Rosie Boycott wrote an interesting piece on how women and men’s brains are wired differently, how she has changed her view from believing it was nurture rather than nature that determined a woman’s success and ultimately we are all born equal in line with Simone de Beauvoir.  Now, she concedes, after reading The Sexual Paradox by Susan Pinker, that the reason that most women in the their early 30s choose to opt out of the career game is that women are

“wired to resist the demands at the top of those fields.   Women care more about intrinsic rewards, more service orientated and are wired for empathy.”

Nature wins over nurture.  It is to do with the levels of oestrogen that women have, along with prolactin and oxytocin which surges in pregrancy, breastfeeding and mothering.   These produce a ‘natural high’ and tests have shown that female rats experience a greater rush of pleasure from being with their newborns than from cocaine!  As a new mum myself, I never for one moment dreamt that I could feel such intense and strength of emotion for another human being.  I found the whole experience completely overwhelming.

Women are looking for inherent meaning from work, as opposed to domination which is more what men look for.    Pinker asserts that we need to accept and honour differences amongst the sexes and not mark everyone according to the accepted standard of money, success and drive.

Brands must understand that women’s and men’s brains are wired differently and their buying behaviour and reasons for purchase are not the same as men.   Technology brands must respond to these differences rather than play lip service or fall into cliche land i.e pink it up and dumb it down.   A woman I spoke to today, echoing hundreds of women, told me how the fear of not wanting to feel stupid was what prevented her from enjoying and experimenting with technology.  So much of the fear that women have when it comes from technology is from being self-conscious and not wanting to get ‘that look’ which involves eyeballs rolling from a 19 year old at PC world.  Whether the reality of the experience is actually like that is irrelevant, that is how women feel about technology and tech brands must realise this and put changes in place to make women feel comfortable about buying technology.

Consider two siblings: One of them is beautiful and receives lavish affection. She is universally adored. The other left with only her wits and natural abilities to survive in a tough competitive world.

Nokia N95 and E65

The first child is artistic and is encouraged from an early age. She is famous for her talent and ability to entertain. Meanwhile the second finds it difficult to compete. She struggles to live up with to her more successful sister’s fame and reputation.

The first receives constant acclaim from a legion of adoring fans, while the other is dismissed as a cynical copycat, or worse an impostor riding on the coat-tails of the more talented and interesting older sibling. Such is the relationship between Nokia’s popular N-Series phones and it’s relatively unknown sibling the E-Series.

Nokia N95 and E65

Nokia sent me the E65 to review. It’s positioned as an alternative to the Blackberry (which I use as my main business phone). It’s Nokia’s attempt to capture a slice of the ‘Business Professional’ market place.

I was anticipating something sleek, beautiful and stylish. Something as classy as the forthcoming N96. What I got was a wannabe phone: sturdy, ugly and quite plasticly. It came in a standard cardboard package, and the un-boxing was free of drama or excitement. It’s almost impossible to believe that this product is an offspring of the same family that bore the N95 and it’s glamorous successor the N96.

Compared to the Nokia N95, the interface is small with buttons placed ever so slightly too close together for hurried fingers. It’s saving grace is the navigation – its intuitive and simple and you don’t have to read the manual to do basic things such as send messages, take pictures and videos and access the web. Nokia have evolved their phone interface over almost a decade and anybody who has used a Nokia phone during that time will find it instantly familiar and comfortable.

Underneath the serious packaging the E65 is essentially the same sort of thing as the N95 – they both run exact same Symbian operating system however Nokia have decided to distinguish the two product lines by having slightly different initial configurations. For example, the N95 comes with a podcasting application, a selection of games and a great media player. The E65 comes with… well I’m not sure what. There seemed to be a bunch of links to download ‘business software’ but there was nothing actually loaded onto the phone that the similarly priced N95 didn’t have.

