Peeps from Mixtur will once again be attending the TechFlash BBQ which takes place tonight (July 28). Annie will be attending, of course, but I will also be making a very rare public appearance (how cool is that?). Last year's event was a blast and I'm sure this one will be equally as awesome. See y'all there!
It is hard these days for me to get up early enough to make it from Bainbridge Island to Bellevue on a Friday morning for NWEN events. Hey, it is summer...and we are super busy here at Mixtur!
But...I see that our good friends at IntheWorks are lined up to participate in NWEN Idol on August 13th. Ive just signed up and will be there bright and early to cheer them on.
Check out what Scott, Todd, Sean and the IntheWorks team are doing in the marine emission controls space with the AquaCat...very cool (and important and good for the planet!) stuff.
Hope to see to there!
Big shout out to the folks at NWEN for organizing another evening of speed dating fun at this week's Pub Night.
As the "marketing expert" in the house, I had a chance to meet with a healthcare technology business development consultant and 5 organizations:
Here are 3 of the "pearls of wisdom" I gave these folks:
Check these companies out and let me know what you think...
In product launches, like anything else, there's always a possibility that something's going to go terribly terribly wrong. User dissatisfaction and changes in trends (closely coupled and often hard to predict) are also elements that marketers have to deal with over longer periods of time. Mobile operators hedge their bets by offering users a variety of devices to choose from at different levels of sophistication and price point. That's true for the entire range of devices a single carrier may offer...unless you're AT&T.
AT&T has decided that it's high end device would be the Apple iPhone. And luckily up until now that device hasn't had any significant problems with it other than Apple's inability to keep up with initial demand each time a new one shoots out of the gate. But with the iPhone 4 things have taken a bit of a disastrous turn. Yeah, in typical Apple fashion they thought they could just shrug this one off but luckily for the consumer this problem just wouldn't die and so despite blaming the media, Apple sort-of decided to address the issue with a rubber case.
Okay, so some people are going to be happy that Apple has admitted there's a problem and they'll give you a free case to fix it. But what about that segment of the AT&T subscriber base that would rather just switch to something, well, more reliable? Or what if you've grown tired of waiting for the elusive white iPhone 4 which has been delayed and delayed again? Unfortunately, AT&T doesn't have many (if any) real alternatives to the high end Apple platform, thereby guaranteeing an exodus of disgruntled iPhone 4 users (or wannabes) to any of those alternative carriers who have maintained a stock of high-end Android phones. How smart is that? It's always important to have a Plan B of some sort or at the very least. to anticipate that there might be a need for a Plan B.
UPDATE – AT&T has released it's first high-end Android phone: the Samsung Captivate. And clever marketers in the UK have decided to play off of the iPhone 4's faults. It's still just one alternative when so many others could exist, but at least they've got something now, which was better than a couple of days ago!
UPDATE 2 – Poor AT&T. Apparently, the Samsung Captivate also suffers from what is now known as the death grip. Leaving the company's high end phone line-up in a mess. Doesn't anyone test anything anymore? Well, we know Apple does but it's no good when you test your phone with a camouflage case.
Mixtur is pleased to announce the addition of Randy Urquhart to the Mixtur team as Senior Art Director. Randy was one of the original designers/art directors at Seattle-based Horton Lantz & Low (now HL2) where he worked on the Microsoft, Redington, Seattle's Best Coffee, Torrefazione Coffee and Vail Resorts accounts. Most recently, Randy headed up Mile 25, a small design firm servicing Fish Brewing Company, Harrison Medical Center and PATH. Randy brings to Mixtur extensive experience in identity design, collateral design, advertising, and in-store point of purchase and environmental graphics.
"We've been working on getting Randy over to Mixtur for quite a while," said Mark Eissler, Mixtur's Mission Architect and CEO. "His combination of skills and extensive big agency experience will help us push our way into servicing larger clients who have worked with agencies in the past but are now looking for fresh ideas or a more efficient way to market their goods and services."