Happy New Year

Everyone. May you have a safe, fun and thought-provoking New Year. 

iPhone vs. Kindle

BusinessWeek has an article about the increasing popularity of using one’s cell phone as an eBook reader, with solutions coming out allowing one to purchase and read material on the phone. It started with public domain books – like Tale of Two Cities and Shakespeare – and is now moving to unique or new content. 

When I first got my iPhone, I was very excited at the idea of using it as an eBook reader. Back in the days of Palms, I used mine sporadically as an eBook reader and Palm had (has?) a very robust eBook base. On the face of it, these devices make great readers. They are on one’s person all the time and the content can be formatted in a way that it is easy to read – narrow columns, large type etc. One can zip through material pretty quickly. 

Unfortunately battery life is the biggest issue I have in using my phone as an eBook reader. The battery on the iPhone is just not good enough to use it as a phone and an eBook reader. The only time I tend to eRead is when I have a very short train journey – 10 minutes tops – and I know I will return home in a couple of hours or am able to plug my phone in at some point in my trip. It’s my biggest frustration with my phone. Doing too much has led to a ‘dead-as-a-doornail’ phone on more than one occasion.

I love the Kindle because I can read for two or three days straight and not have to plug it in. It’s not as convenient as my phone but it’s certainly more convenient than carrying all the books I have on the Kindle. 

I think the Kindle is safe for now. When smartphones integrate ePaper technology – like this and these here – and can squeeze out two or three days of heavy use, then eBook on phone will take off.

Hat tip [jk on the run]

Researching disappointment

As a researcher, the idea of focusing on consumer disappointment intrigues me. It’s quite common to ask consumers what they like and dislike about the products and services with which they interact. What if we start talking about delight and disappointment? Delight has been part of the brand/consumer aspiration for many marketers but focusing on disappointment is less widespread. 

As an example, my iPhone voice reception is disappointing but I wouldn’t say it’s something I dislike, because it works most of the time. I dislike the fact there is no “cut & paste” but I don’t consider it a disappointment.

The next opportunity I get I will compare and contrast delight/disappointment and like/dislike. I am making the assumption that by asking both, I will get a more complete picture of the relationship consumers have with the product/service/brand. 

Something to think about as the year progresses. What do you think?

Kaizen on pause

Honda and Toyota are being forced to modify decades of kaizen/just-in-time manufacturing and are stockpiling materials. It seems as though their suppliers – who sell to the entire automotive industry in the US, not just Detroit – are having problems due to Detroit’s financial/inventory problems. 

After I posted that entry, I wondered how today’s fiscal difficulties would change the way goods are produced. I am still ruminating on it. It’s just strange to see the unraveling of decades of progress in the span of twelve to eighteen months. 

Hat tip [Autoblog]

Using Apps to mitigate disappointment

There’s an interesting post here about consumer disappointment, that argues that disappointment is built-in to our consumer culture. It’s linked to my previous posts on time. In order for us to be happy with a product purchase, there needs to be some sense of disappointment or dissatisfaction to use as a foil. Gadgets are a perfect case-in-point and I find reviews that are conducted over a period of time engaging with a device to be far more informative than ‘first impressions’ because the review includes the disappointing aspects of the device vs. just the happy stuff. 

Part of the solution for dissatisfaction is customization – the idea that by shaping a device to our own needs, we theoretically increase our satisfaction. I quote from the post:

“A similar paradox adheres to our efforts to customize consumer goods. These efforts seem to make the product more durable and less prone to dissatisfy in that it is reshaped to express and suit our needs, and in that we remain actively engaged with it, remaking it afresh. But the customization process may in fact reflect a dissatisfaction with the good’s durable usefulness—we want to distract ourselves from its humdrum utility and render it more exciting, though this excitement can only be short-lived, more so than its utility in most cases.”

By all indications, Apple’s App store has been a raging success [stats to follow] and the last sentence can explain why. It’s easy to get bored of a device; I was bored of the original iPhone after a few months. The App store renews one’s connection to the iPhone by constantly offering different ways to make the device fun and interesting. Of course they created the perfect case study in the iTunes/iPod connection. Music then video sold devices. Now applications sell Touches and iPhones, as illustrated perfectly by the latest campaign. 

