Will Geographic Location Always Be Important?

The fact that the Internet and mobile technology is meant to make physical location irrelevant is a bit of a misnomer. It has the ability to make geographic location irrelevant, yes, but in reality it isn’t happening. Here I’m going to take a look at both social networks and mobile phones, and just discuss how geographic location is still very important.

In New Zealand, there are three mobile telco’s: Telecom, Vodafone, and 2Degrees. You’d think that what mobile phone carrier you choose doesn’t have anything to do with your physical location as prices are the same country-wide. But what is quite obvious in reality is that your geographic location essentially determines which mobile telco you use. If you’re in Wellington, you use Telecom. If you’re in Auckland, you use Vodafone.

Look at social networks. Obviously Facebook is the winner, and crosses most continents. But then there are weird pockets where users in certain countries mostly use a social network different to Facebook. The obvious example is Brazil, where Orkut is still much larger than Facebook. The very premise of a social network is that it allows you to communicate regardless of your physical place. But here we have social networks being adopted not on interests or age, but on geographic location.

The answer as to why this happens isn’t that hard to work out. It’s societal laws. People will sign up to where their friends are online, and their friends are usually always in the same country as them. So it really isn’t a surprise that this is occurring.

But then we need to ask: will it always be that way? Many of the benefits that people see in the Internet actually relies on the fact that geographic location isn’t important. So will we see over time a decreasing importance in geographic location of users? Or could it remain an important fact that people actually hold onto?

My personal belief is that physical location will remain important to a certain extent in people’s use of different social networks (let’s let this include things like mobile phone telco’s). Despite the Internet breaking down physical barriers, it doesn’t necessarily mean that people will care less about their physical location. It’s something close to all of our hearts – and it plays a role in many of our decisions.

Who knows, in ten years geographic location may be totally irrelevant. But at least for that period of time I think it will still be important.

Thoughts?

Icebreaker’s International Growth & New Zealand’s Brand

About a month and a half ago, as winter was just setting in here in Wellington, I bought an Icebreaker merino undershirt. I’d heard a lot about Icebreaker stuff being incredibly warm, so thought I’d give it a go. A few weeks later, and I own everything from an Icebreaker coat to Icebreaker briefs. Their stuff is so warm, so comfortable, and so breathable that it doesn’t smell at all. It’s really even better than their advertising describes. Anyway, this post isn’t actually a pitch for Icebreaker – although I completely and utterly recommend you buy their stuff. I wanted to just talk about a fantastic Kiwi business success story, and touch on how they’ve successfully used New Zealand’s brand to help them sell their products internationally.

Icebreaker is now sold in pretty much every continent, and they’re incredibly well known for a Kiwi company still owned by its founders and original backers. 1999 was when they decided to do a test in Europe, and since then their growth has been simply astounding.

It’s funny how a couple of the most talked about New Zealand success stories in recent years have both been companies that have heavily used New Zealand’s brand to help sell their products. 42 Below, a New Zealand vodka company that was sold to Bacardi a few years back, also used “Pure New Zealand” as part of their marketing.

And that phrase – “Pure New Zealand” – should not be underestimated. A country’s brand is something very valuable (provided the country has a good brand) because it’s something people can relate to. More than a company’s brand, a country’s brand is in some ways tangible. People can actually walk around a country and therefore they gain a deeper understanding of what values and images are associated with that country. A company on the other hand isn’t a tangible object that people can walk around to better understand. In most cases their images are simply marketing strategies.

So Icebreaker, and other companies utilizing New Zealand’s good brand, are very smart about it. In some ways it’s a free marketing strategy that can’t easily be replicated any other way.

I’ve travelled quite a bit, and one thing that I notice no matter where I go is how responsive and positive people are to hearing “New Zealand” in response to asking where I’m from. I’ve never heard anything negative in response to me saying New Zealand, and usually the next comment is one involving a word such as “beautiful”, “stunning”, “clean”, or “safe”. When you have those kind of connotations to a brand, something is going right.

