Brian, RE: "If the marketing people at these companies are doing their best to make money for themselves and shareholders, surely you have to see that there are a significant number of women "falling for" pink."
Like the audo industry in the early 80s?
Or, like the auto industry did last month with their thong advertisement - that they had to recall?
I believe you incorrectly assume some companies are adequately equipped with enough diversity to make the right decision on demographics they do not represent.
RE: "Just because this is insulting to you, this does not mean it is insulting to all women out there."
Again, I think you have a tendency to invalidate an opinion, rather than focus on solutions.
The proper solution would be to investigate: a) why is an extremely enthused hightech buyer offended by the show, b) why did the show gain negative publicity from the Mercury News? c) why did the companies have a general lack of awareness over the issue - what is structurally wrong within the corporations? d) is there a better way the show owners could make all demographics happy - or at least not so offended?
RE: "No offense, but I doubt that you know more than the collective knowledge of all the people at all of the marketing companies."
Brian, how do you think change happens in society?
It's certainly not by believing you know less than status quo.
The definition of change is to challenge status quo --- so never assume you do not have an insight that establishment doesn't have, because too many times in history (over and over again) establishment has proven to be wrong (usually years later, much to everyone's unfortunate financial pain) - so you could be invalidating that leader inside of you by not thinking you have insight that challenges status quo.
I also don't think this burden should be placed on the few leaders out there, but each person should really be a leader to drive change. But timely change is at risk, when the default is invalidation.
An analogy is, would you prefer the world still use POTS instead of moving to IP? We all could have sat around and said, "yeah, the Telco's POTS establishment must be right."
RE: "Not saying that I agree with them, just that one person's opinion does not make everyone else wrong.
Usually a reporter reflects a substantial number of people they interview. Surely you don't think the reporter was putting her career on the line by printing something only she believed was to be the case? You did read the article?
What is amazing, establishment sometimes need to experience major financial failures before the motivation or acknowledgement of a need for change exists and by then, they can be coming from behind on the designs. Having grown up as an auto kid that could see the certain product issues ten years before auto execs acknowledged them, I strongly believe warning signs are to be heeded, not ignored. As hightech goes consumer, we need the environment to be validation of differences in opinion which includes challenging status quo, not invalidation. There's a sense of importance in challenging the status quo. And you know what, people that are in positions of leadership, are usually happy to hear the challenges, rather than learn the hard way. The ones that don't, tend to fail.
But it takes more than good leaders, it actually takes a community with the right attitude and the ability to challenge status quo to successfully initiate products into emerging markets. Of course, good leaders can be instrumental in making the community establish the right attitude for success.
On another note, your default on this issue tends to be invalidation, rather than inquisitive questioning, as if you don't want to hear the opinion about how the CES show was offensive to me and others. Consider this: as a female entrepreneur, this show (hustlers, prostitutes, displays that put women in a dim light) hurt more than this industry's worst downturn.
Fortunately, the guys (of all ages) that work in business communications (in many positions) have been extremely supportive of my view on this. One Gen X male felt it was an insult to his intelligence level too (because the show implied he would like such things), which I found interesting. Maybe some in our generation want displays and products that make us feel associated with intelligence. According to American Demographics, Gen Ys are more conservative - so maybe it's time to do a reality check on some possibly outdated, age-old assumptions, or at a minimum, reflect and respect the differences. I also thought it was an insult to put the refridge in a women's section - as if that's our only place. The guys I know need actually could use the refridge scanning gear, including the local grocery stores where outdated juice products are often sold. There should be three sections: men, women, joint home stuff.
It's possible the things we found offensive are things you aren't sensitive to or you have a difference of opinion -- and you are entitled to that difference of opinion, but try to separate out what you like and what others like and develop a level of respect for what others do not like.
I just hope a Japanese company doesn't kick our butts as we collectively ignore certain demographics.
Regards,
Amy J |