The operating system may be virtually indistinguishable, but the hardware is dramatically different. The E65 is like a cut-down N95. Take away the N95′s GPS, the 2-way slider (with extra media buttons), the stereo speakers and the dual-cameras, the support for advanced Bluethooth Profiles and the handy Stereo Headphone socket and you would be left with something with approximately the same feature-set as the E65…

… Almost because the N95 has the uncanny ability to connect to almost anything while no amount of network-trickery and calls to tech support enabled me to make a reliable WiFi connection on the E65.

The model’s position is ‘Style with Substance.’ I showed some of my Lady Geek friends and interestingly before they even spoke about the functions of the phone, the conventional design had put them off. One Lady Geek felt it was very masculine. She wanted her phone to be something she could show off – the E65 is not a phone that Lady Geeks will want to show off.

If Nokia want to capture the female audience, the first thing they need to do is not think of them as ‘business professionals.’ Women’s personal and corporate lives are merging -most people use their mobile phones to stay in touch with family and friends while at work. Instead of letting work into their private life, people seem to bring their private life to work. See previous post by Elisabeth for more detail.

Nokia need to find insights about their audience; they must see beyond “business user” cliche and get to the truth of how women feel about their mobile phones.

The second thing they need to think about is packaging. The packaging should feel like a box of delights. A luxurious item. If you are asking women to choose between a pair of Jimmy Choos or the E65, you need to think about every aspect of the experience: right from the product through to the packaging. The choice of the E65 or a pair of Jimmy Choos- I know which one I would choose!

The E65 is not a bad phone, it’s merely disappointing compared with Nokia’s flagship products. All it takes is some imagination to show how the N series is probably a more appropriate business communicator than anything in E-Series (with the notable exception of the E61i).

I think Nokia are also making the big mistake of under-selling the business potential of their more well-received N-series phones. While primarily designed for fun and entertainment these more powerful phones have all the processing clout required to accomplish mundane business tasks. Why not mention this fact in their advertising?

Finally the long awaited Sony Foam ad. Miami is transformed into a giant bubblebath, filling whole streets with foam.

Sony’s Foam ad

Its an epic of an ad and I love the idea of inviting real people to frolic and film their own stories within the ad.  Director Simon Ratigan of HLA enlisted the services of 200 temporary employees in the form of locals, armed with the latest products to shoot their own footage. The idea was that all participants would then upload their film and pictures onto an online database, however, anticipating the leakage of this content, they actively encouraged sharing across the digital space – the ad has had 40,000 hits on YouTube in just over a week.

Its fun, watchable but most importantly, its a demonstration of the quality of the products in mass media (Handycam, Cyber-shot and new ‘a’ range of digital cameras).   The world has moved on, advertising can’t just sell, it needs to demonstrate even within mass media. 

What I love about Sony is that they are doing everything that ad agencies advocate: build a brand, create a Lovemark, take your brand on a journey.  Make people find your product irrestible.  In the tech sector, very few companies with the exception of Apple, are doing this.  Most tech companies tend to be very tactical in their approach and focus on the specific features of the product when most people have no clue or interest in the finer details of what they are buying.  For example, 70% of people think that once they have bought their HD TV that all the programmes they watch will be in high definition.

Sony not only have improved their advetising in last few years but they have changed the way the way they do business and made their stores a much more inviting place for women Not only that, they are redesigning their retail outlets in Switzerland to include couches and offer child care services (that would be heaven for me and most mums) and their staff are being trained to ask about interior design tastes and wishes.

My only begrudging critique is that it feels that the strategy has been streched somewhat to fit this ad.  I think the reason Colour Like no Other is so successful is that is such a simple link to the product and everyone (including my mum which is always a test of simplicity) gets the message. SImple, clear and elegant. This ad has a much more tenuous link to the Sony products on offer – images like no other feels one floor down from the original thought.  Very powerful ad nonetheless.  

