Last night my wife, Charlotte, and I attended a fundraising event for The Bridge Breast Network. This is a great group of people from all walks of life that have found a serious gap in our healthcare system and are doing something about it.
Breast cancer patients without private healthcare receive diagnosis later and die sooner than those with private insurance. The Bridge is a group of doctors, medical facilities and concerned citizens that link uninsured women to diagnostic and treatment services. Literally saving lives.
I was shocked when I heard that the Bridge provided services to over 45,000 patients last year. This is one organization serving one major metropolitan area in Texas. How many more uninsured across our nation die each year because of the lack of access to standard diagnostic services and treatment?
With the cooperation and generosity of the medical community, every dollar donated to the Bridge provides ten dollars in services to its clients. Last night I saw first hand the dedication and generosity of the doctors and individuals who commit their time, their resources and their money to a cause that directly saves lives.
A job well done and an example set for all of us. Look around, you might find a need you can fill that has a direct effect on someone’s life and if you do so, make sure it becomes a contagious behavior that gets others involved. And, if you live in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, give to the Bridge.
Blackberries have become the defacto smartphone in most business and legal communities. This has a lot to do with email security, and a perceived lack of business applications on the part of the popular iPhone, however, a short survey we conducted has led us to believe that the next few years could contain a stronger wave of iPhone adoption across the professional world.
Young people who were in school when the first iPhone came out were able to choose the iPhone as their first smartphone instead of this decision being made for them by their company. This contrasts with the many individuals who have been accepting company phones for years. It is normal to become attached to the technology you are most experienced with and the millennials are no different.
This unique group of early iPhone adopters is now starting to enter the professional world and they’re taking their phones and their OS preferences with them. We thought it would be interesting to survey business school and law school students to see what kind of phones are currently used, ask why they chose them and to hypothesize on how this might impact the business phone market in the next few years.
Our survey included 114 business undergrad and graduate law students and was very simple. We asked them what kind of phone they had and why they chose it. A few interesting trends emerged.
One of the most interesting results was the surprising lack of smartphones in the law school. 46% of law students did not have a smartphone at all. This really blew our mind, especially when they showed us the old phones they use every day. Of the business students, only 16% did not have a smartphone. We surmise that law students are both poorer than the undergrad business students and, as graduate students, are less likely to still be on their parent’s phone service.
Overall, the iPhone handily beat out the Blackberry. Of 114 total respondents, 32% had iPhones compared to 19% with Blackberries. This result was expected, but more interesting is a comparison of the reasons why people chose a Blackberry as opposed to an iPhone.
iPhone users were more likely to say they chose their phone because of personal preference while Blackberry owners tended to choose Blackberries because their options were limited. Many reported that they chose Blackberry because it was the best phone supported by their or their family’s plan or because it was cheaper. In fact, only 5% of respondents said they chose the Blackberry because it was their preference.
This is important because it implies that young iPhone owners have overwhelmingly chosen their phone because they think it is the best, most advanced phone on the market, while young Blackberry owners tend to choose a Blackberry because they are restricted by price or their wireless contract. In the end, these Blackberry users will be less attached to their phones than iPhone users, who will want to continue using their iPhones as they become young professionals.
This information should inform action on the parts of all businesses that provide employee phones and phone service, as well as Apple, Blackberry and smartphone app developers.
These millennial professionals entering the workforce will expect to use the technology they are comfortable with. Apple and iPhone app developers should be doing whatever it takes to reinforce more widespread adoption of the iPhone and iPhone applications designed for business, while businesses should be open to adapting to the needs of this new wave of iPhone addicts.
The Bottom Line of this Contagious Behavior Survey
· 46% of law students and 16% of business students surveyed did not have a smartphone at all
· 32% of all respondents had iPhones while only 19% had Blackberries
· Only 5% of Blackberry owners said they chose the Blackberry because it was their preference (they thought it was cool or just liked it) compared to 44% of iPhone owners
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Despite announcements about new platform and OS ‘collaboration’ initiatives, the landscape for smartphone applications is getting more fragmented, not less. Here’s are 3 things you should look at when considering which platform or marketplace to participate in.
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Tuesday, I finally arrived home after attending the Winter Democratic National Committee Meeting as a guest. The meeting was not scheduled to last that long, but this giant winter storm that even Obama called snowpocalypse had a significant portion of attendees stuck in a winter wonderland version of our nation’s capitol.
Fortunately, I was in great [...]
Contagious: exciting similar emotions or conduct in others
Behavior: anything that one does involving action and response to stimulation
I thought I would take a moment to talk about the concept of ‘contagious behavior’. Obviously, the discussion of contagious behavior has increased since the publication of The Tipping Point.
As marketers we all know that 3rd party endorsements [...]
Guest Post: Emma Vernon, my valued research coordinator, is 22 and a recent college grad. Emma is of the first generation that has never known life without the Internet and 24/7 connectivity. Because of this unique perspective I have asked her to join in on the conversation. Below is her first post.
How difficult are you [...]
Which one are you talking about today?
Read a couple of articles yesterday focused on mobile marketing and the music business. One headline talked about a 360 degree mobile strategy and one talked about making 1.8 million connections.
The one talking about the 360 degree mobile strategy was a PR piece that touted this for Universal Music [...]
In the near future, the bulk of all retail transactions will have some mobile component in the shopper experience. If retail is your business, you had better get on board with this one right away. It is moving at light-speed.
Here are 5 trends that will drive this:
1. Trust in mobile ecommerce. We are rapidly extending [...]
Yesterday, I watched an interview Om Malik did with Josh Williams, the CEO of Gowalla. It was an odd interview that gave me a serious DotComBust flashback. My comment on Om’s blog was: “Small interactive design firm stumbles into a ‘hot’ space with no real business model, shows up at all the cool conferences, raises [...]
