Posts Tagged ‘tech’
CES 2012: Part 2
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
The CES show floor is incredibly daunting when you walk in and look at the sprawling maps with each section marked off. I made it my goal to see every single booth on the floor – and I did it. Here are a couple more trends that I saw during my time in Vegas:
AutoTech
The auto industry has plenty of their own industry shows, but that doesn’t stop top automakers from trekking to Vegas for CES. In-car auto technology was a big part of the show with Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, and Ford showcasing how technology is powering the next generation of autos.
Kia’s new Uvo system, made by Microsoft (both clients of SCG/Mediabrands) was one of the coolest in-car systems I saw in Vegas. The new system pairs with smartphones to identify drivers, making the experience completely personal. For parents with new drivers, the system allows users to set up things like speed limits, curfews, and geo-fences that notify the car owner if/when these limitations are broken by the driver. That’s one piece of tech I definitely am glad didn’t exist when I was 16. The system also goes beyond the car and uses augmented reality to help drivers find their car once they’ve parked. No more wandering around aimlessly hitting your key fob in hopes of hearing your car honk.
SocialTV
There’s no doubt that people come to CES to see the next generation of televisions. However, this year wasn’t totally about screen size (although there were some huge ones) or crazy bells and whistles (there was seriously a TV that you could see through), but rather about how connected TVs could make users. Connected to content. Connected to their friends. Connected to just about anything.
Now, apps like Miso and GetGlue have brought a social aspect to TV and movies, but they require a user looking away from the screen to interact. While that’s not always a bad thing, the continued appification of televisions is bringing social interactions right to the set – and making them part of the experience.
Users can now Tweet or Facebook directly on their televisions while still watching content. They can join chats and discuss plots, characters, and developments in their favorite shows and movies. Look for this seamless integration to be a big part in network and motion picture companies’ push for social interaction around their titles in 2012 and beyond.
Social Everywhere (but No Connectivity)
I think one of the biggest fails of CES, besides the lack of available food/restrooms (which always happens), was the lack of connectivity in the exhibition halls. While yes, many companies aren’t really relying on me to pump their newest products out to the world, but rather a writer from Engadget who has guaranteed bandwidth, the space just wasn’t social friendly. QR codes were everywhere, but the content they accessed was nearly unobtainable in the conditions.
TMobile sponsored a contest (using Klout) to crown the king of social at CES. The only problem was, I’d guess most people actually being able to tweet about CES were not in Vegas, or had already left the show to go back to their rooms. Also, the screens showing content were kind of hard to find.
Weird Stuff
I’ve been to a fair number of trade shows in my day, but I have to say there was one thing I was really sad to see at CES in 2012… the continued use of “booth babes.” BBC did a piece on this which I think accurately depicts their use at the show. Notes the completely oblivious answer from the head of CES.
If you owned an iPad, iPod, iANYTHING, you could seriously spend the whole time looking solely at products made to connect to, hold, enhance, or otherwise augment your iANYTHING. These little weirdos were iPod speaker docks (iThink). I actually kind of like the ones that look like the ghosts from Pac Man.
Celebs were everywhere. Yes, some of them were there because they were launching a new headphone line (Luda/50), but others were obviously there just to get a check. Justin Beiber was there talking about robotics. Snooki was there, and unless she was talking about tanning beds, I’m going to guess she has no connection with the product she was there to support.
See Ya, Las Vegas
Overall, CES still is one of the greatest events I’ve ever been to. I’m not going to say that everything there relates to social – because it doesn’t. However, if we’re not keeping track of the consumers’ use of technology in accessing information, connecting with each other, and consuming media, then we’re missing the point. There’s so much more to marketing that happens outside the person-to-screen world that we often forget that there are opportunities in just about every aspect of daily life.
Check out our full gallery of SCG CES 2012 pics here.
Disclosure: Some photos and descriptions of products may reference clients of Spring Creek Group’s parent companies, Mediabrands and IPG. These are not meant as advertisements or endorsements and no compensation has been made to this blog or the author for their inclusion.
