The MoPR Blog

If you’re not convinced that mobility technology has become intrinsic to our daily lives, this post ought to convince you. Not only do people want any data (i.e. e-mail, music, research, databases, conversations, etc.) anytime they need to have it, anywhere they are, they also want it in style.

Mobility form has now met mobility function.

Apple of course achieved the technology-as-fashion-accessory with its iPod, designing a device for music to be worn and held as an accessory (people want to be seen with an iPod; how many people want to be seen with a calculator?). Coach accessorized the accessory (remember our trip from Vancouver to Seattle when Melissa stopped at Coach?) with a whole series of iPod cases (Melissa’s is faux fur).

And lets not forget Stacy’s hot pink Razr phone.

But now get ready for the new wave in ultimate technology-as-fashion-accessories: designer notebooks.

And why not? The notebook computer is no longer a tool for the traveling executive; every demographic uses one. Kids have them. Great-grandparents have them. There are four in my household.

And just as other “things” from purses to cars communicate something about who we are (which is why I’ll never have a minivan), why shouldn’t the notebook computer?

If you like big bad-ass SUVs, then Hummer has a notebook for you. The shock resistant case can withstand a drop from 10 yards up and can work in extreme temperatures. Hummer makes these laptops sound really cool with statements such as “Designed for the person with superior computing and geospatial positioning information needs.”

I have always said there was a market for geospatial positioning information needs. (Free advice to Hummer marketing: be the first to enter a Wikipedia entry for geospatial positioning information.)

Hummer says “the HUMMER Laptop is a go-anywhere wireless computer to keep you connected while pursuing life’s adventures.” These adventures include having a spot of tea and a scone whilst enjoying the sun at an outdoor cafe, as pictured in this publicity still from the Hummer website.

In all seriousness, this computer has some very cool features like a built-in work light and a rugged handle. But this computer is not just built for function, it is built for style and will appeal to people who love outdoor adventures and, um, big bad-ass SUVs.

For people who think the ultimate computer accessory is a leather laptop bag from Coach, Asus Tek may have the computer line for you. The Asus A6 luxury laptops are bound in leather and sport a more professional look than its ruggedized cousin from Hummer. Just as with cars, luxury comes married to performance. The leather-clad A6 notebook uses the new Intel Centrino Duo chipset, comes with 1GB of memory, 100 GB hard disc and a CD/DVD recordable drive.

Form and function don’t always have to possess right angles in the mobility world, and Dutch computer company Tulip Computers has a new notebook line to prove it.

These handbag shaped computers sport a fabric and leather exterior and truly are a technology-as-fasion-accessory.

If you’re not ready to commit to a brand new computer or spend the extra money for ruggedness, leather or art in order to express your personal sense of technology style, don’t worry, a company called Schtickers may have the solution for you. A glossy sticker — I mean schticker — you can apply over the top of your notebook or iPod.

Of course there have been other notebooks before the haut couture models showcased here to be sure. Acer has had a Ferrari notebook that sports a shiny bright red case with a the Ferrari logo. Alienware created a line of notebooks to appeal to gamers. And there are others.

Some have said that blending fashion with technology is a way for second tier manufacturers to create a differentiation from leaders like Dell, Lenovo, Gateway and HP. I don’t think fashionable high-tech is a fad. I’m certain it’s a trend.

Mobility is a part of our daily lives, so why not customize your technology to fit your personality? We do it with our MP3 players and mobile phones, so why not laptops? Some people will pay $3000 to $5000 for a handbag; is it hard to imagine people won’t pay a little extra money for a sense of style around their computers. No one has to worry too much about designs going out of style either. The computer will likely need to be replaced within three years anyway, just to keep up with the new technology.

The MoPR team wants to hear your thoughts on fashion technology. What do you think of the trend? Have I missed other cool designs? Let us know what you think…

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Earlier this month, former Microsoft head blogger, Robert Scoble, offered a set of Business Card Best Practices on his blog.

In transitioning jobs Robert went through his more than 1,000 business cards and came away with some tips on what to include (and not include) on your business cards to make them stand out and serve their purpose. These are definitely worth a read.

He gives us 11 best practices, of which my favorite is “A good business card starts a conversation”

Interestingly, Robert discusses different versions of his own business cards, including his most recent card from his role at Microsoft which included his name in Braille. He writes that he actually only gave his card to one blind person, but that the Braille on his card served a different purpose all together - - it was a conversation starter.

Robert’s post also mentions a version of his business card that featured a cartoon from “business card cartoonist” Hugh MacLeod. Hugh penned the cartoons here for Scoble.

Any of Hugh’s business card cartoons featured on his site, gapingvoid, are available for free download. If you are a big fan of MacLeod’s you can also snag his art widget for your own blog here.

In the PR business I think there is a special level of expectation; that given we are professional communicators our business cards should communicate above and beyond the average business card. I think this is fair. After all, why would a company hire us to help them communicate if we don’t do a good job with our own image?

In addition, networking is such an important part of PR. On the agency side, that business card you give to a company executive might not be looked at for months; but when that executive is in the hunt for a new PR agency you can only hope that your business card made the cut, is still in the executive’s collection, and that you made a strong enough initial impression to earn a call back.

Several years ago I attended the CTIA conference in Las Vegas while supporting HP’s PR efforts around its Mobile Bazaar program. We had a ton of meetings with media and analysts at the show, and as I was preparing for the trip one of the things that stood out to me was the disadvantage that an agency contact has at a big busy tradeshow like CTIA in that they are not a direct employee of the company they are there promoting. For example, I was working with The Hoffman Agency at the time, but was supporting Hewlett-Packard. As I was meeting reporters and analysts (sometimes for our first face-to-face encounter) I wanted to make sure that I impressed upon them that they could call me in the future for PR-related questions around HP.