While some companies like Icebreaker are doing a fantastic job riding New Zealand’s image to achieve international growth, I think more could be doing it. And don’t get me wrong – by no means do I think every New Zealand company should use NZ’s brand. But I do think that a few more could at least use “New Zealand” in their tagline to conjure up images. We just have to be careful not to overuse it, and only let companies who truly can achieve huge international growth use it.

And on top of all the other benefits of using NZ’s brand internationally – it keeps us back home happy. We just get even more passionate about Icebreaker and our country!

TDTYTIS Video: Prime Minister John Key on Finance and Debt Lessons

I thought I’d share here the latest TDTYTIS video – one from New Zealand Prime Minister John Key. We asked Mr. Key the TDTYTIS question – “What’s one thing that they didn’t teach you in school that you wish you had known when you were younger?” – and he gave a detailed and interesting answer. It’s something that young people worldwide really do need to be thinking about, especially after a global financial crisis. If young people worldwide heed Mr. Key’s advice, it’s likely the effects of future financial market meltdowns will be felt less.

Prime Minister John Key – They Don’t Teach You This In School from Michael Moore-Jones on Vimeo.

YouTube Killed The Radio Star

The other day I did an interview with Radio New Zealand, which you can find here. Now, getting invited to do a radio interview was in fact a really weird experience for me as I’ve never listened to radio, and therefore cannot say that I understand the medium. It was strange going into the studio to talk to thousands of listeners across the country when I’ve never heard someone else speak through that same medium. What I’m talking about in this post is why I’ve never listened to radio, and why it’s likely I (and my generation) never will.

My generation has grown up with rich media accessible through the Internet. We’ve grown up with YouTube and other video players. And that’s in fact the key reason as to why we don’t listen to radio – why would we solely listen to something when we could be watching something elsewhere?

Radio simply seems like an old technology. My grandmother listens to radio. She has a stereo in her living room, a small radio in every room in the house, and even a waterproof radio in the shower. It seems like they’re playing constantly. In contrast, I don’t own a stereo or a radio. Any music I listen to is played through media speakers connected to an iPod or my laptop, and they don’t have a radio built-in. I could download podcasts or listen to radio online, I hear you say. But the thing is, why would I go back to a technology that gives me less information than another medium?

Video is taking over. I find that watching someone actually speak and gesticulate while hearing what they have to say helps me to understand what they’re saying better. And lots of research has been done on this. A statistic I read the other day said that only one third of understanding actually comes from spoken words themselves – the rest of our understanding comes from body language and gesticulations. Since teenagers have grown up with access to YouTube, there seems no reason to go backwards and listen to mere spoken words when I could watch something else.

There’s another reason regarding access to radio. YouTube works because it allows people to browse through content and discover new things while knowing what you’re looking for. I haven’t been able to find a radio discovery service anything like YouTube. And in addition to that, there’s a YouTube app on my iPhone and iPad that works brilliantly so I can access it on-the-go. Downloading podcasts onto my iPhone and then having to update them often just isn’t the same. This is partly about perception – young people today perceive radio to be in some ways a “messy-access” medium. I just made up that word, but what I mean by it is that there is no clear way to access it. You can listen on a physical radio, or through some websites, or through podcasts. And there aren’t any inherent advantages or disadvantages to each, so we don’t really know which we should be using.

I asked my friends at school earlier whether any of them listen to radio regularly. Only a couple said yes, and when I asked why they said so they could discover new music. So perhaps that’s the last saving grace of radio – randomness as to what’s being played. In that case, I sure wouldn’t bet on radio’s survival. As with most technologies now, the old are being taken over by richer and more detailed mediums.

Video killed the radio star? Most definitely. In some ways I think YouTube killed the radio star is a bit more accurate though. And it didn’t just kill the radio star. It killed radio.

My guest post for the US Ambassador’s blog: Connection, Communication & Leadership

I was recently asked to write a guest post for the blog of the United States Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa, David Huebner. It was published today.

In it I discuss how our leaders and decision-makers should be using social media to connect with young people. I argue that in the long-term it will lead to a nation that is more involved in national decisions, and as a result we will be more able to create the future that we want.

I’m not going to repost it here, but I encourage you to view it on the Ambassador’s blog and let me know your thoughts. Leave a comment either on his blog or this post.