CES 2012: Sin City Goes Techy
Thursday, January 12th, 2012
All Las Vegas cliches aside, this show is absolutely incredible. I’ve been to CES before, but haven’t ever stepped foot on the show floor – instead being stuck in dark press briefing suites. After only a day on the floor, I can say that this is absolutely the craziest thing I have ever been a part of.
Besides the endless rows of iAccessories (seriously, if you can put it on or put your in something, it’s here), there is a lot of innovative tech at CES this year – and some of it might actually be useful.
MommyTech (FamilyTech)
Mommy bloggers changed the way the internet world looked not only from a content perspective, but from a marketing perspective as well. Now, a whole new sector of tech is aimed at providing an enriched family experience to consumers – not just moms.
From companies that are offering geo-fencing technologies for cell phones so parents can keep tabs on their teens to prenatal learning technology, it’s all here and it’s all interesting. Gamification is definitely in play as parents look to reward healthy lifestyles and development. There are pedometer-based technologies that look more like toys than a boring pedometer, which could lead to envy among some kids if their pedometer isn’t as cool as the next.
Look for influences in the MommyTech to start changing the way families not only interact with each other, but how they interact with technology. The more apt consumers are to input and share information, the more likely they are to interact with brands using new technologies.
Health + Fitness
This was probably the most-interesting part of the floor that I saw today. United Health Group, an insurance agency, had an incredible booth that not only showcased some of their technologies that are helping companies create healthier employees, but it also was just really well done. The health and tech worlds have long been friends, but up until recently that friendship was purely functional as technologies pushed forward and brought data management solutions and patient care advancements to the health field.
What United Health Group and others in the area bring to the table now is a truly enriched experience for users that puts them in control of information and support for their health needs. Throw in some game mechanics that can be shared with friends/coworkers and you’ve got a modern day recipe for healthy living.
One of the companies in this space that’s been making headlines recently is FitBit. Their pedometers which are crazy-tiny and not ugly at all are being used in offices across the U.S., but their recent product – the Aria scale is almost too pretty to keep in your bathroom. The scale, which connects wirelessly to your home network, allows consumers to track progress, share stats, and connect with friends through their online interface. When paired with FitBit’s pedometer, consumers have an integrated solution that (hopefully) leads to a healthier life.
Motorola, fresh off the heels of their acquisition by Google, launched their fitness-focused product – MOTOACTV. The watch-like device is hyper-tuned to keeping people motivated, while tracking and logging their progress. The device is the same size as a watch and comes running a variant of Android. As my colleague from IPG Media Lab said today “stuff’s going to get crazy when people start rooting these.” The possibilities are endless.
Again, this is a space where people wouldn’t have dreamed about being in 5-10 years ago. Sharing weight loss and fitness information didn’t happen – or at least not outside of Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers groups. Today friends are sharing their runs with apps like Runkeeper, tracking calories with MyFitnessPal.com, and using Nike+ like it’s no big deal. Imagine what’s next.
Up Next…
Car tech, more TVs than you can shake a stick at, social everywhere, and the weirdest things I’ve found at CES.
Disclosure: Some photos and descriptions of products may reference clients of Spring Creek Group’s parent companies, Mediabrands and IPG. These are not meant as advertisements or endorsements and no compensation has been made to this blog or the author.
Last Minute Gift-Giving AKA Hooray for Technology!
Thursday, December 22nd, 2011It’s that time of the year again. You’ve got a long list of friends and relatives you need to buy gifts for and you’ve left holiday shopping to the last minute. And by “last minute,” I mean you’re too late for overnight shipping and you can’t (or simply refuse to) brave the hordes of other last-minute shoppers at the mall.
Lucky for you, it’s not 1983. Nope, it’s 2011 and there are options for online gift-giving aplenty! Hooray for technology! Here are just a few ideas:
- Event Tickets. I’m a big fan of giving the gift of experiences — doing stuff is so much better than accumulating stuff. One of Seattle’s music and arts festivals (and a #client), Bumbershoot, is having a great holiday sale on their tickets for the 2012 festival. Gifting tickets for concerts, beer festivals, film festivals (like the Seattle International Film Festival) and other events in the future also buys you time (just include a message in your holiday card that tickets for the event are in the mail, ready for them to print at home, or available for will call pick-up on event day).
