The iPad will be a home run.

While it is unlikely to sell at the volumes of the iPod, iTouch and iPhone, due to its high price point, it will be a successful, industry-impacting product.

And the absence of a camera and flash and all the stuff the “gizmo-gadget-geek-hood” berate will be a significant reason for its success.

People around the world spend their waking hours in three spheres. These are:

a) working / creating in which the dominant posture is sitting,
b) communicating/travelling in which the dominant posture is walking or standing, and
c) consuming/relaxing where we slouch.

The computer is optimized for working/creating while you sit. The mobile phone is ideal for communicating/travelling. However in the area of consuming/slouching, there has been no dominant multi-purpose electronic device.

Yes one can watch television on the computer and read books on the phone, but these are tertiary benefits of the dominant role for each device, which are creating and communicating. They fall in a usage gap, as discussed here.

The iPad is optimized for consumption of electronic media, and for slouching. It is perfect to consume books and magazines and online video and Facebook and Twitter.

It is about a state of stature and a state of mind, not a state of technology.

In a slouching device, I do not want a stupid camera or anything (including buggy flash) to remind me of work or technology.

Forward understanding of human needs combined with design elegance is what makes Apple successful. Not creating Swiss army knife technologies that only the small fraction of us that read the tech crunches, gizmodos and mashables of the world lust for.

Technology usage has been freed from the geeks. (Though, happily technology creation still lives with them.)

We want the technology to go away so we can get on with creating, communicating and consuming.

And Apple understands this better than anyone else.

Related posts:

1. Ali vs. Jobs: The Curse of Brand
2. The Marketing Implications of CES 2010
3. PLAYED – February 2010

Recently, I had the opportunity to join in a conversation with top marketing executives from companies such as Bank of America, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Mercedes-Benz USA and Xerox at the 5th annual Forbes CMO Summit in Palm Beach, FL. The topic of discussion was “Preparing for Growth,” and how companies can work to rebuild their brands and boost sales as the economy begins to stabilize and grow.

I broke my presentation into 4 parts: Observations, Predictions, Challenges, and Suggestions. I’ve outlined them below.

OBSERVATIONS

Marketers Need to Take STD Action

We are living in a time of STD – S= Seminal, T= Transformative and D= Disruptive. To survive in this industry, we need think seminally, be willing to disrupt and deliver transformative solutions in a world of constant change.

Consumers are God

Consumers are now in control. We need to understand and meet their requirements to be successful. Doing so successfully will require a marketing renaissance of skills and inspiration. This asymmetric warfare, or fact that consumers have supreme power of marketers, will continue as the web and rise of applications have given individuals greater power and information.

We Live in a Post-Digital Age

The idea of “digital” dominates marketing conversations, as it should. However, people live in both worlds: cyber and real space – their media spans digital and analog; we shop online and offline. Companies that connect the two will be successful, while those that focus on only one have failed to see the world as consumers naturally see it.

PREDICTIONS

Non-Working Costs Spend Will Rise

Working Media spending may have seen its peak in 2007/2008 as clients focused more on performance media, earned media and owned media. Great focus will be shifted to non-working costs – things such as time spent on developing experiences, technology, talent and experts. While total marketing spend will rise over the years with GDP, there will be a significant shift from “working” to what is considered “non-working.”

Mathematics Will Be Our Guide

Mathematics will stop being a separate “country” for marketers. Marketing will certainly grow more analytical, but it will not be via machines or equations for decision-making. Rather, we will use data as a guide, not as a crutch.

CHALLENGES

The Future Doesn’t Fit in the Containers of the Past

Organizational structures of all incumbents are challenged since they were optimized for an analog-only world. The speed and ambiguity of the modern marketplace will require significant reorganization.

People are Analog

People are analog, even though the world is increasingly digital. True, the world is going digital but people are not capable of moving so fast. Unlike machines and codes, they have feelings. They are scared of change and worry about turf issues and the like. We need to acknowledge this and make sure appropriate training, incentives and risk management are built into the company.

We Are Optimizing for the Past

The economy has made it such that companies are now cutting back on budgets and staff, even though the amount of work and challenges are at an all time high. This barrier causes us to give up on things that will matter most in the future, leading to underinvestment and underdevelopment.

SUGGESTIONS

Run a Schizophrenic Operation

Keep your company optimized for today with a group optimized for tomorrow. Fund and incentivize appropriately. Everyone reports to management, but let the group focused on tomorrow work against different objectives and metrics, rather than blending the two into a mediocre mess. Only the schizophrenic will survive.

Build A Culture that Matters

The most important word of mouth for a brand is not of your users, but of your employees and ex-employees. What they say matters the most because customers believe these folks are “in the know.” Thus, managing a respectful, honest, innovative and transparent culture matters a great deal. The culture will exist regardless, so embracing it and managing for it will be a strong advantage.

Move from Marketing to Facilitation

Marketing has been outsourced to the end user (think about how you plan your own travel and investigate your own purchases). Let’s think of how to help facilitate self marketing. In fact, instead of being a Chief Marketing Officer, become a Chief Facilitation Officer.

Related posts:

1. Reflecteur – Issue 57
2. The Marketing Implications of CES 2010
3. Denuo @ Media 2010 Sydney to Debunk Sacred Cows of Marketing

I was recently interviewed by MediaPost about my reading habits and thought Denuology was an appropriate environment to post an excerpt of that conversation:

What’s the most thought-provoking book you’ve read this past year?
The Black Swan. [The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb]

Does it apply to your career?
It basically says that often the big shifts come when the unexpected happens – à la declining real estate prices – and since Denuo is in the disruption business, it helps us explain to clients why the outrageous things we say about how to do things moving forward are only outrageous because of status quo thinking.

What notable concept, theory, or pattern have you distinguished in your reading lately?
The best books now have not only a distinguishing voice but a new way of expressing the voice. For example: Bottomless Belly Button, which is a great new graphic novel, tells a story of family and loss in comic book form; or White Tiger – the Booker Prize-winning novel speaks about India in ways I have never read. The key is to be authentic and differentiated. One needs both.

Do you have fears about reading being replaced by a more multimedia experience?
Reading is being replaced by a more multimedia experience and it is not a bad thing per se – go see penguin.co.uk for new ways to tell short stories – if the multi-media adds to the story versus the story itself. I do believe however if you have an imagination, words on paper can be a multi-media experience.

Do you own a Kindle?
Yes, I do. I am a reader and I like knowing what is going on. I use it for sampling books – first chapters can be downloaded for free. But I read the book if I buy it in hard form since I love the smell and feel of new books and a physical artifact like a book helps me recall stories when I see them in my library
To see the original article, click here.

Related posts:

1. From blog to book deal.
2. Reflecteur – Issue 46