Brilliant

Hat tip [Pop Matters]

Make it stop

For the last couple of days, Britney Spear’s Womanizer has been haunting my thoughts. I find myself singing ‘Oh you’re a womanizer baby’ at random times in random places.

Oh the humanity!

I actually like the song and like this cover of it, sung by a French artist, Sliimy. Take a listen.

Hat tip [Perez Hilton]

Living in the present

In doing the research for my last post, I stubbled upon an article in Der Spiegel, the German newsweekly similar to U.S. News, on the Pirahã tribe in Brazil. Their language, spoken by approximately 300 people along the Amazon, is one of the simplist languages ever recorded. 

What is most intriguing about the language is it is grounded in the present. There is no means of expressing the future nor the past. There are no numbers. I quote: 

“He explains the core of Pirahã culture with a simple formula: “Live here and now.” The only thing of importance that is worth communicating to others is what is being experienced at that very moment. “All experience is anchored in the presence,” says Everett, who believes this carpe-diem culture doesn’t allow for abstract thought or complicated connections to the past — limiting the language accordingly.

Living in the now also fits with the fact that the Pirahã don’t appear to have a creation myth explaining existence. When asked, they simply reply: “Everything is the same, things always are.” The mothers also don’t tell their children fairy tales — actually nobody tells any kind of stories. No one paints and there is no art.”

In recent years, some of the most popular self-help books – such as Eckhart Tolle’s Power of Now – prod us to live in the now. It is not an easy thing to do because we are reminded of the passage of time everywhere we go, right down to how we speak to one another. The changing of the seasons pushes us forward and creates a ‘future’. It’s core to our consumer culture. It’s hard to market ‘new’ without the concept of ‘old.’

In order to really live in the now, it may make sense to move to a tropical climate where there are no seasons. It is easy for the Pirahã to say ‘everything is the same’ because they don’t have to change the way they live; the weather is static.

I wouldn’t mind trying for a little while. Monotony on the beach doesn’t sound so bad in December. 

Does the English language create barriers to mathematical proficiency

I’m 3/4th through Malcom Gladwell’s book. I really enjoy reading his work. It’s simultaneously lyrical and informative.

I’ve had a few ah-has reading it but nothing compared to the passage I am in right now. His argument is the structure of the English language when it comes to expressing numbers inhibits math aptitude. He also maintains that the structure of the language is what makes many Asians cultures – Chinese, Japanese, Korean and other Chinese derivative languages – so good at math because the language expresses numbers in a very rational and easy to manipulate way. 

In Chinese, they say ten-one, ten-two, ten-three instead of changing the spelling and structure. Starting from twenty it goes two-ten-one, two-ten-two, two-ten-three. Think about how much easier it is to calculate three-tens-seven plus two-tens-two. 

I started thinking about how numbers are expressed in the languages that I’ve studied. How does English compare to its’ cousins Dutch and German? How does it compare to French? 

It seems as though English inherited its irregularity from the Dutch, if you go here and compare it to German, which is more regular. Old English – scroll to the end – is similar to Dutch, unsurprisingly. The numbers over 50 in French always drove me nuts – sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-eleven, sixty-twelve, then four-twenty-one, four-twenty-two to four-twenty-eleven, four-twenty-twelve. But I’m sure it’s useful in adding and subtracting. 

Should English reform its’ expression of numbers? Given English has no ‘governing body’ compared to other languages – e.g. French, German, Dutch etc – it may take a while before that happens. The glacial progress of adopting the metric system illustrates the challenge.

Great glassware

Love the simple elegance of the Hruska line of glassware from Czech designer Martin Zampach (with accented z). 

It’s shot incredibly well too. 

Hat tip [Industrial Design Served]

Font joy – Deco Ghost

Trippy typeface incorporating an Art Deco feel. Great for title cards. 

Hat tip [typography served]