Archive for October, 2011
Our college freshman daughter is attending school in Florida which is a long way from where she grew up in Connecticut (which got dumped on by a freak late October snowstorm this weekend). For her, having her parents come to visit for parents weekend was even more important than it was to other students since most of her classmates are Florida residents and see their families more regularly.
Something I noticed over the course of the three days was how frequently the students and parents were using their mobile phones to communicate and to find things over the weekend. Our daughter would text her friends to find out where they were, where they were going, and who they were with. This coordination was important in making the experience better for all. In turn the parents (me included) and students would search out restaurants, movies and other activities).
Even at the football game I observed both parents and students checking their mobile phones at various points during the contest (there are many television time outs which means no real on-field action is being missed). After the game we knew exactly where and when to meet up with some of our daughter’s friends and their parents.
The moment to moment usage of mobile devices has inexorably changed college parent’s weekend forever – and for the better. When we are on our way to pick up our daughter we can text her when in the past you’d have to pre-arrange the time since there was a time not too long ago where there were not even phones in the dorm rooms much less mobile phones. Thankfully I did not see evidence of Moms, Dads and students all sitting around a table NOT talking and staring at their mobile phones. But I am betting that happened, I just did not witness it.
The mobile experience also allows for information to be shared between parents of fellow students that have just met. Discussions of future living arrangements are not practical during a whirlwind parent’s weekend and sharing contact information is easier on a mobile device and allows for a conversation at a less hectic moment.
I got a sense of a close knit community at parent’s weekend that I had not considered before. It’s a far cry from when I went to college and had the weekly phone call with my parents from the dorm hallway. In those days the calls were considered ‘long distance’ and the cost of those phone calls was a substantial consideration. I know that might be hard to believe for today’s college students.
Our mobile lives are getting more so. Do you think this is a good thing or bad thing?
I am on my way to China for the next two weeks so my next post will be from the other side of the world.
Carol Bartz has been gone from Yahoo for nearly two months and there has been spotty news on management other than Timothy Morse being named interim CEO and Yahoo founders Jerry Yang and David Filo remaining ‘chief Yahoos’. Wednesday of this week David Kenny resigned as president and director of Akamai Technologies. Mr. Kenny is already on the board of Yahoo and there is speculation that he could possibly be the next chief executive.
This all comes as a backdrop as Yahoo appears to be both on and off the market. Last week Jerry Yang Yahoo.com co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang said that while Yahoo’s board is famously exploring all its options, it’s not necessarily up for sale. “The intent going in is not to put ourselves up for sale. The intent is to look at all the options,” Yang said on stage at the AsiaD conference in Hong Kong. http://bit.ly/vGcKmQ
There are apparently many potential suitors interested in Yahoo and Yahoo’s still impressive reach. The list moves from AOL’s Tim Armstrong, to Microsoft, to Jack Ma of Alibaba.com (Yahoo owns 40% of Alibaba.com, a stake that Jack Ma had been trying to buy back from Ms. Bartz before her departure).
The real question many people (including me) are asking is, (despite what Mr. Yang is saying) does Yahoo have an independent future? Or will it need to be part of another company’s platform? In the case of Microsoft (think Bing) – Yahoo and Bing would together comprise nearly 35% of the search market (the balance is nearly all Google) and would be a formidable player in the search marketplace. I don’t see as good a fit with AOL (two somewhat tried and tired brands) or Alibaba.com but they have their reasons for wanting a piece of more than 100 million Yahoo unique monthly users (includes email).
Right now the valuation to buy Yahoo is as much as US $20 billion. The three leaders as noted above all have the wherewithal to make it happen. And of course Mr. Yang is a potential buyer himself.
How will this play out?
Companies who develop a strong Twitter following online have a better chance at increasing sales according to a recent study conducted by Constant Contact and research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey – http://bit.ly/tZIZql.
The survey studied the buying habits of fewer than 1,500 people. A fairly good-sized sample and the results were that 50% of people who follow a brand are more likely to buy that brand’s products. The article also notes however that it is not all that easy to get a Twitter user to follow a brand. I would agree with that as I am not one to follow a brand on Twitter although I have done so on Facebook to some degree. In fact only 21% of Twitter users follow brands.
Also significant was the statistic that 75% of people surveyed said the never ‘un-follow’ brands after making a ‘commitment’ to them. Although I don’t really understand how following a brand shows my commitment exactly.
Mashable lists the study’s five main reasons for following a brand on Twitter:
• 64%: I am a customer of the company
• 61%: To be the first to know information about the brand
• 48%: To receive discounts and promotions
• 36%: To gain access to exclusive content
• 28%: To receive content/information to retweet and share with others
The article also noted that Twitter’s follower numbers closely mirror a Facebook study that also found that 56% of users on Facebook who like a brand’s fan page are more likely to recommend that brand to friends while 51% of consumers who like a brand Facebook fan page are more likely to purchase that product. I expect that this comes as no surprise to anyone.
