinds of technology women actually want to buy. As I have said before, pinking up is dumbing down.

 

Category : Articles | Games

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28

OCT

Articles on Gender in Management

Posted by elisabethkelan (0) Comment

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.

 

Category : Press Coverage

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24

OCT

Jingle Hell

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

“I hate the games shops as much as his Xbox. The boys make me feel stupid. All I want to find him something new he’ll enjoy, not made to feel dumb.â€ Frustrated Mum, trying to find a gift for her son, aged 8

Recently I’ve been thinking about this Christmas and the number of women responsible for buying the presents for the whole family.

If my own family is typical, I will be responsible for the tree, decorations, in-law relations and presents for th whole family. The Christmas shopping is perhaps the most tedious of the festive-chores, a task which strains even my super-human powers of empathy. The overwhelming majority of my friends feel the same way: One friend agreed that she would rather have her teeth drilled than experience the bustling pandemonium of suburban Xmas retail!

 

What should be a delightful magical experience is to Jingle Hell. I share the frustration of the brave gifters who try to engage the acne-faced teenage game-store assistants. The only thing worse than their appearance is the quality of advice they give:

Most women who are not gamers themselves have no idea how to shop for games. They have no way of knowing what is cool, a fact that the producers of games readily exploit. This accounts for the extrordinary popularity of games based on film and cartoon licenses (e.g. Bratz, Spiderman and Harry Potter).

These games are chosen not because of critical acclaim or any knowledge of the game’s content. it’s more a case of basic brand-recognition and desperation. After spending more than five minutes amongst shelves of almost identically packaged plastic boxes a typical mom will grab at the first recognizable brand she see.

It’s no surprise that the game-gifting experience causes anxiety, frustration and the sense that we have grown apart from our Children’s generation both technologically and culturally. The end results are usually disapointing. The gifters leave with pangs of doubt about their choice. These are made worse by the frenzied manner in which kids will enthusiastically rip into their brand new games before apparantly loosing interest the moment they open their next present. Could there be a retail experience less satisfying?

We are told that the new breed of consoles have brought the gaming experience to the masses, however spend a moment in a game shop and you will certainly agree that nothing much has changed. Around this time of year the stores are full of glum-faced women trying to figure out just what their kids are likely to enjoy. The hype about mass-market gaming is making mums feel even more dumb.

I’ve noticed that all shoppers seek refuge in comfort zones. This means we tend to go into shops we know and feel comfortable in. Women who find comfort in spacious, tactile department stores often do not understand the language of the game-store boxes: The fact that the art on the game-boxes often bares little resemblance to the game only adds to the confusion when you cannot remember which console your child actually owns.

The end result is lost-sales as mothers will drift back towards the safe areas. Perhaps, she thinks, I can buy little Harvey something else this year. This is how game-retail is failing the games industry.

The answer that some pundits suggest is to abandon retail entirely: To shift the games-buying experience entirely online. But this is not a solution for many women. The Internet is great if you know what game you want if you don’t it can be even more daunting than browsing the shelves.

I think the solution is much simpler and requires a less radical shift in the way retail works. Games retailers need to recognize a few simple facts about the way women like to learn about the products before buying.

For example – around this time of year many lingerie stores employ male assistants in order guide male shoppers through the complexities of buying female underwear. Why can’t games and tech retailers provide a similar experience to help the mums? All I’m asking for is a little bit of empathy from the sales-people and designers of games-retail.

 

15

OCT

Ideas for him?

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

I saw this Panasonic ad in one of the Sunday mags. It’s not that it’s a bad ad (and actually the overall thought of Ideas for Life is a great one) ; it’s just that it misses an opportunity to tap into the female mindset and how women buy technology. It’s talking about one of the things that is going to appeal to women: a well designed, small high definition video camera. But the masculine and literal way it talks about ‘power’ and all the technical detail of advanced optical image stabalisation fails to appeal to me.

 

When I bought my camera after my first son was born; all I thought about was I wanted to capture his first steps. That was it. I had no brand or model, let alone spec in mind, which is according to our latest research, how half of UK women shop. I just wanted something that was going to be light so I could put it in my bag (yes I am sorry if that sounds naff but its true), easy to use (so I didn’t have to keep asking my husband to use it) but most importantly started to keep records of my son that I could embarrass him with when he was eighteen (yes I am wicked).

There are so many ways that technology companies could capture the imagination of women. Tech companies need to get women to dream about how technology enhances their family life. But so often tech brands just keep falling into the same old traps and stereotypes of talking about power and spec and forget who in 80% of households, controls the technology purse strings: Women.

 

Category : Articles | Electronics

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8

OCT

The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages? by Deborah Cameron

Posted by elisabethkelan (4) Comment

Here is an interesting article on the constructeness of gender differences we often take for granted. It looks at all the myths about gender and language and why much of it does not stand up to scrutiny.

I can highly recommend the book.

