The Linkerview: Booth babes? Really??

Primesense just came back from one of the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshows, the 2012 International CES in Las Vegas, and my friend, Iris Finkelstein-Sagi, the Director of marketing for the company posted a link to the following article, titled: “2012 CES Booth Babe Problem Highlights Women’s Perceived Role In Tech – Let’s Fix This”.

She is a real tech lady with a nice track record in the business. PrimeSense, of course, is the company that developed the technology behind the Kinect — yes, that high tech device that takes nice credit for the top sales of XBOX in 2011.

I also watched the linked BBC report and I need to ask: Booth babes, really?

“Yes, we hired ’booth babes‘. It first came up within the need to hire people to demo the product. We didn’t consider them ‘booth babes’. We weren’t looking for models in bikinis to demo our new User Experience. We had a list of requirements and we looked for the right people to be presenters at our booth. One presenter had to play games which included jumping up and down and moving a lot – so obviously this had to be someone who could still look good when jumping up and down and young enough to be able to do it all day. We had a little controversy about what this person should wear and the discussion on this topic was almost surreal. I think we would have been as uncomfortable discussing it if we were hiring men, but we ended up hiring 2 women.”

So why did you hire women? And what did they wear?

“Well you hire women to meet the expectations of the market. The two girls we hired wore regular, nice clothes. Not ‘sexy wear’. But for us – it was easy. We had 4 more presenters in our booth, hired by our partners. 3 of them were a little more controversial. Our partner Bodymetrics lets you virtually try on clothes, in the comfort and privacy of your home, in front of your TV screen. Obviously for the technology to properly map your body you need to be minimally dressed. They now offer it to 3 types of female body shapes, so they hired 3 female models, one for each body shape, and dressed them in tight Yoga outfits. It wasn’t sleazy or anything. Another partner, Visikord, offers an interactive dance app, and they hired a dancer to demo the product, which was also a big hit.”

So no sleazy or sexy outfits, how did it work for you?
“We were surprised by how many people came to talk to the booth babes about the products, choosing them over the company representatives wearing formal company tags. Not to mention the sheer number of people standing around just gawking at them.
You know, we invested a lot of energy thinking about ways to attract people to the booth. CES is a large event and we had to compete for visitors’ attention. The Kinect is famous enough for people to look us up, but it turns out all you really need is a couple of models and you’ve got people crowding around you all the time. People walk for miles in such shows. There is so much to see. They stop where they see something nice, pretty, and attractive. Apparently that’s all you need, no special effects”

How do you explain this phenomenon? After all this is supposed to be a professional tradeshow.
“I find it really crazy. We should definitely do some scientific anthropological research on this to better understand what is happening to people when they see ‘booth babes’. We also have to ask where to draw the line. Some presenters really appeared in sleazy outfits. Not appropriate for a professional trade show at all”.

Excuse me for stating the obvious, but aren’t most visitors males?
“In this show yes, probably 80 percent of the visitors are men. But I read a thought-provoking question in one of the articles relating to the booth babes: If we turn it around and take a show where most visitors are women and companies use male booth-babes, would it have the same effect? I wonder.”

Did you ever consider hiring one female and one male to demo in your booth?
“Actually it never came up. Bodymetrics, for instance, is currently only targeting women. And all the solicitations I get from marketing companies and models agencies offering their services for the show – all relate to women. The option to hire a man never came up. During the show we did a lot of social media efforts, and had a lot of Twitter and YouTube coverage. One tweet I remember specifically said “PrimeSense booth babes are the best”. That was the only thing he said.”

Strange?
“More like shallow”.

And we said that’s a professional show?
“It’s gotten better over the years. It used to be worse. The whole ’trade-show models’ industry has declined over the past few years.”

So your link said “let’s fix this”. Do you think we can?
“What needs fixing is the presenters’ image of themselves, and the image of women in tech. If they think that the only reason for a woman to be at the CES show is if you’re a ‘babe’, this is disturbing and demeaning. I think in most cases we have reached a point where it is not so sleazy any more. Maybe the next thing would be to change the term we use. As for the industry – it is characterized by fewer females. Fewer women play games than men. When it comes to purchasing a flat screen TV, at best the man will probably look into the tech aspects and the woman may look into the design. But the majority of tech gadgets are male oriented.”

I think the balance may actually change in the future. When I go to a high school I can’t say female students have fewer smart phones then male students.
“Right. Personally I like gadgets as much as the next guy. I’m not as gadget-crazy as a lot of men I know, but I do like this industry. That’s why I have been in it for so long. Things do change over the years. Gadgets are getting friendlier and simpler, more natural and intuitive to use and less black and geeky. It is reflected in the design trends. We do think of how to fit our product in the living room and make it appeal more to women. Wii brought gaming into the living room, making it friendly and accessible for the entire family – it’s not just geeky kids and hard-core gamers anymore – its whole families, women, grandmothers etc. Microsoft took this one step further with the Kinect by really thinking about turning a gadget into something as natural and intuitive as possible – so EVERYONE can relate to it.”

How was the self perception of your ‘booth babes’?
“Well they earned a lot of respect from our team, for beating all the Fruit Ninja records. I think they were proud to be representing a company who attracted so much well-deserved attention at the show – for the product, not the external trappings.”

The Linkerview: The Path to Publishing

A couple of days ago Shelly Terrell, my friend from Texas, posted a link to an article titled “A Self-Published Author’s $2 Million Cinderella Story” .