Twitter continues to evolve (check out Simon Cowell’s comments on his personal turnaround on using Twitter as a listening device in today’s New York Times http://nyti.ms/vuE6dT), and personally I find myself following fewer overall people and culling out people I am following if they don’t put out tweets of interest to me. I am following over 900 people and there’s no way for me to sift through that many people’s tweets.
Brands are doing a better job of leveraging social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. For me it starts and ends with what kind of engagement the brands offer, as well as what kinds of offers the brands offer!
But there’s still room for improvement don’t you think?
Most Americans have been impacted by the difficult economic times that have occurred since 2008 (or even earlier for some). Being a very resilient sort, Americans have adapted to the difficulties in many different ways. American consumer holiday spending has been one of the most impacted areas.
A report that came out this morning regarding plans for spending in 2011 was eye-opening to me. According to the National Retail Federation’s 2011 Holiday Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey, conducted by BIGresearch, holiday shoppers say they plan to spend out an average of $704.18 on holiday gifts and seasonal merchandise, down slightly from last year’s $718.98. The report is forecasting overall holiday retail sales to grow 2.8% during the months of November and December to $465.6 billion.
Average Holiday Spending
Year Spend
2004 $699.98
2005 734.69
2006 750.70
2007 755.13
2008 694.19
2009 681.83
2010 718.98
2011 704.18
Source: NRF/BigResearch, October 2011
In addition, a new shopping poll conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs shows that given the current state of the economy, 45% of U.S adults plan to spend less this coming holiday season than they did last year.
Women are more likely than men to say that they are going to be cutting back their holiday shopping budgets (49% vs. 39%), as are adults ages 35 and older compared to younger adults (49% vs. 35%).
Consumer Spend Planning 2011 Holiday Season
Plan % of Respondents
Same as last year 42%
More than last year 11
Less than last year 45
Source: Ipsos, October 2011
There are several things that I find surprising. First is that consumer holiday spending dropped from over $750 million in 2007 to $681 million in 2009 rose in slightly in 2010 and is predicted to drop once again in 2011. Second is that 45% of consumers plan to spend less in 2011 than they did in 2010. Does the idea that nearly half of Americans will spend less on holiday gifts this year than they did last year strike you as significant and interesting?
Is there a better example of how the far the U.S. is from the go-go 1990’s and early 2000’s? I hope that if there is any positive thing to be gained from recessions and economic uncertainty, that it comes in the form of people becoming less focused on simply having and receiving more ‘things’.
There’s nothing wrong with living a little more simply is there?
On Wednesday the USPS announced that as of January 1 the price of a first class stamp will be $0.45 (up from $0.44 for those of you that might not be familiar with the cost of mailing a letter in the United States). There has been much written about the declining fortunes of the United States Postal Service (USPS) and coincidentally (or not) an article in yesterday’s Chicago Tribune entitled ‘Can the postal service be saved’ http://trib.in/nf7FMK , caught my attention.
My first thought was, should the postal service be saved? Callous I know, but an organization that has changed not nearly enough in over 200 years will no doubt be difficult if not impossible to ‘fix’.
My subsequent thought was – what would be the reasons it would even be worth trying to save the postal service? Here are the few I came up with.
1) Experience. The postal service has the most experience in delivering to nearly all Americans where people and businesses are as well as the optimal routes to get there.
2) Costs and Service. The postal service delivers for Fedex and other third parties. Without the USPS, pricing for those third party services would no doubt increase and likely their service would be impacted negatively.
3) Avoid increasing U.S. unemployment. With 9.1% reported unemployment putting the remaining (as the USPS has shed more than 200,000 jobs over the past several years) 500,000+ employees on the street at this time would be devastating. The USPS is the second largest civilian employer in the country (after Wal-Mart). However the impact would be much more substantial than that as there are an additional 3.1 million people indirectly employed in jobs affected by direct mail marketing http://bit.ly/ptSGuA.
4) Trust. The postal service is a trusted institution. Americans by and large trust the postal service to deliver mail accurately and efficiently. That cannot be said of many U.S. institutions recently. When you compare mail delivery in the U.S. to that of other countries, the USPS fares quite favorably.
5) Opportunity. Although it may not always be apparent there are opportunities for the local post office to offer additional services – driver’s licenses, car registrations, passports – are just a few of the adjunct services that could be added.
Why do I say blow it up first? It is written a bit in jest but a bit seriously as well. I could have as easily written a post offering 5 reasons the postal service should be shut down. Like an archaic model built 200 years ago that has too many vestiges operating today. Or the fact that the postal service has been used as a civil service pasture for veterans and others but they’ve not been given the training to compete in today’s and tomorrow’s economy. I could go on. But at the very least a complete overhaul needs to occur in order for change to truly take hold.
Postmaster General Pat Donahue is saying some very right things – but will the postal service survive long enough to implement them?