 

Category : Interesting

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8

OCT

The Game of Life

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

There are now more self-help books in print than cookbooks. The majority of self-help books are bought and read by women in their millions. Rightly or wrongly, all promise the same thing – to make you happier; improve your marriage, your parenting, your homemaking skills, your finances, your figure, your attitude etc.. This inspired me to think about what motivates women and what games manufacturers could learn from this. I am a casual gamer just getting into gaming. I am reflective of a group of women in their late twenties or early thirties haven’t necessarily grown up with gaming but are openly interested in what gaming has to offer. Brain Training has sold more than four million copies worldwide and tapped into 2 key insights. Firstly that women want games they can ‘snack’ on in between putting the kids to bed, doing the shopping online etc. But most importantly, women’s need to self improve and explore new areas in order to ‘better themselves.’ This appeases their guilt of self indulging. Men and women are wired differently. For men, the games that appeal are ones that are competitive, with stats and clear objectives. For women, its much more about learning new skills and socialization.

 

Each night I am on my DS lite trying new games and whilst they intrigue me on the ‘cutability’ factor (MySims, Amimal Crossing, Wii play), none of them really make me feel rewarded in that way of ‘I’ve achieved something.’ If you are asking working women with children to give up their time, time that could be devoted to getting the shopping, making the dinner…, you need to make them feel they are improving themselves and not give them a reason to feel guilty. A great example is when a new game “Beginners Wine DS” offering advice on wine tasting and learning a new skill with this year’s Beaujolais. Unfortunately its only available in Japan but this feels like an a step in the right direction. Games that can make me feel rewarded. Games that make me feel I have learnt something. Games that intrigue and engage me and make me want to keep going back for more…

 

Category : Articles | Games

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7

OCT

By engineers for engineers? Creating technology that can be used intuitively

Posted by elisabethkelan (2) Comment

From research we know that engineers and designers tend to use themselves as the ideal for which they create new technologies. That means that we often end up with technology that is designed by engineers and with engineers in mind. While a small proportion of technically-versed men (and women) might find this technology easy to use, most people probably won’t. My research on gender and technology has shown that women prefer to use technology that is intuitive to use and does not require you to study the manual for hours. In fact, many men would prefer this as well.

Creating technology that is more intuitive to use is an important step in making technology more accessible to all. While the graphical user interface and the mouse as input device was popularised in the 1990s, not much has changed since then. Until recently. Apple’s new iPhone and iPod touch use a multi-touch technology to make the technology more intuitive to navigate. And what could be more intuitive than using your fingers. Last week I attended a presentation by Steve Ballmer, Microsofts’ CEO. He presented a new piece of technology which included a multi-touch screen similar to the one of the iPhone. The Microsoft Surface is a table PC that is operated by touch alone. It syncs with other devices such as mobile phone and digital cameras through simply putting them on the surface. These new touch technologies make it more intuitive to operate technology. In fact they provide tools to integrate technology much more into everyday life. Then technology is no longer designed for engineers by engineers but by engineers for people.

http://www.microsoft.com/surface/

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070530-what-lurks-below-microsofts-surface-a-qa-with-microsoft.html

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/iphone-review.ars

http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardware/The-iPod-meets-the-iPhone-a-review-of-the-iPod-touch.ars

 

Category : Articles | Electronics | Home Entertainment | Mobile Phones | Uncategorized

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4

OCT

Video of women talking about how they feel about technology

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

 

 

 

 

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1

OCT

Economist: And in the Blu corner…

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

I’d agree  that in general the longer the debate ranges the less relevant the whole BluRay vs HD DVD debate will seem to the average consumer, particularly women, who now are equal to men for the majority of tech and gaming purchases.

There are already devices like a Tivo that allow consumers to just pick the videos they want to watch and then download them in realtime which have mass appeal to women. Owning a disk might apeal to the sort of people who like to ‘collect’ stuff, but for most women, having a simple experience on demand will probably win out – as long as it’s priced reasonably.

It’s worth noting that Microsoft are already experimenting with movie distribution – they’ve been pushing out movies to XBox Live subscribers. It works pretty well.  Economist, Sept 6th 2007

 

Category : Electronics

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23

SEP

My Dirty Little Secret

Posted by belindaparmar (5) Comment

“I am a 29 year old woman and I love the Sims”, Anna whispered to me. I was out in HMV the other day observing and chatting to female gamers, when Anna whispered this to me. As a fellow woman, also starting to break the cliches and get into gaming, I asked Anna why she was whispering. She told me that she was embarrassed.

Embarrassed because first and foremost, she was a girl gamer (it was like she was telling me she had a drug addiction or regularly beat her children) and secondly, the Sims- well that was for kids wasn’t it? This one sentence was so insightful. This is the way that many women I have spoken to feel about gaming. That its not their right to game. That it is something that should be discussed in corridors and whispered rather than actively debated and discussed.

This is astonishing when you consider that according to a Daily Telegraph survey, more women than men play games between the ages of 24-35 – that is if you include mobile and online gaming. And women aren’t just playing the Sims. World of Warcraft is now evenly split between men and women. And according to EA, even macho driving-games like “Burnout” are showing an increase in female players.

 

 

As a thirty something mum, I went into some games stores to see what the retail environment was like and whether it was appealing to women. With the exception of Hamley’s, it was quite an intimidating experience, mostly full of gothic-looking men in a fug of sweat.