- Lessons. Like concerts and festivals, the gift of learning is something that friends and family aren’t going to redeem until the new year. So get online and get them enrolled in lessons in wine tasting, belly dancing, guitar, stand-up comedy, yoga, tai chi, writing, home brewing, pottery, cooking, salsa dancing, trapeze, photography, or even hula hooping. They’ll have something exciting to look forward to long after they’re bored with their other gifts.
- eBooks, Apps, Music, Movies. Nothing says instant gratification like downloading an ebook, app, movie or album. Check out Barnes & Noble’s NOOK Books, Amazon’s Kindle books, and the Google eBookstore for the bookworms on your list. The iTunes Gift Card is an easy choice for gifting iPhone/iPad apps, movies, TV shows, audiobooks and, of course, music. Giving the gift of an app for Android and BlackBerry isn’t quite as simple but there are workarounds for that too.
- Online Piggy Bank. Help someone start an online savings account or contribute to an existing one at Smarty Pig. You can search for people using their Facebook or Twitter account, or their contact info. You might just find that a friend is already saving up for a vacation, a new bike, or a laptop and you can chip in to help them reach his or her savings goal sooner!
- Memberships and Subscriptions. From ad-free streaming music and television to free shipping, being an online VIP is about memberships and subscriptions. Netflix, Pandora One, Hulu, Rdio are great choices for media. Give the shopper in your life the gift of free shipping at stores like Toys R Us, PetSmart, Calvin Klein and many others with ShopRunner. Amazon Prime memberships, unfortunately, are not so easy to gift for now so you may have to wait ‘til next year.
- Domain Name. There is nothing cooler for the geek in your life than his or her own domain. Register one at Green Geeks, iPage, or FatCow. Don’t forget to check your spelling, and have a friend sanity check the URL (See “Who Retweets Me” for an example of a not-so-stellar domain name).
- Gifting a gift. The best gift of all is a gift for someone less fortunate given in your friend’s or family member’s name. Several fantastic organizations have made this easier than ever. TisBest and Charity Gift Certificates offer charity gift cards redeemable to 250+ charity partners, including ChildFund, Habitat for Humanity, Doctors Without Borders, the ASPCA, and many others. With Heifer International, you can gift a goat, sheep, or even a camel to families worldwide suffering from hunger, poverty, and environmental degradation.
Happy (online) holiday gift-giving!
Spring Creek Group Joins Mediabrands
Wednesday, October 5th, 2011
Spring Creek Group was founded more than five years ago, during the emergence of social media in the form we now experience today. We have evolved and expanded our services for clients as content and social networks on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others have grown dramatically. Through it all, we have maintained a steadfast focus on opportunities to improve our clients’ customer advocacy and engagement. Simply put, our mission is to help customers better connect with each other and with the brands on which they spend their time and money.
Today, we are delighted to announce a major step in our continued growth and evolution as an agency. Spring Creek Group is joining the Mediabrands digital agency division of global media and marketing company Interpublic Group! You can read a little more about our exciting news here.
Spring Creek joins innovative digital agency leaders such as Cadreon, Reprise Media, and Ansible Mobile, and we will play a key role in the newly-formed Mediabrands Audience Platform (MAP). By joining Mediabrands and the MAP initiative, we are bringing our expertise in all aspects of social media marketing strategy and programs execution to our new agency partners across Mediabrands, including leaders in media planning and management such as UM and Initiative, as well as others. In addition to the opportunities that this move creates for us to integrate our social media services more tightly with our new agency partners’ offerings; it opens many new ways for us to introduce complementary services to our existing and future clients.
As a founder of Spring Creek, I am so very excited about this announcement and this new step forward in our growth. I believe that the strategic and - as importantly for me and my team – the philosophical ‘fit’ for Spring Creek Group within Interpublic’s Mediabrands agency group is perfect. They are extremely committed to helping us maintain our vision for the future of Spring Creek, while we also build a holistic digital media marketing services model through the MAP. Above all else, Mediabrands shares a similar set of values to ours. In short, we are thrilled about what the future holds for us, as well as for all of our clients and technology and software partners.