Shelly is a teacher trainer and founder of #edchat, a weekly online international chat about education, happening weekly on twitter.

Why did you post the link to this article?
“A friend shared it with me because I am a writer, too. My projects are self-published and I am very keen on the topic of self-publishing. My self-published book, which I distribute online through my blog, got over 7,000 views/downloads in less than 3 years. My book is for educators and I am told in this category if you sell more than 1,000 you’re considered a best seller. It is now going to be published in print. So I guess the story of this self-published author, Amanda Hocking, was particularly relevant to me and I thought others may find it interesting, too.”

Why did you choose the self-publishing route?
“I am a writer and I have always written, starting as a child. I wrote poetry, too. I heard it was really difficult to get published by a publisher. Authors get rejected often. Amanda Hocking also says this in her story. One of my favorite authors, John Kennedy Toole, who wrote the Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, “A Confederacy of Dunces,” committed suicide at the age of 31. One reason he did this was he suffered depression and I read somewhere that rejections of his writings were a part of it and that he couldn’t handle it. His book was published after his death due to the efforts of his mother. Writers are emotional by definition and some may take all these rejections personally. I decided when I first began wanting to share my writings with the public that I wouldn’t be able to cope with so many rejections, so I didn’t even try to contact publishers and decided to publish on my own work.”

How did you do it?
“Through my blog. I like the connection with the public, so I started to blog a series of posts, which turned into an e-book. I edited it and created an e-book that can be downloaded from my blog. I travel around the world through my work and give talks so I got to speak about the e-book, too. I didn’t expect it to happen, but yes, there are over 7,000 views/downloads of the e-book so far. It is a free e-book, so more people are likely to check out something that is free. When you do go to publishers you have to make an argument to justify publishing your book. Showing that it is popular online is a good argument.”

Do you think that the future of publishing will have to go through online publishing tools?
“I am not sure this is a must, but I think all writers should be familiar with online publishing tools. In poetry only 11% of the thousands of poets out there can actually make a living of it. When the statistics are that low you are right to ask yourself what is the likelihood of being the next huge writer? It does take a lot of luck and also a lot of persistence. Hocking points to that, too.
“I think in the future more people will share their passion for writing online. Maybe not all will make so much money like she did but many will be able to make some sort of an income from it.
I am just happy I did my book the way I did it because for me it was more about getting my word around than making a career out of writing. I feel I have accomplished something.”

Is there something we can all learn from this story?
“That if you love something and you are passionate about doing it – you should do it. Don’t let the rejections and setbacks along the way slow you down. Each of us is making a personal journey. I realized my capacity for handling rejection so I chose my path. You should choose yours. Whether luck played a part in it shouldn’t make a difference”.

What would you ask Amanda Hocking, the 27 year old author, if you had met her?
“I’d like to ask her about her encounter with her audience, about an author connecting with those who read their books and finding out what touched them. This should be pretty special.”

The Linkerview: Abusing the Holocaust Memory

Last week my friend, Vincent Mespoulet, a history teacher in France and the founder of “Hors Les Murs” (School beyond Walls, an international online education community), posted a link to a Le Monde article on his wall. It was a news item dealing with the Jewish orthodox demonstration in Jerusalem, which used the yellow star of David as a tool to express their feelings: “A demonstration shocks Israel”, the title read.

Why did you post it, Vincent?

“To share information among my friends. I have many contacts who are interested in Israel and Palestine. Many are also interested in feminism and the status of women around the world. The topic of women has raised special interest during the current Arab revolutions. The French media publishes many articles about it. But while we are used to finding articles in European media about extremists in Islam, we are not used to hearing about such extreme behavior in Judaism. From here it sounds exactly like in Saudi Arabia.”

In what way?

“Oppression against women is an impact of religious extremist behavior. But we have to remember the fundamentalism around the world isn’t another word for “Islam”. This article shows that fundamentalism can happen everywhere and is not specific to a single religion. Intolerance can be found everywhere. Religious fanatics are trying to re-live religion as it was thousands or hundreds of years ago. They have to realize this is not possible. Take the Egyptian female blogger who published her own nude photos to defy fundamentalism in her own country.”

But you have another interest in this story.

“Yes, I am a history teacher. As a history teacher these images where especially shocking for me. The German where shocked, and the Jewish community in Germany was ashamed. It is a cheap use of the Shoa (the Holocaust) for propaganda. Commercializing the Shoa whether of propaganda or any other use is unacceptable anywhere in the world. I would think in Israel too. It is hurting the memory of the Shoa.

When you see these people in Israel protest this way you think they are not only mad, but  they don’t know history. Don’t they learn history in schools? These people don’t really understand what had transpired then. To use the Shoa this way is shocking when used by anyone, more so when used by Jewish people in Israel.”

Could you work out the connection between the topic of the demonstration and the Holocaust visual?

“Not really. There is no connection between their rights to discriminate against women and the Shoa. There is just a fantastic connection in their minds. Unfortunately such small groups of extremists gather strength through this sort of propaganda. I would think your country needs a big debate on how history is taught throughout the country. I think people outside Israel wouldn’t dare instrumentalise the Shoa, especially in Europe. Sometimes you encounter a very small group of a few provocators that might attempt this. But to construct a full demonstration based on it… It’s all a matter of education.”