Thanks to my friend, Jan Brandt, for sharing this one.
Kajeet, the smart phone for kids
An intriguing play on words, and what a great, up and coming company. Despite the noise in the kid’s phone market, kajeet’s one who’s kept their promise and their premise simple. Keep kids safe. Safe from the internet and its easy access to the unsavory. Safe from predators. No distractions so the power and fun of connecting with Mom and Dad, Aunt Mary, buddy Angel or Emma are a few button pushes away. From Android to the most popular phones, parents can encourage their kids to explore and learn the world around them. Now taking their platform, Sentinel™, to the school market and giving them the ability to manage student access to content and the web, without on-site equipment and IT overload, the company is a case study example of keeping a business premise crystal clear and focused.
Carefully nurtured by founder, Daniel Neal, Ben Weintraub and the executive team, kajeet seems to have cracked the insanity code of starting up a tech company. What a relief for parents, teachers, schools, Scout masters and even…the Amish?
Google’s Privacy Policy has changed
No shock there and what a brilliant move by one of the world’s most sophisticated and craftiest marketers. Simultaneous with delivering what will no doubt be a radically improved consumer experience, they will pull off what’s also best for Google and industry. They’ve carefully drawn the line between PII (personally identifiable information), which naturally and correctly creates all of the pundit angst, and anonymous PII which commercial enterprise has successfully dumbed down to a simple, pain-free, four-letter word: data. This is “Synergy” at the highest order, where three constituencies all benefit from ubiquity without inflicting long-lasting damage.
Short-term suffering is always part of a more frictionless society but, over and over again, consumers have voted with their fingers and wallets. The anti-piracy pressure applied two weeks ago was a much more stunning victory than Romney beating Gingrich in Florida. But, the story is long gone. Despite the power of digital marketing for commercial entities to make good on threats by shutting down their websites, people proved they care more about convenience and efficiency than a just price for easy access to what copyright laws portend to protect. Facebook’s $80-$100B IPO valuation will be another affirmation that the privacy train left the station a long time ago.
All of this aside, I do believe keeping that sharp line between Personal II and Anonymous II is paramount to protect the privacy people value most: their health and finances, in particular. Privacy legislation is likely and self-regulation is crucial to keep ahead of misconstrued legislation. Without it, despite the illusion that privacy exists, it’s way too risky to tempt the congressional Gods.
HBR’s Spotlight on Reinventing Retail
Harvard Business Review, a brand built on rock-solid content and must-have business insights, nailed it again. If you read nothing else this month, check out ‘Reinventing Retail.’
So often, even the experts assume that the new thing will simply replace the old. Search will replace TV. Starbucks will kill the local diner. Madonna will shrivel up and Katie Perry will steal her fans. Tech companies are running out of ways to put more storage and memory onto smaller and smaller chips. It rarely works that way, however. It’s always easier to think about what’s new than it is to consider what exists and that those who run these businesses and finance them are just going to sit idly by and aw-shucks their way into oblivion.
TV is being re-purposed on YouTube and, still, no other media has the mass that TV does. There are more local greasy spoons and average-to-good cups of coffee than there ever was, Madonna is the half-time entertainment at the Super Bowl and Cloud Computing has fundamentally changed the data storage and data access business.
Harvard Business Review: The Future of Shopping
http://hbr.org/2011/12/the-future-of-shopping/ar/1
Harvard Business Review: Retail Isn’t Broken. Stores Are
http://hbr.org/2011/12/retail-isnt-broken-stores-are/ar/1
Harvard Business Review: Know What Your Customers Want Before They Do
http://hbr.org/2011/12/know-what-your-customers-want-before-they-do/ar/1
Channel and Brand integration in real-time
On Wall Street this week, I saw integration as I’ve never seen it. Direct TV’s own ad-vehicle, stopped on the road, was demonstrating their service, showing movies, signing up customers, tweeting and shouting out their offers out to Followers, Fans and even the casual walker-by. Mobile doesn’t define it. People are the integrators, not the technology. Check out the traffic cop, too. That’s a printer hanging off her belt. Even city governments are radically integrating data and technology.
Waiting and Watching at Airports
Airports catch people in moments of joy and despair and the plain old ordinary. But, it’s also where dreams and nightmares begin and end. They have a way of stripping off all of the veneer so emotions can be seen in full color.
Luxury Retailers to Cash in this Holiday Season
Unlike the general consumer, the Luxury buyer’s behavior is different and far more driven by the brand marketer’s advertising in stores and online but, it’s also particularly heavily and influential in magazine print. Still the platform most able to reach and target a large audience, it is the workhorse that drives intrigue and sales. But, the emotional connection is increasingly more provocative and continues to create the aura and reality of exclusivity. Digitally too, and especially those brands that are integrating retail, print, social and mail with it, are winning. But, the coveted 1% target may actually be the 0.5%. Stay tuned.
Lupus Gala 2011
What does a dinosaur and Lupus research have to do with one another?
$2.2 Million was raised at this week’s Gala at the Museum of Natural History!
Veteran’s Day
Four years ago, the company did an abrupt about-face against the tide of Veteran’s Day as yet another shopping day. Stuffing large ziplock bags with socks, toothpaste, handiwipes, batteries, lots of candy and handwritten, personal notes, the emotional connections we’re creating are genuine. Stopping the company for two hours every year is not a big deal. Fighting for our country is.
