Thinking by Peter Davidson

The new Sony Reader ebook reading device to be released this spring is poised to be the first widely successful ebook reader. I know first hand because I have one of the last generation of readers and the Sony Reader solves three of the main faults of previous readers. I now these issues first hand because these were the faults of the RCA book reader I owned a few years ago.

Screen: The RCA version used a backlit LCD screen that was heavy, hungry and hard to see. The glass panel screen added considerable weight to the unit making it difficult to hold with one hand. The backlit LCD screen also required relatively large rechargeable batteries. This added bulk and weight to the reader. The new Sony Reader uses electronic paper that only sips power to change the screen image (turn the page) This means smaller rechargeable batteries last a long time. Also the high contrast electronic ink display features much higher contrast making it much easier to read text from it.

Batteries: The last generation of readers that used LCD screens used heavy rechargeable batteries. The Sony Reader uses lithium-ion batteries that can be recharged by an AC adapter or USB cable in 4-6 hours.

Weight: The previous versions were a good step forward. The ability to carry 10-12 books in a relatively small if heavy form factor was fantastic. This version weighs less then 9 ounces. That's less than a can of soda. The device is said to hold up to 80 books with more possible through memory cards. This could do for books what then iPod did for music. Imagine carrying around a large portion of your library much like you carry your music collection in your iPod?

Anybody who says they wouldn't like it, they'd miss paper pages, they can't curl up with a screen, etc. has never tried it. I enjoyed a number of books on my RCA reader. I used it on airplanes. I curled up with it at bedtime. All the while I enjoyed being able to switch between a whole collection of books. To the doubters I say don't knock it until you try it.

Technorati Tags: book, book reader, book selling, electronic ink, epaper, iPod, Sony, Sony Reader

Pink Ladies is a UK hired car service by women for women. What a brilliant idea. This could work in any major city as the concerns for safety are almost universal. The company is not a traditional taxi company. If they were they would be "hailable" thus reducing their safety an availability to their registered members. Members sign up online and pre-order services. Female drivers in easily identifiable pink vehicles phone passengers upon arrival and wait until passengers are inside their destinations before driving off.

Safety is a real marketing benefit that can easily propel a successful female focussed business. I would like to see some social networking added to this concept. It would be easy to see women forming car pools and social gatherings around their use and membership with a service such as this. My only hesitation is the stereotypical "pinkification" of the service. Yes, it easily identifies them but it probably doesn't appeal to all of their potential customers. What's wrong with other color/branding treatments for women focused businesses?

Pink Ladies (via)

Technorati Tags: car service, London, Pink Ladies, women, taxi, taxicab

GoGo Kidz: Easing Airport Travel for Parents

Here's a great product just waiting for some great promotion and marketing partnerships. The GoGokidz Travelmate is a plate with wheels and a telescoping handle system that attaches to a variety of toddler car seats. The idea is to make your car seat easy to manage in airports. Brilliant! Car seats are one of the most awkward and unruly things to cary through airports. The American FAA strongly recommends that parents bring a car seat for their young children on jetliners. Additionally, rental car companies and ground transportation operators often charge expensive fees for providing car seats. To save the hassle, cost and provide safety parents need to bring their own car seats. The added bonus is that parents can leave the stroller behind and simply strap their child into the car seat and roll them along.

The huge opportunity here is for car seat manufacturers to build this functionality into their products as an added feature and market differentiator. Additionally, airlines could co-brand these to enhance the family friendly image of their airline.

The next step here is to think about the bigger picture. Parents can only roll and carry just so much through an airport. If their rolling their car seat that means they aren't rolling a carry-on suitcase. Perhaps there is further opportunity here to figure out a way to further attach a carry-on bag to the system so that a parent's two hands can be maximized.

GoGoBabyz: GoGoKidz Travelmate (via Disabled Hands)

Related:
Answers for Airlines

Technorati Tags: airlines, airplane seats, airport, car seats, customer experience, customer insights, design, Disabled Hands, FAA, family friendly, flying, GoGoBabyz, GoGoKidz, innovation, mass transit, parenting, stroller, taxicab, tips, travel, travel tips, traveling with kids

Painting your business name or logo on the roof of your building to advertised to airplane passengers overhead is nothing new, but painting a HUGE logo on the roof to be seen on Google satellite photos is new.

I don't know if that was the motivation behind this giant Target logo but it sure seems to be generating buzz. Imagine what kinds of things would be captured if people knew when the satellite/ariel photos were being taken in their area.

Advertising with Google Maps

Technorati Tags: advertising, Google, Google maps, mapping, maps, photography, Target

Had my first opportunity to fly Midwest Airlines this past Holiday season. This air carrier doesn't serve my home city but when traveling between Florida and Kansas this last week we had the opportunity to try Midwest Airlines formerly Midwest Express.

The key differentiator for this airline is the two across seating. I have said for years that airlines need to humanize their planes and seats. Here's an airline that's doing just that. The two and two configuration of their planes provides all passengers with a comfortable leather seat that gives passengers some reasonable personal space. While the pitch or spacing between seat rows is only adequate, fold down footrests are provided for shorter passengers. To add to the experience flight attendants pass out warm chocolate chip cookies in flight. Nice.

Despite the lack of an in-flight entertainment system the 2:45 hour flight was very pleasant and refreshing. I'd definitely recommend Midwest Airlines.

