Musings

Reflections on life lived by a coast

  • Home
  • Travel
  • Yoga
You are here: Home / Archives for technology marketing

People and The Essence of Things

October 18, 2007 •

Sev­eral years ago IDC pre­sented a seg­men­ta­tion model for mobile device users that included a clus­ter called “min­i­mal­ists.” Min­i­mal­ists rou­tinely use tech­nol­ogy-based prod­ucts for home and work, but want prod­ucts with­out com­plex­ity or unnec­es­sary fea­tures. Min­i­mal­ists want a phone to be a phone — not a cam­era, game con­sole or FM radio. They want a com­puter to start up in sec­onds flat, run with­out viruses or user-account-con­trol inter­rup­tions. They don’t want to have to read the own­er’s man­ual before dri­ving a new car off the deal­er’s lot.

Prod­uct devel­op­ers suf­fer­ing from “fea­ture-itis” and min­i­mal­ists are poles apart in what they value. Any­one who has upgraded across mul­ti­ple gen­er­a­tions of soft­ware has prob­a­bly fallen vic­tim to “bloat­ware,” the usual con­se­quence of a devel­oper team that suf­fers from “fea­ture-itis.” Because it’s expen­sive to explore what cus­tomers really want, or would really use, in any mean­ing­ful way, it’s so much sim­pler for prod­uct teams to engage in fea­ture wars with their arch rivals. Hence, bloat­ware.

Minimalists — A Neglected Opportunity?

From my POV as a con­sumer, it’s clear that most tech­nol­ogy brands have cho­sen to over­look the oppor­tu­nity rep­re­sented by “min­i­mal­ists” as poten­tial cus­tomers. When I refer to “tech­nol­ogy brands,” I’m not just think­ing of the com­puter or Inter­net sec­tors, but also con­sumer elec­tron­ics, home appli­ances, cars, etc.

As I recall, min­i­mal­ists (as revealed by IDC’s research) tend to be older adults, prob­a­bly lead­ing-edge Boomers, afflu­ent, well edu­cated, often in the empty-nest phase of life. More than a few have sec­ond homes, have money to spend on travel and leisure activ­i­ties. And yes, they buy and use mul­ti­ple cat­e­gories of tech­nol­ogy prod­ucts, from microwaves to mobile phones, com­put­ers, and home enter­tain­ment devices.

But when a min­i­mal­ist goes shop­ping, she is likely to be con­fronted by a morass of con­fus­ingly named prod­ucts, with lit­tle appar­ent dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion, and way too many unnec­es­sary fea­tures. This chal­lenge occurs in many prod­uct cat­e­gories, includ­ing home appli­ances, but is all too preva­lent in tech­nol­ogy brands.

Worst of all, you have to pay for those unwanted fea­tures that are bun­dled into the prod­uct. Have you ever tried to nego­ti­ate with a car dealer to drop the price based on all the fea­tures that you did­n’t want in the car? I tried, and got only a laugh.

My most recent expe­ri­ence has been try­ing to buy a cell phone for my hus­band. He wants a phone with superla­tive voice qual­ity, long bat­tery life, large back­lit keys, clamshell form fac­tor — and no cam­era, FM radio, email/IM/SMS or other mes­sag­ing fea­tures. He uses a Black­Jack for work, and in his per­sonal life, wants a sim­ple phone to bring along when he hikes, bikes or kayaks. Oh, and a price below $100. Need­less to say, this is not the kind of device that today’s lead­ing wire­less car­ri­ers want to pro­mote. Back I go to craigslist…

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

Recent Posts

  • Wet Sand, Wet Boots, Birds
  • Living with Vintage Items
  • Slowing Down
  • Reflections on My Camino
  • Going Off the Beaten Track in France

© 2020 by Christine Thompson. All rights reserved. • Log in