Ars Technica reported that Accenture recently surveyed internet users in the UK and the US by (just) phoning them to explore how they dealt with internet security issues. Some interesting country differences emerged. In the UK 70% remembered their passwords yet only 50% of the US population managed to do the same. US citizens were more likely to write down their passwords. And apparently there is a gender story too: women tended to write down passwords more often than men in both countries.

Another just-approach-them study conducted as part of the Information Security Awareness Week outside Liverpool Street Station in London tried to entice commuters to provide personal information in exchange for a chocolate bar. Overall only 21% were willing to give this information. However 45% of women and only 10% of men were willing to enter the chocolate-for-information deal.

The studies did not speculate on why this is the case. Is it that women are just more friendly and willing to help strangers when they approach them and are asked for their passwords? Might they just have too many things to juggle in their head already to remember all the passwords and therefore write them down? Difficult to tell. But remember to change your passwords from time to time and if a stranger asks you for information offering a chocolate bar, be vigilant!

As David Pogue said in the NY times, Bluetooth earpieces remove….

“any remaining visual distinction between a busy executive and a lunatic.”

I read this and laughed.

I love and hate my Jabra Bluetooth headphones. I love them because they allow me to do what women love to do: multitask. I can chat to a work colleague whilst changing a nappy. I can make a cup of tea and talk to my mother-in-law. Not to mention phone calls sound amazing.

Since having babies, my life has become just one long to do list which I never seem to get to the end of. So when I can get them to work, its amazing. I can forgive the odd stares I get from people along the street (I think I fall in the lunatic category not the busy executive).

But most of the time, I can’t get them to work. I struggle with tapping them once or twice to get them to connect, i struggle with getting them in pairing mode. They have far too many buttons and lights that flash mysterious, baffling codes.

Admittedly, I have not read the manual but like most women, who has the time or inclination? I want to plug and play. I want technology to be instinctive. I get so frustrated. Yesterday after re-pairing them for the hundreth time, I was ready to throw them in the bin. Thats how irriated I am by them.

The Flip camera has so few buttons you can’t fail but to understand what each one does. The ipod is so instinctive you can’t not learn how to use it. Bluetooth headphones are such a wonderful idea but why cant they be as simple and reliable as a wired headset?

My friend I was chatting to this morning, had to put the phone down half way through an important conversation as she couldn’t push the buggy and chat to me at the same time. Bluetooth headsets are a GREAT IDEA – it’s just that every bluetooth headset I’ve tried has been poorly implemented.

The opportunity for brands is to make their bluetooth products reliable and intuitive. If I technology-literate women like me struggles with these devices, what must it be like for other women? I know so many women who would love this product, but I won’t be a product advocate until companies like Jabra start undertsanding the need to make these things ‘just work’.

On Wednesday I read an article in the Metro called ‘’. The article is based on a report produced by Gamesvision. This report claims that 23% of people aged between six and 55 play computer games and 41% of gamers are female. These are encouraging statistics.

The article argues that this is due to more women who join the labour force and program and develop games. The games have in turn become more realistic. This means that the busty Lara Croft went from a 36DD to a 36B. Well, she still fulfils the ideal of slender femininity and has still a perfect wais to hip ratio. However Lara Croft is now a bit more realistic than before.

This makes business sense for game producers. If they alienate half of their potential consumer market, it does not make sense to have stereotypical representations of women. Having more women programming games together with consumer demand might thus change the face of gaming or rather the representation of female characters.

A fascinating topic. The university of Warwick will host a conference on Women in Gaming from 10 to 12 September.

Last week I attended a change management course which was taught by Richard Jolly. When we talked about personal change, we discussed how the BlackBerry and other technologies transformed how we work and live.

