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Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Evangelism, and whats in a name

Came across this interesting blog on 'Evangelist Marketing'. How to create offerings that turn consumers into evangelists. Fine read for sure. While I agree with the author on many things, I do disagree on a couple of things.

Of course marketing plays a big role in the listed devices (iPod, iPhone, iPad, Kindle, Netflix) seeing evangelist movements, but a huge factor is also: Exclusivity. All these case-in-point devices showcased by Alex Goldfayn are essentially Category Creators. And what are the other devices we compare these with? Cameras and TVs. Exclusive? Heck not!

When early adopters and tech fans got their hands on the iPhones and Kindles first, they got the chance to tell other people about how radically different their new device was. And no doubt these evangelists loved doing it. But they love doing it only as long as its exclusive. See many iPhone evangelists these days in the US, with 50 million phones already in circulation? I thought not.

However, I think marketing often can play a strong role in creating high consumer excitement for even non-category-creator devices. I can only think of Apple here, but its still a strong example. The latest MacBook Air is not radical, but it is a product that does its job very very well. And look at how excited it is making some people. Apple has diligently gone about creating a cult around itself and is reaping the results. Other examples of brands achieving cult status? Harley Davidson. Porsche. Louis Vuitton. Creating a cult brand is not an easy task, and is as much about choosing not to play in certain areas, as it is about playing in certain areas. But lets not get there right now. A lot of firms can learn some elements of marketing from Apple if creating an entire cult brand is not their cup of tea. I am talking: Simplicity. The HBR article talks about this theme a bit; let me add my two cents.

The ipod was a clean product, but also one *with a clean name*. How easy is it to consider researching / buying an iPod Nano vs a Sony Walkman A Series NWZ-A844/T? And how easy is it to evangelize one of these products with friends? In ebook readers again, The Amazon Kindle is a product with a similarly simple name. I am not too tuned in to the Netflix service but I am sure all its options have got simple, catchy names.

Some food for thought as we conclude: We are now seeing even component makers catching on to the naming game. The Samsung Galaxy S (called I9000 earlier) runs a processor called Hummingbird. What was the original name? S5PC110. In response we have other phones running Snapdragon processors. The Android OS has versions which are deliciously called Froyo (Frozen Yoghurt), Gingerbread and Icecream Sandwich. The response? Windows Phone 7 has a version called Mango coming up. Keep cooking up the yummy names guys!

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

My thoughts take flight...





[Click here to view the cartoon properly]

Nice one by Abstruse Goose. It brings up the interesting theme - Pace of technological advancement. We are actually advancing at a super fast clip, and all indications are that if you or I are airlifted 100 years into the future, we will be as clueless as people from 1911 would be in the world of 2011. However, mankind has a fascination with flying and with space, and that is where technology appears to have failed us. I mean, where are all the space colonies? If the Mars colonies are still a few decades away that's understandable, but why aren't there at least some astronauts visiting Mars by now? In that context, it appears that we have achieved a big squat zero in aerospace in the 42 years since 1969. Why, the Concorde was a supersonic jet which first flew in - guess the year - 1969, but was actually retired by 2011! So has aerospace failed us? This blogger thinks, maybe its not technology. Maybe its some other force holding us back from spreading our seed in outer space. Allow me to speculate...

Firstly, man has had many significant achievements in aerospace. Its no mean feat that there are thousands of heavier-than-air aircraft criss-crossing the world all the time. Which means not only have we mastered the technology, but we have made it practically safe and commercially feasible to carry millions of people in metal tubes flying at 30,000 feet altitude. Try telling that to a 19th century man. So indeed man has conquered gravity in a way, its only that he has not been able to conquer gravity on a large scale. Think about it, the biggest aircraft to fly has been the Boeing 747 (coincidentally, it made its first commercial flight in 1970!). We all marvel at the 747's size, but seriously, a length of 250 feet? Is that the best we can do? We can build bridges which are dozens of kilometers in length, but 250 ft is great for an aircraft?



Do you remember this iconic image in Independence Day? Why can't we imagine humans to build a similar craft which is maybe 2-3 kms along each dimension (length, breadth, height)? And craft of such scale would be necessary if we want to colonize other planets. Imagine the amount of stuff we would need to carry. Maybe you would get iron and some metals over there, but wouldn't you require lots of other materials to be airlifted? Think plastics, glass, rubber, fabric, organic stuff. Thousands of tonnes - if not millions - would need to be sent across. And what is our current payload limit? 2,000 kilograms is a great deal for space missions. Heck, that's the payload of an average pickup truck back on Earth.

Indeed our problem has been that conventional energy sources seem to have met their match in gravity. 9.8 m/s2 is a lot of acceleration to be facing every second an object is in the air. I haven't done the math, but it would require massive amounts of energy to lift even a thousand tonne object at surface level. Hence we are stuck. The reason why we can't go to Mars using current conventional energy sources is the same reason why we had to retire the space shuttle program: the technology exists, but its just unbelievably expensive!

I think, maybe things could have been different if we had been on a planet with lesser gravity - for example, the moon, which has a sixth the gravity of the earth. But I am not too sure. Maybe its a scale thing. An ant can lift 50 times its own weight, an average human not even one time his/her own weight. Similarly internal combustion engines have proved they can move payloads a few 'x' their weight (think trains), but cannot be expected to *lift* weights of that magnitude (fighting against a super strong gravity instead of a weak friction force). Therefore I am compelled to think the next advancement in space flight may come only when we are able to harness new sources of energy. Nuclear propelled motors? Fuel Cell powered motors? Who knows. But can you imagine the downward thrust that would be required to push up something which spreads a mile across? I am thinking we need even more radical technology. Something which can make the below image possible:


Technology that will allow objects to hover easily without requiring massive, massive downthrust. I am thinking more 'fundamental physics' than 'mechanical engineering'. Go physicists! Give us applications of Higgs boson or some stuff like that which will maybe help us work around / reduce the whole problem of mass itself! This kind of technology I am talking about does not even have primary science backing it up yet, so even if it were ever possible from a physics standpoint, we would still be looking at a few decades to make it practical and feasible. Hope my lifetime is enough!

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Crowing away to glory

I wonder why people dislike crows. Ok, their cawing isnt exactly melodious, but still, whats there to hate about them? Some people even think of them as bad omens right (think The Omen)? But here is a very interesting piece of research on crows...