Race in America

Being black in America today means more things than meet the eye. A recent Pew research poll showed that only 53% of African Americans thought that black Americans were "a single race". Similarly, the majority off African Americans felt that the values of poor and middle class African Americans has been/is growing.

This is not surprising given the recent well in the number of middle class and affluent African Americans. What is interesting is that this has caused fracturing and class-like divides to occur haves incur the jealousy of the have-nots. To some extent, it is more than jealousy: polls show that middle class African Americans are less likely to give back to the community, reflecting on what many of them feel is the "handout" values of many of the population.

Another break between the groups represents media image values/tastes. Interestingly, 70% of the people (all African American) polled said they saw rap music as a bad influence - a figure that holds up across age groups. Equally, over half of the people polled said that the image of African Americans in film and on TV was negative.

So while once there was a huge solidarity between African Americans, class seems to creating breaks that change how we need to start conversations with this group of people. but perhaps more interesting is the cultural void that is not being filled for African Americans. If rap is wrong (or current rappers anyway) and music/TV is not doing a good job, where are the shows on BET or Time Warner TV (which have strong "black" programming" to offer an alternative?

For the full report see this NPR story.

a nation of singles

No, not a plug for match.com, more a music related analogy. In the US 119 M albums were downloaded this year online, as compared to 288 M singles. So no matter how much thought an artist puts into arranging an album as an experience, people prefer to do the re-arranging themselves. But perhaps there is something more.

Perhaps the story is more that people prefer whatever they buy to accomplish one goal very well and very simply. A single does that nicely (though admittedly so could a concept album). I've been looking for a new printer and I am amazed that there aren't that many good simple inkjet printers - to get a good one i have to buy a "bundle" of a scanner/copier to. I could argue a a Wii does one thing well, a PS3 tries to do several things and not succeed. The exception seems to be the iPhone, though I am guessing problems will/have emerge with one function.

Some of the best experiences we have these days seem to include modularity as a key component - you get in as deep (or as shallow) as you want to. The challenge is to now affect the supply chain in a way that consumers can control those bundles as much or as little as they want. Similarly, retailers need to ask themselves how they can provide different kinds of shops with different levels of shopping experience.

Aggregate Knowledge

I had a chance to meet with an SF based company called Aggregate Knowledge who are providing a very different kind of ad network. In short, they are using dynamic knowledge/recommendation software as a way to provide not only more targetted ads but also research. This is one of the first times I have seen this type of software deployed across a network so that you can use herd behavior to drive ROI and recommendations. But the research possibility almost seems more intersting since it is actually based on behavior.

test and learn product development

When the blogosphere has talked about taking a test and learn attitude to marketing (because you cannot predict what will or will not work), the assumption is often that this doesn't include product development. but there is no reason why you shouldn't do that if you can have patience.

A great example is the approach Nokia is taking with its Internet tablet line. When they first launched the N770 they only intended to sell 2000 of them to super geeks. Thats not only a great way to seed the market but a way to get expert feedback. The third phone of the line (which will have 5 in total) is the N810 and if it sells more than 300 000 units that will be considered just fine.