On the one hand the BlackBerry means that boundaries between work and home life are removed. Earlier work was clearly contained by the physical space of the office. You had to work in the office and were kicked out when the offices were closed. This has changed, however. Now we can be always on and we expect other people to be always on too. If your boss sends you an email on a Sunday you better have an answer when you meet him or her the following morning or even better for your corporate brownie points, reply straightaway. Replying instantly to an email is seen as a great achievement and celebrated in society. However this constantly on phenomenon leads to that people burn out easier and work takes over all aspects of life. This all contributes to what is called hurry sickness. Hurry sickness is the feeling that everything has to be done instantly and that it cannot wait a couple of seconds.

There is the other side to it. The liberating aspect of technology. You can now answer emails while playing golf and pretend to be at work. Working mothers often celebrate that their life has become now more integrated when they are able to have a BlackBerry. They can type emails from home or while on the tube. Yes, a BlackBerry allows you to use your time more efficiently. Especially when your time is limited.

In reality, life is probably not as black and white but has many shades of grey. You have to work hard to not allow technology to take over your life.

Switch off your BlackBerry and give yourself some time! There must be times when you are just not available. Some of the most successful business people I know regularly take time for themselves when they are just not available and this time is non-negotiable. This times saves them from burn out, allows them to recharge their batteries and makes them more focused and productive when they work.

If you manage people you need to think about what kind of example you set them. If you send emails on a Sunday, your employees will work for you then. It might be wise to write emails off line and send them on a Monday morning and most things can wait.

Decelerate your life and still use the benefits of technology!

Nokia has finally unwrapped its N-Gage mobile games service globally, allowing users of their newer smart-phones to download some half-decent games for their mobile phones and providing a real alternative to console and PC gaming.

Mobile gaming is on the increase: Its a great way to attract ‘snack’ or casual gamers, of which a large proportion are women. I have seen many women on the bus, train who play games on their phones. I do not think these women would ever be seen in public playing a DS or a PSP – playing a game on the phone is more respectable (even if it’s that boring breakout game on the BlackBerry).

Travel time is ‘dead’ time for women – they don’t have the same guilt and feeling of indulgence that they would have if they were to ‘surrender’ an hour of valuable home time to play Mario Galaxy. Home time is too valuable, and this is why the hand-held gaming market is skewed towards female gamers.

The genius of N-gage is that Nokia have delivered a fully portable game-platform that allows players to try before they buy. Like the XBox Live Arcade at home, this feature of the new N-Gage takes the risk out of choosing games, as buyers are safe in theknowledge that they will not be mis-sold. You always know what you are going to get before you hand over your cash.

The new N-Gage games are just downloads. There is no need to visit a game store (hooray as they are not exactly inviting to women) and there are no game packs to be lost or damaged.

According to Mintel data (2007), women are far less likely to spend money on gaming, particularly on a subscription model that dominates the hardcore gamer market. Nokia have sensibly adopted a pricing model similar to Nintendo’s Wii, that is once bought games are free to play online.

While I think Nokia have got much of this right, it’s still going to be a tough sell: The Nintendo DS is the hottest selling games platform right now, and shelves are literally bulging with many lifetimes worth of casual games.

Having the N-Gage platform pre-installed on all future phones will make a big difference – however even then I think Nokia will need to advertise heavily in order to help women understand the clever features that are buried deep within their phone’s memory.

I bought an Xbox a few months ago and I was quite excited at the prospect of having it in my living room. My husband enthused that it was ‘something for the living room to watch films on’ which would replace our DVD player’ – this seemed like an an interesting prospect. Being a film aficionado, having lots of new films/TV shows and video on demand is very appealing.

The first thing I noticed about the Xbox Marketplace was the selection of films are very limited and not that appealing to women. Its mainly the hardcore men titles with the occasional “chick-flick” (Miss Congeniality) thrown in for good measure. The selection is designed to appeal to adolescent boys – there’s a surplus of action films and high-octane thrillers. The movie store was a dissapointment, but what about all the other content that Microsoft sold us on?

