Neighborhoodly Love

This week's New York Magazine article, the New Collectivism, highlights the increasingly communal nature of New York City. Social networks are being taken off-line, so that like-minded people can meet in real life to swap and share information and resources, or to simply spend time together participating in common activities or interests. From cabs, child care co-ops, and community gardens, there is no limit to what can be shared and enjoyed in this new communally-focused society.

I'm sure this idea is not specific to New York, however it feels a little progressive for smaller towns, where your neighbors might not be on the other side of an inch of peeling drywall. New Yorkers often are dying for excuses to get out of their cramped apartments. The idea of getting together with fellow pickle lovers might not appeal as much to people have to drive 30 miles to Walmart to pick up a gallon of gherkins. Many of these shared networks start online, often through popular websites such as meet up.com that help to facilitate these type of connections.

Although I don't currently engage in this collective New York, it's comforting to know that these types of groups are emerging and are available to me if the desire or need arises--could definitely be worth my while. It seems like a great way to take social networking a step forward to make more meaningful connections. New York is a stressful place to live, with a little help from your community, it could make life a little easier, and enjoyable.

Does anyone have any personal experiences participating in these types of networking groups? I'd love to hear them. If you're single, this could be an alternative to a dating site and a great way to meet people in a somewhat organic way. Just an idea:) Enjoy!

Leapfroggers

Traditionally, marketers for tech gadgets ignore late adopters such as me. The standard practice is to lure the early adopters who in turn create buzz, eventually persuading the masses. The recent Wired article, Clive Thompson on Why Gadget Makers Should Target Late Adopters, makes a case for why marketers may want to rethink this strategy and show people like me a little love.

Marketing academic Jacob Goldenberg’s recent work suggests that laggards, which make up about 16% of the population, are a crucial high tech demographic for marketers because of their “leapfrogging” tendencies. Laggards may hold out on buying every new product on the market, but when they get around to buying they often skip several generations of products and end up leapfrogging ahead to the latest and greatest version.

According to Goldenberg, the economic impact of converting leapfrogging laggards is huge and can really drive profits. Also, word-of-mouth endorsements from these late adopters are especially powerful (i.e. “If Erin is using this thing, it must be easy and accessible”)!

Thinking about this potential shift in marketing strategy, I wonder what it may take for tech marketers to effectively reach me. They would have to meet me where I am, which until recently was not tech blogs. More mainstream avenues, perhaps my favorite New York or Lucky magazines, might be more effective. The message would have to be simple, emphasizing how the new product or service would add value to my life—I won’t be sold on cool, new features, because I likely won’t understand how I benefit from them. Speak my language.

Many late adopters like me have the motto, “if it ain’t broke…” and the lens “is this worth my while?”—show us that it is worthwhile, give us a fair price and you may win us over after all.

Striking a Balance

When talking to my computer science-studying, game-loving buddy, Jeremy Pope, I wanted to pick his brain on what websites, apps, and tools that he can’t live without. I got a few cool new ideas from him, but what also came through loud and clear in our conversation is how important it is to set boundaries.

I liked Jeremy’s perspective “The point of technology is to enable us to spend more time doing the things we love. When it goes beyond that it becomes a distraction.”

Being that Jeremy works and studies computers and technology, he has made a conscious effort to set boundaries and pull back, for instance when away from work, he purposely only checks his email a few times per day. He also makes the most of his time on a computer, aiming to be productive for a finite amount of time versus getting lost in the vortex.

On mobile: I asked Jeremy to sell me on a smart phone, and he kind of did (although I don’t have any immediate plans of going out and buying one I definitely see the value). Simply stated, with the iPhone he doesn’t worry about anything because anything he needs to do, he can do on the spot. Jeremy gave me many convincing examples of the iPhone’s utility, especially when traveling, but also spoke about the need to develop self-restraint. (For a review of cool iPhone apps, check out the app trail). Jeremy’s response to my complaint of how people are constantly glued to their phones is that it is just a symptom of the relative newness and novelty of the device and will hopefully fade over time.

On what he can’t live without: Definitely not the iPhone! Jeremy also loves his Google Toolbar for accessing his bookmarks (I wish I tried this before my Delicious.com experiment, it may be more up my alley). He touted the benefits of using Mint.com for money management (I will investigate Mint in a future blog post since I could definitely use help in the budgeting department). He also gave me a little demo of Google Voice (Google’s free voicemail service which miraculously allows you to make free domestic calls, unifies multiple phone lines to one common number, and sends you sms text versions of voicemails among many other benefits) which seems pretty awesome.

On social networks and geo-location social networking: Jeremy relies on Facebook for news and events updates from his friends, which is consistent with how all of my friends engage with Facebook. LinkedIn is the go-to for professionally networking. Most people, including myself, like to keep their professional and personal online worlds separate.

Jeremy toyed around with the geo-location networking application, Foursquare, more so when he was single and out on the town. He enjoyed the fact that it is super real-time, fun, and game-like; “a great example of technology helping you do what you want to do, be with your friends.” Since I don’t have a smart phone I am off the hook for trying geo-location networking apps, phew.

Although Jeremy has briefly tweeted, he now just uses Twitter for finding out about local events through following groups such as “Brooklyn Weekend events”. I may give that a try at some point, but for now I don’t have any trouble finding weekend fun, mainly through word-of-mouth, New York Magazine, and e-newsletters like Daily Candy and Going.

What goes around comes around: Jeremy and I agree that there is a bit of a pullback happening now. People want to get back to what’s real and authentic and are attempting to reconnect to local businesses and agriculture, seeking out the local, fresh, and handmade, to counterbalance the global disconnect from the organic in our fast-paced, technology-driven lives (Brooklyn Flea, anyone?).

“In a way I’m a minor part of this pullback from the digital age where I’ve been so engrossed I’m stepping back now” says Jeremy. For me, I am cautiously exploring, stepping forward, one toe in at a time to see what’s worth my while.