In closing I would just like to say THANK YOU to all of those client stakeholders, partners, and many others who have been so important and valued over the past 5 years. I owe my deepest personal gratitude to each of you who have been a part of our ability to arrive at today’s news, including everyone who has been a part of our SCG team. I am most excited about the myriad new ways this move opens new opportunities for client services innovation and social media strategic leadership for our entire Spring Creek team. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us this far… let’s keep it going.
Warm regards,
Clay
3 Lessons We Can Learn From Twitter
Thursday, April 21st, 2011Recently I came across an article on CNN exploring the validity of Twitter’s place in the social media market, and those questioning the status of its dominance. We know that Twitter is the darling of many journalists and in-the-know technophiles. It has a thriving, niche community. But can Twitter connect with the average consumer? Or, is it purely for the types who are willing to put in the time to learn how to manage multiple stream of information?
Twitter is still very much in growth phase – growing roughly 500,000 accounts per day – and it certainly has a ways to go before it catches up to that other social network.
However, the Twitter structure, that tricky 140-character “status bar” which is referenced in the article, is already influencing the way brands are thinking about how to successfully connect with their customers in social spaces, regardless of channel.
So, think it’s just a tweet?
In my estimation, there are at least three things you can learn from Twitter, today, that will improve your overall communications approach and build stronger communities.
- Brevity: You can’t market your way into people’s hearts anymore. Well, that might not actually be fully true, but what is true is that consumers have less and less tolerance for fluff, so you better get to the point. The 140 character limit is not a limiting factor, it’s a very real challenge to force you to mean what you say and say what you mean. Cut out the excess and get to the heart of what your customer should care about.
- Think Before You Write: There are a lot of variables to consider when you’re using Twitter. Should you create a bit.ly? Should you use a hashtag? Should you look up someone’s handle to mention them in the tweet? All of these things force you to consider a variety of variables which might impact the success of your message. If you’re not thinking about these things, you should start.
- Provide Credit When Credit is Due: Perhaps more than any other social network, Twitter is constantly citing and crediting the source of information. Through RT’s or @mentions, taking credit for someone else’s idea or resource is a faux-pas and you’ll likely get called out. Whereas, taking the approach of thanking someone for their @mention or their article engenders a lot of good vibes, which go a long way to making your social presence authentic and trusted. That will lead to improved sentiment and brand perception, and encourage others to become fans of your brand on social media.
While it’s still to be seen just how big Twitter will be in 5, 10, or even 20 years, does it really matter? We’re already seeing the way it’s impacting the way people are communicating with groups of people, now. We better continue to read the trends and think bigger about why these communications are connecting with people, instead of falling behind. Read the article for yourself and let me know what you think. What else do you think brands can learn from Twitter?
SCG + TAF = (Learning) x 2
Monday, September 20th, 2010
Kids are back in school, and we here at SCG are about to go join them. One of the best things about Spring Creek Group is our relationship with the Technology Access Foundation (TAF), through which we help out with TechStart, their afterschool technology program. Every Tuesday and Thursday during the school year, volunteers from our office head down to White Center Heights Elementary School to assist a talented educator, Tri Nguyen, in getting a bunch of 5th and 6th graders REALLY excited about technology. We help keep the students on task and talk to them about nearly everything from computers and college to favorite colors and least favorite pop stars (classroom consensus: Ke$ha). This past spring, we helped them build and program Lego robots. (That’s mostly a lie. They built and programmed the Lego robots while we looked on in awe and wonder).
We are honored to be a part of both TechStart and TAF’s internship program, which places high school students from the TAF Academy in summer internships at tech-based companies. Brian, our intern this past summer, consistently impressed us with his excellent work and dedication (so tech savvy for such a young person!). We loved that he loved the office snacks so much, and can’t wait for him to come back next summer. We strongly believe that TAF’s mission of “transforming public education for students of color” aligns perfectly with the values we hold as a company. Frankly, we feel incredibly famous to be featured in their Volunteer Spotlight!