It was far too late to order new custom business cards just for the conference, so instead, I created stickers that were the size of my business card which I then carefully placed on the backside of the card. The stickers said “The Hoffman Agency For Hewlett-Packard” along with a short bulleted list of the areas of HP that I could assist the media with. The stickers also included my cell phone number as the best way to reach me during the show, along with the Web address of the online press kit for our news that week.

I received a lot of feedback from journalists that the information was really helpful. In fact several commented on the number of agency cards they have for which they have no idea what clients the agency represents. I’m sure I’m not the first to go to these kind of efforts for a tradeshow; and in fact I’ll wager that many agencies probably have been printing client-specific business cards for years. However, based on the feedback from the media it seems to me that we all could be doing a better job with this.

MobilityPR will give this idea a run while we are at the CTIA IT & Entertainment conference in LA this September.

What do you think?

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[Warning: some of the links embedded in this post are rated PG-13 for language.]

What kind of blog would The MoPR Blog be if we did not have at least one post about Snakes on a Plane (aka SoaP).

If you’re not familiar with the movie Snakes on a Plane (see the trailer), it’s about a plane. And there are snakes on it. It also stars Samuel L. Jackson (not in this picture). I don’t think I’m giving too much of the plot away if I say that Samuel L. Jackson probably kills a few of the snakes (that are on a plane).

Why is the movie Snakes on a Plane featured in The MoPR Blog? Because the back story of this movie is the PR person’s dream about the impact of blogs, social networking and the Internet for a product launch.

The movie, in theaters August 18, had a troubled marketing life and might have ended up being a complete theatrical disaster. But thanks to the blogosphere, Snakes on a Plane might end up being a surprise hit film of the summer season.

The script was given the working title Snakes on a Plane. That title captured the interest of Samuel L. Jackson who agreed to star in the film based on that title alone. But then the studio, New Line Cinema, changed the name of the project to Pacific Flight 121. To quote Jackson, “Give me a break.”

The next problem was the film garnered a PG-13 rating, which actually is a bad thing for an action thriller. The studio wanted an R rating. The movie seemed doomed.

Or did it?

About a year ago word got out that Samuel L. Jackson was committing career suicide by signing up to do a movie with the laughingly simple title Snakes on a Plane (a title that later became a Hollywood joke: “So-and-so can’t get a movie made, but New Line is making Snakes on a Plane”; “they’re already in preproduction for the sequel, Snakes on a Train”; “it’s a trilogy, the next movie is Snakes on a Submarine”).

Word spread, as word often does, to the Internet. Suddenly, it seems, the movie was a blogging “phenomenon.” Bloggers began to refer to this phenomenon as a “meme.” Culturally, memes are things like tunes, catch phrases or fashion that propagates from one person to another until it has completely caught on within the pop culture. Lance Armstrong’s yellow “Livestrong” bracelet is a meme.

The blogging about Snakes on a Plane caught the attention of the press. The reporting on the blogging caught the attention of the producers. The producers started paying attention to what people in the blogosphere were saying. They changed the name back to Snakes on a Plane. Using ideas from bloggers, the studio shot an additional 15 minutes and now seems headed for an R rating.

The sustained buzz lasting for far longer than six months seems “unprecedented”, and many movie pundits are saying the bloggers should be given credit for giving a film — that will likely be critically panned — cult status before it even hits the screen.

The blogosphere has created its own (unsanctioned) marketing campaign with movie art and movie gear. The movie already has its own Wikipedia entry. In part to show gratitude to the Internet community for this buzz, New Line Cinemas released the first movie trailer via Yahoo! before any other advertising began.

Let’s not forget the buzz about the buzz. There are now blogs reporting on the press’ reporting on the blogs reporting on the movie! One fascinating aspect about the coverage is how words like “unprecedented” and “phenomenon” are used in news articles about the blogs.

While I fully recognize the importance blogs played in the back story of this movie, I would hardly call the blogging unprecedented nor do I find anything phenomenal about it.

For example, a Google search of “Snakes on a Plane” (in quotes) returns a very respectable 5,080,000 results, but a Google search of “Nacho Libre” returns 31,900,000 results. A Feedster search of blog posts for “Snakes on a Plane” returns 6,164 results while returning 19,508 for “Nacho Libre” (these statistics don’t measure the traffic to these various websites, but one might imagine they are on par). If some of the conclusions in the reporting holds, Nacho Libre should sell between three and six times more tickets than Snakes on a Plane.

Lets not forget the first movie to become an actual Internet phenom: The Blair Witch Project. In 1999, before there was a blogosphere, a $25,000 horror movie shot like a documentary was marketed almost exclusively via the World Wide Web until it could find a major distributor. Many people who saw the movie read the story on the Blair Witch Project website and went to the theaters thinking they were really watching the recovered video footage from three lost student filmmakers. The movie grossed over $248 million. Now that is unprecedented!

But it is precisely because such buzz has its own momentum that I find this story so fascinating and why I believe this is a PR person’s dream story. The lesson: The Internet and the blogosphere within it must play an important role for all product and service launches to be successful.

I am going to see Snakes on a Plane (and for the purpose of full disclosure, I’m going to see Nacho Libre too). And I also signed the petition to let the owner and webmaster of snakesonablog.com attend the movie’s premiere!

The MoPR team would love to hear your thoughts on Snakes on a Plane in the blogosphere as well. Share your thoughts today…

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