Text Me a Word...

For this blog post, my class was asked to text message 2 friends the following phrase: "Working on a class project. Need you to send me the word of a random inanimate object/thing." Once we got the words, we were told to brainstorm about them and then write about them. Here are the results of my activity! Enjoy.

First word: KEYS

When I start brainstorming about the word "Keys," my first instinct is to go to the things that people carry in their pockets/purses. Keys to the house, the mail box, the car, the office, a drawer, etc. I also tend to think about how people lose their keys a lot. Keys are physical items that lock/unlock things. People also use keys to "key" a car (aka take a key and run it along the side of a car to scratch it). But, when I think about it a little more, I think about keys like things on a musical instrument--piano keys, keys on a Clarinet or Flute, etc. I also think about the islands, the Florida Keys.

Second Word: PLASTIC CUP

My first instinct makes me think about the a "Red Solo Cup," which is the kind of go-to cup for college students in terms of partying and consuming alcoholic. The next thing I think about is a sippy cup used for toddlers. Cups hold beverages and plastic cups are usually disposable/meant for a one-time use. They are also sometimes linked to the environment since they are made out of plastic.

After we wrote down our first impressions of these two items that our friends texted us, the next step in the activity was to think about different ways that we could combine the two objects. Here is my bulleted list of different ways to combine the words 'keys' and 'plastic cup':

• A plastic cup with a design where there are little cartoon keys are all over it. Also, designs of little instruments with keys or the Florida Keys on them.
• A plastic key/cup kids toy set.
• A plastic cup that has a lid requiring a key to lock/unlock it.
• A plastic cup in the shape of a container to act as a holder for keys (like a tray).
• A plastic cup themed for a trip to the Florida Keys.
• Keys with plastic cup designs on them.
• Some type of mechanism that doesn't allow you to use your keys whenever you've had a plastic cup in your hands for too long (parties).
• A plastic cup model construction of the Florida Keys.
• A piano key acting as a key to unlock the cabinet to get a plastic cup (think about it...it's genius!!)
• A game using plastic cups--you put keys under one of the cups, rearrange the order and move them around quickly, and the person has to guess what cup the keys are under.

Usually, I think of myself as relatively creative but I had some trouble with this exercise! I had to stretch my imagination and think through the two items over time to make sure that my list was a solid list of interactions between the two objects.

The final step in the activity was to think about if any of those combinations would be viable products or services. Overall, I think that a locking plastic cup may exist already. I wouldn't be surprised! With some work, I think the piano key acting as a key pad/locking/unlocking mechanism would be viable. I've heard of mechanisms of preventing drunken behavior based on having to solve simple math problems to demonstrate that you're sober, for instance, and this is a similar idea. An image could maybe populate of a line of music and you'd have to play it on a digital keyboard in order to unlock your drink cabinet that had plastic cups in it. Other than that, I wasn't a particularly huge fan of any of my other ideas. I will continue to brainstorm throughout the week and post more bullets as ideas come to me. I hope you enjoyed my brainstorm!

What ideas do you have to combine a plastic cup and keys?

What Should I Write About?

[DISCLAIMER: I copy/pasted this from Word, so some of the formatting is a bit odd again.]

One of the components of my Customer Insights class this semester is to write a research paper on a topic that is interesting to us. We are going to be linking these topics back to class concepts dealing with customer insights and experiences. I feel energized by the opportunity to share my views and opinions on something I find interesting, yet have had some difficulty in specifying what I want to talk about. Throughout the past week and a half or so, I have sat down to brainstorm ideas that I thought would make for a good topic, and at this point, I have come up with two different topics that I would like to potentially explore.
Initially, I sat down and I thought about what was interesting to me. After some whittling away at my thoughts, I came to the conclusion that social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter are fascinating to me within the world of marketing. I came across an article on MarketingProfs, an organization that, according to their website is “a rich and trusted resource that offers actionable know-how to help…market…products and services both smarter and better.” I am on multiple MarketingProfs listserves and constantly receive articles and snippets of marketing-related information from the site. One article, however, caught my eye.
In an article entitled “How to Connect with Customers on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter,” the people at MarketingProfs write about how important it is to simply have an online social media presence. From this article, I started thinking, and developed a sort of research question that I would be interested in exploring: How does the use of social media tools to create an online presence help a company develop better customer experiences and insights? In general, I am fascinated by the blurred lines between professional and recreational social interaction that is brought upon by a tool like Facebook. And, with the movie The Social Network capturing audiences everywhere, the story of Mark Zuckerberg and his journey to create one of the most powerful information tools on the web can certainly provide for some interesting analysis.
In the midst of thinking about social media, I came across an article called “‘Human Virus’ Snakes Through Twitter.” This article briefly introduced the psychological need for people on Twitter to “retweet” (aka repeat a phrase or thought to pass it along). This got me thinking about the sheer power of what social media has over users and makes me think about what it would be like to have control over such power. Ultimately, I am led back to an article that my professor gave me at the beginning of the semester called “Google: the search party is over.” This article introduces the idea about how Facebook may be able to take over Google in terms of being a top provider of information. The article writes: “Some investors also worry about Google’s ability to keep pace with consumers’ evolving use of the web. Say you want to buy running shoes to train for a marathon. Five years ago you would have simply Googled it, looked at the list of results, weighed your options, and made the purchase, perhaps by clicking on one of the sponsored links that accompanied your search. Today you might still do that, but increasingly you might pose the question “What running shoes should I buy?” to your friends on Facebook, or maybe write “Who knows about training for marathons?” on Twitter.” This concept is absolutely fascinating to me because I am so interested in exploring this new space in the technology industry. I think that understanding and helping to champion a more concrete role for social media in the workplace would lead to a huge win for any company that did it right and did it first. Thus, understanding a company’s use of social media tools as a means to connect with audiences online can certainly help develop some interesting and new insights, as well as create more unique and robust customer experiences.
While I recognize and understand that a lot of my thoughts aren’t yet quite fleshed out, I can’t help but think there’s something there. To summarize, I believe that researching the impact of social media as a tool for companies to reach consumers in an ever-changing environment would make for an interesting research paper. I believe it’s completely relevant to the concepts taught in my class because an exploration of social media lends itself to be applied to customer insights and experiences.
While I have covered the main topic that I am interested in, I did want to touch base upon another thought that did tickle my fancy when I thought about it. Two years ago, I attended the Clinton Global Initiative University conference when it was hosted on my school’s campus. One of the speakers at the conference was Blake Mycoskie, the Founder and Chief Shoe Giver of TOMS Shoes. I was completely fascinated by the business model of TOMS Shoes, as I found it to be a perfect blend of a for-profit business with a non-profit agenda. In case you aren’t familiar with TOMS Shoes, here’s a quick blurb from their website: “In 2006, American traveler Blake Mycoskie befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need.” I haven’t given this topic too much thought, but I believe an exploration of how companies like TOMS Shoes develop customer insights and experiences would be absolutely fascinating. I think it’s because the main customer of TOMS Shoes aren’t the people who are receiving the free pair of shoes, and I would be really interested in exploring how the marketers at TOMS Shoes engage in developing a strong customer experience. I believe using TOMS Shoes as a case study could provide for some really interesting analysis.
Overall, I recognize that I have a lot of thoughts and I simply want to share them. Whatever topic I go with (and I may think of something else later on), I know that I’ll have a fun time connecting it back to my class. I am so fortunate to be given the opportunity to share my thoughts about something that interests me, and to relate it to my major and career interests only makes the experience that much better.