Spring Creek Group re-brands as SpringCreek9000
Wednesday, April 7th, 2010We here at Spring Creek Group are constantly on the lookout for new trends and thought-memes in the social media marketplace where we ply our trade. Well, we realized recently that what began as a few small rivulets has developed into a full-bore flash flood in the realm of social media technology and services firm naming convention. [BTW, like the way I subtly incorporated both a water reference AND a 10-dollar word into that last sentence? What can I say, we’ve got a lot of clever copywriters on the team here, and occasionally I go a bit overboard trying to keep up with all of these creative writing majors…]
Allow us, if you will, to drop the following list on you of industry contemporaries, partners, competitors, friends, followers, and those-we-do-not-yet-know… see if you, too, can determine the hip company naming convention that’s been sweeping our industry these past few years:
We know, and we agree: there really is just something so modern, so interactive, so un-old-school about a company name that dares to bring together both letters and numbers in a space-less string of alpha-numeric freshness.
And so, not wanting to miss the chance to ride this wave, we humbly submit our (potential) new company name to you, dear blog readers. What say you?
SpringCreek9000
SCG Out on the Town – TechFlash LIVE: Women in Tech
Monday, October 26th, 2009
A few SCG team members will be attending the first of its kind TechFlash LIVE: Women in Tech event this Wednesday evening at the W Hotel in Seattle. We’re looking forward to hearing a great line-up of panelists coming from a variety of technology fields, as well as meeting other women and leaders in the tech community.
We also can’t wait to see some of our friends and partners, including panel presenter Trish Dziko, executive director of the Technology Access Foundation – one of our key not-for-profit partners here at SCG, and several more women with whom we have worked closely in our marketing programs.
The Women in Tech initiative is something we strongly support, and we always enjoy attending local industry-related events. We hope to see you there!
For additional details visit http://seattle.bizjournals.com/seattle/event/9691.
Everybody’s Heard About the Word (of Mouth)
Tuesday, March 31st, 2009Word-of-mouth has been one of the strongest driving forces in the marketing world since- well, since there has been a marketing world. Create a happy customer or user experience and that person tells someone who tells someone else who tells their hairdresser and before you know it, your widget factory is in need of new space to keep up with the demand.
In today’s world where word-of-mouth is more often word-of-keyboard, how do we track and analyze these messages that are passed on, built up and broadcast?
Sure, you can use readily-available tools like search engines to comb the interwebs looking for mentions, tracking the story and seeing where it originated, but that takes time and time, my friends is money. That’s why, at Spring Creek Group, we work with, associate with, and generally pay attention to leading-edge companies that are solving those problems of tracking and analyzing the word of keyboard side to your online presence.
One of those groups of folks we always pay attention to are our old friends over at Meteor Solutions. Ben Straley, CEO of Meteor Solutions, was recently profiled in the Seattle Times. Here’s the nugget:
“Word-of-mouth is an organic activity. You can’t purchase it, for any price. When it occurs it can produce a fantastic boost for your brand.”
While you can’t buy word-of-mouth activity, you certainly can keep your finger on the pulse, and that’s what we do here. By keeping an eye on how a client’s messages are living on the social Web once they’ve cleared the press rooms, Spring Creek Group provides statistics and qualitative feedback that helps create and refine future marketing – ultimately, it’s money (and time) well spent.
We Paid Someone to Ghostwrite This
Friday, March 27th, 2009
Everywhere we look this morning, a similar conversation seems to be taking place, as there’s a big hullabaloo going down about the presence of these so-called “ghost-tweeters” on celebrity or otherwise well-known Twitter accounts.
Some folks seem genuinely surprised by this news, and others are taking it in stride. We find ourselves leaning more towards the latter camp, as we can’t really discern a logical difference between someone “ghost-tweeting” for a celebrity and the general activities that Public Relations professionals do all the time. As far as those “fake celebrities” go, as long as they aren’t doing any harm to anyone or breaking any laws, we really have no problem with them either.
Ghostwriting (authorized or not) happens all the time, and the fact that it’s now occurring on Twitter should be seen as something neither shocking nor unexpected. If anything, it simply shows that while basic celebrity name recognition may get people’s initial attention and may attract followers (yawn, Faith Hill) it’s really the quality and freshness of your content (howdy, Shaq) that will keep users entertained and coming back for more.