Related:
Airlines Should Partner With Super Brands
Answers for Airlines
What Should Southwest Airlines Do Now
What United Airlines Should Do Now

Technorati Tags: airlines, airplane seats, Florida, Kansas, leather seats, Midwest Airlines, Midwest Airlines, chocolate chip cookies, two across seating

Just back from staying with family for the American Thanksgiving holiday. I was traveling light this year. Just an iPod, cellphone and digital camera. Normally, I might add two or three more portable devices that need charging. After losing or forgetting more than one power adapter or charger I have now taken to packing a power strip. The advantage is clear. By not having to search around the room or house to find enough open outlets for all my chargers I keep them all in one location. This makes it easier to remember to pack them all when it's time to return home. A $10 Home Depot power strip is a lot cheaper then a couple of $40 replacement battery chargers. You might even consider leaving power strips at the homes of friends and family you often visit.

Technorati Tags: travel tips, Thanksgiving, cell phone, power strip, cellphone, iPod, Home Depot, battery charger, digital camera, Thanksgiving travel

Yesterday, I posted at BeConnected about Luxury Hotels and how they are using computer networks, databases and automation to seamlessly customize their rooms to enhance the guest experience. Hotel staff notice guest preferences and update guest profiles for everything including temperature, drapery positions and mini-bar preferences. The system even tracks preferred music choices, TV programming and even frequently dialed numbers on the telephone. Gathering all of this customer intuition data helps hotels retain frequent repeat customers.

So how much is a persons preference profile worth? What is it worth to a hotel to know that a guest prefers diet Pepsi vs diet Coke? What about their allergy to feather pillows? What about the fact that a customer is a recovering alcoholic and wants no alcohol in their room and no service at the hotel bar? Each of these pieces of information have different values to the hotel and to the customer.

It's an exchange of information for time, convenience, comfort and maybe even survival. I think there's room for a trusted personal preferences profile provider that collects and provides preference information to businesses serving profiled customers. Businesses could subscribe to the service to find out relevant information about their customers. Customers would participate to enhance their experience.

Part data mining operation, part concierge, part social network, part travel agent, part personal shopper this service would tailor your life experience to your preferences. The more the service knows about you the better your experience. Everything from remembering your father-in-law's birthday and prompting you with the perfect gift ideas to arranging your holiday travel according to your travel preferences would be handled seamlessly.

Your dietary restrictions and preferences would be cross checked against restaurant menus when you seek a recommendation or reservation. The service would not send you to restaurants it knows you would not like. The service would make a reservation for you, provide GPS directions to the restaurant, arrange car/taxi service if needed, provide parking assistance, send you menu selection recommendations, place your food order in advance, order your beverages, pay the bill and tip the wait staff. The social network aspect could alert you to the reviews of friends and contacts who have recently patronized the restaurant or even those currently in the restaurant. The benefits to the consumer are clear. The benefits to the subscribers like the resaurant are happier repeat customers who spread good word of mouth which results in more business.

This would be a huge service but for services like Google, Yahoo and Amazon this would be doable.

Technorati Tags: alcohol, Amazon, automation, B2C, BeConnected, birthdays, comments, communication, contact management, CRM, customer communications, customer insights, customer service, data, data mining, database, diet coke, diet pepsi, directions, electronics, Google, GPS, guest experience, mini-bar, parking, permission marketing, personal shopper, promotion, concierge, restaurant, social networking, taxi, travel, TV, Yahoo

Delta is throwing in the towel on their misguided low-cost airline, Song. Anybody who knows about branding and marketing could predict this announcement. The airline was born as a "me too" it lived as a "me too" and it dies as a "who?" They came they flew...no one cared.

The problem with these so called "low cost" airlines that are built within old mainline carriers(yes, I'm talking to you, Ted) is that they aren't different enough from their parent airlines in image, customer experience or practice. I have flow Ted several times and I cannot tell you how the experience differs from United. They don't try to sell you air in the form of legroom but other than that what's the big deal?

If mainline airlines want to replace themselves develop low-cost carriers they need to do so from scratch. Not subsidies or divisions but free standing independent airlines. Fund them(if you ever have money again) and staff them with your experience but cut them loose from your operational structures, costs and high cost labor agreements.

If the mainline airlines don't do it others will. Get ready for more independent airline start-ups as the old guard cut costs and service on the way to their own funerals.

LATimes: Delta to Eliminate Discount Carrier Song via

Technorati Tags: airlines, branding, change or die, Delta Airlines, marketing, mass transit, Song Airlines, travel, trend

Interesting news from Airstream. They have a promising cobranded model of their small 16' Bambi travel trailer. I've talked before about the marketing challenges that Airstream is facing as their customer base ages. Will they be able to ignite the passions and wanderlust of retiring baby boomers? Does the open road and the trailer camping experience still hold an allure in the 21st century?

Airstream's new partnership with surfing brand Quicksilver to produce a themed interior is the latest step in the evolution of the 75+ year old travel trailer icon from frump to fab. Gone is the stereotype grandma's faux family room of cheap looking "oak" cabinets, valour upoulstry and scary avacodo and harvest gold colored vinyl flooring. In it's place are sleek metalics, laminates, colored plexi and other modern materials and finishes that are right at home in these handmade wonders.

So far the customizastion doesn't run very deep but it is progress for a company learning new ways to stay relevant in a fast changing world. The old glory days of the Airstream lifestyle maybe numbered but the metallic giant stirs looking towards it's future.

Related:

Aluminum Obsession I, II, III, IV, V, VI

Marketing Archive
Transport Archive

Technorati Tags: Airstream, Bambi, camper, marketing, hand made, Quicksilver, trailer, travel

On this day, October 1, 1971 the 74 square mile Walt Disney World resort opened in Orlando, FL.

Just imagine the economic impact of that one giant operation in the global economy over the last 28 years.

Technorati Tags: Disney, Florida, Orlando, 1971, Walt Disney World