There’s a TV and short-films section which mainly consists of pop videos and the kid’s show “Viva Piniata”. These are the same pop videos you can watch for free on any of the Freeview music channels, except in the Xbox marketplace you pay a few pounds for the same content you can get for free on TV or via YouTube.

The value of these official downloads is further diluted by XBox marketplace’s vague licensing: Downloaded movies must be watched within a week of the original download or else the movie becomes unplayable. Likewise a move which has been started must be finished within 24 hours before it expires and becomes unplayable. Does the same restriction that applies to a Will Smith movie also apply to a Britney pop video? Who knows – I wasnt going to waste money trying to find out!

On the subject of payment once again the Xbox marketplace is confusing: Microsoft have decided to invent their own currency which is neither Pounds, Dollars nor any other familiar currency but “Microsoft Points” whose rate is arbitrarily set by Microsoft. This means we never really know how much an Xbox marketplace costs until we check the latest points to pounds exchange rate. How much money is two-hundred Microsoft points? I’ve absolutely no idea and I doubt that most Xbox 360 owners do either.

So far, I haven’t downloaded a single paid-for film – that’s only partly because Microsoft’s commercial media proposition is a failure. The other reason is that the XBox 360 can play XviD and DivX files – these files can be downloaded from a huge selection without payment and then kept forever (or until I decide to delete it). The XBox 360 is such a superb movie player that nobody who knows this would ever be tempted to waste money on the sub-standard good in the Xbox Marketplace.

This is a massive missed financial opportunity for Microsoft. The Lady Geeks I spoke to were similarly impressed by the XBox 360′s media player abilities but felt let down by the range and restrictions of the marketplace. Ultimately YouTube and illegal downloads offered a better value proposition than Microsoft’s half-hearted offering. Microsoft should offer a wider selection of movies which appeal to more than just the traditional adolescent male gamer, plus they should price their downloads in real money rather than confusing points. These are all modest changes (compared to the technical difficulty of building the system in the first place) that would dramatically extend the Xbox 360′s appeal to women.

Yahoo has launched Yahoo Shine, a site for what Yahoo says is an “underrepresented demographic.” It will combine Yahoo’s food, astrology, and health, content with fashion, beauty, and parenting sections, stories from publishers like Conde Nast, Hearst, Rodale, and TIME, as well as original content. The site will feature blogs submitted by users, as well sections on work and money and tips for the home.

“We’re executing on Yahoo’s starting point strategy by ensuring that women who start their day with Yahoo! are offered a more relevant experience,” Scott Moore, senior VP and head of Yahoo Media.

All of this is music to my ears. I went on the site and was slightly disappointed with the reality. They do seem to have fallen into the usual traps of talking to women. The first advert that pops up is ‘Fancy Lingerie that you can afford.’ Everything on there was expected…from spring cleaning tips, to pregnancy, to fashion, to how to spend more time with your husband without the kids. I was hoping for something a bit different to the usual “women’s portal” rubbish.

I also searched hard and found no tech site or tech news which I think is a huge missed opportunity: As one lady commented, “really, yahoo? astrology, fashion, and beauty? this is sooo exciting for us gals. i’ll check it out tonight after i do the dishes. as long as my husband says it’s OK to use the computer.”

I wonder how sensible this strategy is: Portals were big news in the late 90′s when there was a clear need for the Internet companies to offer the average internet user a guide to the best of the ‘net – however a decade later the Internet has been transformed: Sites like Google Reader and Bloglines allow anybody to put together their own ‘portal’ with content increasingly selected from the diverse “bloggosphere” rather than major publishers like Conde Nast. Shine seems like an attempt to revive the popularity of big-brand content at a time when the trend is clearly against the publishers.

I think the Inquirer is a bit harsh when it states “Shine appears to be a shallow façade of a site, pretending to offer women something new, when it obviously doesn’t.” I wouldn’t go that far but my advice for Yahoo is to deliver on its vision of offering something new. Inspiring Chief Household Officers (I love this!) to enjoy technology is a good place to start.