I asked a few sales people what games I could play as a novice gamer for my DS Lite: Although, they were friendly enough, the choice they offered to me was Bratz or Brain Training. Surely there is more to games than having an imaginary pet or who wanted to train her brain, not according to London’s game store shopping assistants. I walked away feeling disillusioned.

When I spoke to Anna, her face lit up when she spoke about gaming. Contrary to recieved opinion, she told me she was a ‘basher and shooter,’ that is her favourite genres of games were not at all the ones that women are supposed to love. She had been playing games since she was a teenager. It was ‘her’ thing. It made her feel alive. It was her “me-time”.

Anna isn’t a one-off. There are thousands of wealthy working women who feel exactly the same as she does. These women want games to play on the way to a board–meeting, not just games intended for a pinked-up teen bedroom.

It occurs to me that this perception about the appropriateness of gaming is one of the biggest barriers that prevent women buying the games they secretly desire. I’m sure games companies have the resources to deal with it, but the question is do they have the will? The entire games sales and marketing channel is still focused around teenage to twenty-something men.

To shake-up this channel will require games producers, retailers and marketers to transform this dirty little secret into inspirational form of recreation.

 

23

SEP

NZ Herald; Truth, women and … electronics

Posted by belindaparmar (3) Comment

“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.

 

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23

SEP

Campaign: Tech ads ignore women

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

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

 

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16

SEP

Marketing Week: Tech brands fail women

Posted by belindaparmar (2) Comment

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

 

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16

SEP

Wired: What Do Women Want? Less Pink, More Tech

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

“There are clearly some smart, forward-thinking marketers in the industry, but for some reason, when it comes to targeting women, things haven’t moved on,” said Belinda Parmar. “Most women feel cheated when they walk into stores or see ads with baby-pink, diamante-encrusted products.”  – Wired Magazine, 10th September 2007

 

Category : Press Coverage

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16

SEP

Shiny Shiny TV: The Lady Geek poll

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

The excellent Shiny Shiny TV are running a poll on “Pinking Up” – please visit their site and participate. I’m keen to see if Shiny’s younger demographic feel the same as the women I spoke to, which is that pink plastic is short-selling female tech-customers. At the moment the pink-haters are leading by a slim margin of 10%.

While I’m no fan of pink gadgets, I’m not going to go so far as to say pink products should be abolished. There’s a clear segment who love anything in pink, however they tend to be younger girls. According to our study of 750 women, only 9% wanted a product to look pink and feminine.  What women want is beautiful, elegant design.

 

Category : Interesting

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16

SEP

The Digital Campfire

Posted by belindaparmar (0) Comment

This idea has been brewing in my brain for a while. I was doing some Xploring (where we observe the way customers behave to find the truth rather than stick them in a 1950s focus group and bombard them with dull questions) and I noticed something really interesting about the change in role of the main TV room. And how women are the driving force of this new dynamic in the living room. The ownership stats of HD TV is equal for men and women and if you ask most men and women, the women get the final stay of what actually gets bought for the living room.

The main TV room has acquired a shrine like status. It’s become a campfire for the most sacred rituals of togetherness. Most campfires are lit exclusively for recreation which is the main purpose of the TV room. People tend to find something fascinating about flames and glowing coals, so a campfire is usually an agreeable (and warm) way to pass the time from dusk to bedtime as the TV room is. Staring into the flames of a camp fire is both mesmerizing and captivating as is seeing Harry Potter in HD. The TV room is also a good venue for intimate conversation and storytelling. Families connect (and argue) in their TV rooom. Families share confidences, stories, their fears, their desires.

The collective digital fireplace is slick, slim line, blur free, HD TV enabled, digitally tuned with over 100 channels, often partnered with a HD DVD, PVR, DVR and Wii Console (as is the case in my living room). It takes pride of place in the living room and has become the pivotal place in the home.

 

Most people don’t actually know what it can really do and that you need programmes broadcast in HD and actually most DVD’s are not HD yet but who cares? It looks fabulous and for a change, technology is actually bringing families together. 60% of Amercians say they would like to spend more time with their family. I am sure that this is the same in the Uk. 43% of Americans say they would buy more technology if it helped them do this.

The Digital Campfire is an opiate, as some Marxists would say. If only you could heat marshmallows on it!

 

Category : Articles

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16

SEP

Wonderland: GameStop having to ‘rethink’ their shop layout

Posted by belindaparmar (1) Comment

I agree with Alice from the wonderland blog. The ‘scent of man’ is very much prevalent in games stores. Its off putting and intimidating for women, no matter how confident you are and considering that more women play games in the 24-35 year old bracket (if you include mobile & casual gaming), there is a huge opportunity for companies to tap into this market of intelligent, educated women with lots of disposable cash. Here’s a picture I took of CEX, there’s room for improvement!

 

 

 

Wonderland: GameStop having to ‘rethink’ their shop layout

 

16

SEP

Independent: Women failed by high-tech shops

Posted by Sally (1) Comment

 

The Independent, 10th September 2007, Business News In Brief

 

News