Chiconomics. Appendix A to Marketing, and Open vs. Closed.
by Steve Tsuida, September 24
Chiconomics:
This is essentially Appendix A to the post on "Marketing and Open vs. Closed"
Fashion and the black art of belonging are Closed©.
There are groups you must golf with even if a crowd-sourced free game of ultimate frisbee would be just as fun and better for you. If you could open one of your many Cultures' cases you'd find a shocking number of soldered-in parts and non-upgradeable ROM chips.
Read more about Chiconomics after the break.
Accepting Chiconomics helps me be at peace when I see so many urban commuters in Calgary shoveling so much debt-money into landwhale pickup trucks.
- It's not a truck. It's a membership card.
- It's not a music player. It's a scarf.
- It's not a smartphone. It's the fourth piece of a suit.
- It's not always about Open or Closed, sometimes it's about In or Out.
Feature sets matter, but you need to know which feature set your customer cares about. Are they looking for advancement, connectedness, confidence, security and validation while you're selling modularity, uptime, extensibility and a liberal EULA?
<history>I think Microsoft gets it.<⁄history> Their recent (and clumsy) crop of TV marketing has taken the focus off of features, and tried to shift it to features. Users want security, but the security they really wanted was in being part of an in crowd, and the in crowd seems to be carrying a lot of non-Windows hardware. Enter Microsoft with a new message about security. Not you're safe from malware, but rather, you're safely "in".
Homework.
- List three things about a successful competitor's product or service that make absolutely no sense.
- Prove yourself wrong.
- Make notes. Grieve. Regroup. Edit. Win.
Steve Tsuida is Kryos' Graphic Designer. He is a member in good standing with the iPod crowd and the I Order Starbucks Drinks With a Reusable Coffe Mug crowd. He understands why you still drive an SUV.
