Archive for February, 2009

I keep waiting for the smart home. It’s pretty moot to me since my home looks pretty brill. Do we really want smart homes — homes that do everything for us automatically? I had a lot of PR material sent to me about smart AND dumb homes while compiling “2011” and have thus decided we’d be in trouble if the smart home invaded. And, in the words of Mad Magazine’s dearly departed founder —WHAT IF, you know…?

• Your “Smart Home” crashes and won’t let you in?
• Your toaster can’t find the software to toast your bread?
• You can’t multitask in your home- because if you use the washer, dryer, TVs, hair dryers, computers, printer, fax at the same time-because your house will slow down or freeze and have to be constantly rebooted?
• You haven’t upgraded your home to Windows Latest Crap and so the home can’t open up any of your windows? Wouldn’t that suck!
• Your home has to do time for “performing an illegal operation” and thanks to these occurring you constantly have no place to live?
• Your washing machine loses more than stray socks since you didn’t press the SAVE function?
• Your kid didn’t do as well on the college boards as your “Smart Home,” and your home got into a better college?
• Your “Smart Home” lost all of its smart data and became silly since you didn’t backup?
• You have to take courses every time your home has to be upgraded –formerly remodeled or repaired – if you didn’t upgrade, you can’t get replacement parts for your home or appliances?
• Your voice activated smart-pants home understands your “Honey, I’m home” command as “Honey, I’m a burglar,” and phones the cops cause it doesn’t believe you’re that honey. (”Lucy?”)
• It takes your microwave and all of your previously “instant on” electronics and appliances five minutes to recover from a crash?
• Your home flashes an error message, and your home and everything in it disappears because you didn’t save in a new file?
• Your home has obtained a virus and has to be quarantined from other homes?
• You can’t figure out Home’s many-thousand-page operating manual — neither can your kid, oy — and Amazon and all brick and mortar shops are out of “Smart Homes for Dummies?”
• Your one-stop-shopping bill that bundles your energy, cable, phone, and broadband services offers the worst of each service — everything goes out in a storm, service is provided by former cable company technicians, and you get interrupted during dinner constantly about switching to a new provider?
• The nanotechnology security system—which is smaller than a piece of dust — went up your child’s nose but no one knew because it couldn’t be seen and each time he sneezed, your alarm went off?
• Your refrigerator and the items in it and your dishwasher and detergent are communicating more than the — um — spouses?
• Robots can operate everything in your ID-enhanced house and decide human inhabitants aren’t needed because they just make a mess?
• Your “Smart Home” can’t keep pace with the Jones’ homes that are smarter?
• You’re kept on hold with bad music daily trying to reach Tech Service about your home network, which keeps going down? (That music is one of the ways in which the term “bad” reintroduces itself to you while waiting for someone to service you!)

The future is not about living like the Jetsons, and most of the cool stuff coming will be subtler and more seamless than the introduction of a pad that makes your own look schmaltzy. Hug your house.

In a business driven by trendy folks who spew stats and info, every so often something crops up that makes me feel ancient. Funny thing about getting older is that you don’t really feel it…until the song you remember dancing to at the prom plays on an oldies/retro station.

I find myself smack in a middle of an interesting demographic. My generation didn’t have a letter, but we’re now busy executives, soccer Moms and NASCAR Dads, and the generation that voted George Bush into office not once but twice (bad memories but they’re mine). I’ve gone from being the contemporary of cub reporters and interns to that of managing editors and executive producers. Has my perspective on the marketing businesses changed? You bet.

Here’s some advice for those of you who count us among your (potential) customers.

360-Degree Communication

Contrary to the belief of my younger colleagues, we are early adopters and avid promoters. Gee, kids, we were the ones who moved from eight-tracks to cassettes to CDs to DAT even, in record time. We were watching while MTV played “Video Killed the Radio Star” and CNN aired its first on-air piece about Vernon Jordan’s shooting. We made media lists with rotary (okay, push button) telephones and typewriters (IBM Selectrics…)and actually spoke with colleagues—and subsequently created the ubiquitous electronic communications you all dig. We went from missing telephone calls totally to having machines that answered them, to being available 24/7 with mobiles. That’s why we believe in the value of 360 Degree Communications; we remember when we had to actually work to get information. Now, we want to receive facts and figures—call them stories—from all the sources we worked our whole careers to develop.

Embrace the New, Sure, But Don’t Eschew the Old

Wise men and women will all tell you: reaching influencers effectively often involves a stamp (the United States Postal Service to you scratching you heads). I have a ton of information filed electronically. I also have a filing cabinet meticulously organized with all my notes; I use a fantastic device called a pen for those. I have and hold hard copies from clients, colleagues and people trying to sell me junk. I delete Spam without opening it, yet today received three pieces of junk mail which I in fact opened and read. Before tossing.

The Benefits of Writing Good

This is my soapbox, and I’m proud of it. I work in PR, a communications industry. Much of our communication is written. That means outlines, grammar, and channeling your creativity into materials—pitches, letters, collateral, online communications—that are absolutely in line with your client’s and/or company’s business objectives. PR is not about wild and crazy ideas (although stunts do have a time and a place); PR is about creative ideas that deliver solid business value. Have I made myself clear? Or, clearly?

Search and Then Research

Please try not to make assumptions about a target market of which you are not a member. If you are unsure how your audience views a particular topic or issue, ask. If you live in the Northeast, don’t assume everyone in the South or Midwest is a hick. If you’re in your 20’s and have read this far, don’t think that people twice your age don’t have a clue about pop culture or the Next Big Thing. We saw it coming. That said, at 40 what is important is different from what’s important to 20-somethings, no matter what you do for a living. Learn to embrace differences.

Done with soapbox.

Once you have all that down, remember: we are consumers who drive trends. We’ve been doing so for a long time and don’t plan on stopping. We buy stuff, and our earning and purchasing power seriously matters. We might not be as cool as we were, but darn if we don’t wield more power over the world than we ever did.

And that’s it. I’m stepping off now.

For more on this, get a clean, crisp copy of 2011: Trendspotting
Twitter: @laermer