The last time I looked, I was not a girl, but for some reason I seem to know far too much about clothes shopping, I guess being dragged around shopping malls by various girlfriends over the years on pain of death, or worse, a hissy fit for the rest of the week, which could mean going without a number of pleasures, not least of which is a night out with the lads, which would be unimaginable!  So instead of incurring the wrath of almighty hell, I have developed an understanding and even a feint interest in women’s clothes! Well this is my excuse anyway! 

But quite why women seem to genuinely enjoy the pursuit of going from shop to shop, battling through the crowds of other women doing the same thing, I have no Idea – especially when retailers seem to find it impossible to fulfil one of the most fundamental and simplest of things, stock control! What is so hard about getting to grips with the fact that most women are between a size 10 and 12 (well in my world anyway)?? And why can’t they keep an abundance of these most popular sizes – if for no other reason please spare a thought for us poor males and the impact on the rest of our weekend and potentially rest of our week…you have no idea the sinking feeling I get as “she” flicks her adept fingers through the rail looking for her size “size 8, size 8, size 8,…size 24” she mutters. “I knew it!”  She moans – queue Kermit style pursed lips and much hurrumphing… and so the Saturday shopping spree ends in a Starbucks with a pep talk from me explaining that placing an order and waiting until it comes in will be worth the wait – I am of course lying through my teeth.  I too feel her frustration, albeit from a different perspective…

But this issue is not isolated to the stock on the shelves.  It seems to be inherent in many other areas too, take mobile marketing, especially the latest in a string of campaigns aimed at smart phone users – well actually not all smartphone users, just those that the brands can actually be bothered to support. 

“Dear Barclaycard Customer” the e-mail opened – sent to me as a great marketing campaign “you will be pleased to see that you can now check your balance and pay bills using your mobile phone” Great I thought.  “bla, bla…bills bla bla…security, bla, bla “we support most phones but not Blackberry”

Blackberry it seems is the size 12 of the mobile world!  The fact that it is the best-selling handset in the UK at the moment seems to have missed the notice of many of the brands and retailers. Or has it? Perhaps it’s the agencies and web developers who are flummoxed by the technology! The days of supporting a few browsers are over! The longer it takes agencies and web developers to get out of out-dated methods and taking a DIY approach,  the longer it will be before we are able to engage with all our customers regardless of their mobile device.  The fact is, solutions do exist; new elegant delivery platforms that are built for the next generation of web.

Don’t allow your media & agency channels to tell you that it’s not possible to deliver your content seamlessly across ALL mobile devices, push back on them to open their eyes to new platforms that work. And make them use them. Or pick up the phone and we’ll point you in the direction of the agencies that have adopted new technology and can get it right for you.

I seem to start all my blogs with some reference to the past…when I was little I can remember my Granddad used to start every sentence with “When I were a lad” or “in my day…” the past to me seemed a lifetime ago, I had no connection with what had gone before, in fact nothing seemed to be connected to the past, take technology, my granddad told me of times when there was no TV! No TV! This seemed inconceivable, but in physical terms this was only a period of thirty or so years! And now there was a TV in every room. 

I never thought I would ever start a sentence with “when I were a lad…” but I am now finding myself doing it more and more! And as technology becomes cheaper and more accessible and more disposable, the pace of change is so intense, trends can change in months rather than years now.  The list of things that I can remember did not exist at some point in my past seems to be getting longer and longer, on the flip side however there is also a growing list of things that have been “deleted” and confined to the history books.

Clayton Christensen, the inventor of  the theory of ‘disruption technology’  used fruit flies as the basis of his theory, because their full lifecycle from birth, reproduction and death is 24 hours, scientists studying evolution and genetics also use similar benchmarks , Christenson then applied this technique to the IT industry and used the “fruit fly” of the IT world – storage (hard drives) which in each release became half the price, half the size but twice the capacity and would be out of date almost before it was taken out of the box.

Technology seems to be beating even the fruit fly now! Every day we hear of a new device, or enhancement, version, or style!  I so often see people hiding their iPhone3 or trying to use it under the table or partially obscured by their handbag in case someone sees them with this “old” technology!  I mean, how very yesterday!  Sadly most of this has nothing to do with technology – ‘disruption’ or otherwise, it’s all to do with the ‘money’ and extracting as much revenue as is physically possible from a product.  A consumer actually gains no real value from upgrading to the latest version of a particular piece of technology other than kudos!  And so the marketers and commercial whiz-kids find more and more ways of re-boxing and drip feeding new enhancements, to make us BUY!

I think that perhaps the fruit fly should be used to benchmark us as consumers, stupid, and with very short memories.  Technology is actually not moving any faster than it ever has, it is just what we chose to believe.  An iPad is not new technology at all, depending how you look at it; it’s either a big phone or a small PC, it doesn’t do anything new – surf the web, make a call, play a game, all things we have been able to do for the last 20 years! So what’s innovative or new?   The way that it has been sold to us, packaged, and marketed to us fruit fly brained consumers. And I have to take my hat off to the marketers for their ability to sell millions of under spec’d PC’s for 3 times the price of anything else on the market! Technology is a lifestyle choice now, it seems that the clever marketers can re-box and re-invent anything and we’ll “buy it”!

I saw a fantastic new tasty snack this week in a local convenience store, full of energy, low calorie and high in fibre, it has convenient hygienic breathable packaging, that enables it to last for days without going off and can be eaten anywhere, on the go, in the car, on the train, it’s great for breakfast or as a desert and even better, it contains high amounts Potassium, Calcium, Iron, Vitamin A, Vitamin B and vitamin C!   This new snack is so versatile, convenient and healthy, I thought – and all for just £1.50. If my fruit fly brain had continued to rule my actions I would have bought the most expensive banana in the world!

And this brings me neatly on to the repackaging masterpiece of the moment – Software! How do we take software programmes, that we have had for years, that once upon a time and not so long ago, we would buy from the local PC World in a huge box with snazzy exciting pictures on the outside, which when you got home, you would take off the cellophane and look inside to find a small disc, which you would pop into the disc drive and install?

Simple!

Give it a new name and sell it in an online store! And while we are at it re-invent all the programmes that we’ve had for years but with less functionality, less power, and fewer features!

I give you the App!  If you don’t believe me, take a look at Intel’s AppUp store! Full of software programmes that you can download to your netbook, PC or tablet. If you see anything new other than the name, then you too have the brain of a fruit fly!