Dr. Jean Kilbourne exposes an ugly side of advertising

At a fund raiser for Sexual Assault Support Centre of Waterloo Region (SASC) Dr. Kilbourne explored the impact of advertising on our perceptions and ideas of what it means to be a women. She has many powerful examples of how advertising taps into societies existing perceptions and can then perpetuate negative ideas. Dr Kilbourne believes we are living in a toxic cultural environment because many of the messages we are presented within advertising poisons our perception of what is realistic, presenting false images that we then measure ourselves against and can never achieve.

I have read Dr. Kilbourne's book Can't Buy my Love: How Advertising Changes the way we Think and Feel. It exposes the emotional tools used by advertisers for endearing a product in the mind of the consumer and offers great case studies that demonstrate that when advertising is done right it is a powerful tool for a marketer. I don't think it was her intent to give us in the Advertising World new tools for selling our strategic expertise. The book is basically an attack on advertising and a wakeup call for consumers.

Advertising and marketing is a curious thing because to have a powerful message to sell you have to know your customer really well, you have to find that truth and make it matter. Sometimes that truth is a vulnerability, an insecurity that when exploited can be lucrative for the advertiser. Advertising can shine a very bright light on our frailties.

Powerful, effective advertising reaches in to our subconscious mind because the marketers behind these campaigns have done their work to understand deep seated ideas and beliefs, hopes and ideals already in the mind of the audience. Advertisers then create ways to align the product, within its category or industry, to those deeper ideas. Smart, effective advertising works to build an emotional connection with the consumer. This is true for all products, not just B2C, but also for B2B products. Good advertising/marketing tells us a story or offers us an experience executed through a creative idea. These stories when aligned with existing perceptions help to forge a uniqueness for the product in the mind of the consumer.

So now we have a "Chicken or the Egg" question. Does advertising create the problem or perpetuate the problem? If we are already feeling insecure, not good enough because those ideas have been ingrained into our core beliefs that are set in childhood, then can we only blame advertising? Or is advertising the ice cream to the sensitive tooth?

When it comes to young children and the molding of their minds we parents sometimes leave that to the TV. As a mother of a young daughter I realize that my years of influence are short. I saw that when she was quickly swept up into the Webkinz movement (we have many of those creatures in our house) because of the influence of her peers and her need to acquire more characters in this digital world (brilliant piece of marketing). And although that was hard on the family budget, it's  nothing compared to what we will get swept up into as she becomes a preteen. I want to get ready for that so I picked up Kilbourne's book So Sexy So Soon: The new Sexualized Childhood and what Parents can do to Protect their Kids. I find my 7yr old daughter drawn to music videos on Youtube and some of the concepts of what it means to be female are quite denigrating there. Her peer group pulls her in to these sexy story lines as part of their maturing process. As a parent I have to help her forge her core of self esteem.


Ultimately I believe that Dr. Jean Kilbourne's effort to draw awareness to the issue of negative stereotypes is critically important. Until we are faced with a problem we do nothing about it and I do believe that false, unrealistic ideals are a problem. First and foremost we have to ask ourselves the question of why do I feel a need to try and measure up physically? How can I learn to accept myself for who I am? Are my core beliefs as a person flawed and creating expectations that are unrealistic? I don’t think we can make advertising or media a scapegoat. We all have individual research work to do to know ourselves better in an effort to stop negative stereotypes.

Canada 3.0 - chock-full of Culture and Collaboration

Great event full of lots of great ideas and thinking. And best of all, my two favourite words, Culture and Collaboration, kept coming up throughout both days.

As a student of culture I enjoy discussing the impact of digital media tools on society. I believe they will make quite their mark on history, and as social media explodes we are smack dab in the centre of the information revolution. For Canada 3.0 this became quite clear in Dr. Michael Wesch, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Kansas State University presentation as he shared powerful stories about how humans search for identity and recognition. His brief history of the word "Whatever" was particularly fun and enlightening. It also connected with the debate that raged in Day 2 in the Education Stream discussion - Harnessing Social Media for Collaborative Learning - where my two favourite words collided.

Collaboration may be our strongest advantage going forward as we work to expand the abilities of Digital Media and Canada's presence and role within the evolution. With the free and safe sharing of ideas we can all get smarter together. Creating safe venues where sharing can begin, like Canada 3.0 and fostering continued collaboration and support in incubators like Communitech Digital Media Hub are critical going forward. This region has collaboration built into our culture. We all have a role in building and protecting that spirit. Let "Hunt for new ideas and foster collaboration" be our rallying cry!

Hubbub is growing - Communitech Digital Media Hub to expand

The doors were just opened last fall but there is already a need to expand the space! The Hub currently occupies 30,000 square feet here at the Tannery and will expand to occupy another 12,000 square feet on the first floor of the Tannery by early 2012.

The expansion will accommodate more Peer2Peer program space, expanded strategic partner space, and more room for established companies.

Hubbub has an interesting mix of tenants:

- 28 start-up companies – and growing

- 5 leading tech multi-nationals

- 14 innovation partners, including legal, advertising and accounting firms

- 3 post-secondary institutions: Conestoga College, Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Waterloo

- provincial and federal government partners

I love this space because to me it represents what is at the heart of the uniqueness of this community – collaboration. In a recent conversation with Communitech EOR Lillian Bass, she shared a story about how Toronto startups are coming to the region because of this unique spirit. As a community we are developing a reputation not only as a technology centre but a centre for collaboration and support of growth and development. We work together to help all be better and stronger and smarter. To me that is really exciting.

Women In Technology Waterloo Region Chapter

After much planning to launch a local chapter we begin with a kickoff event here at the Hub in the Tannery Event Space on May 12th, 5:30 - 8:30. All are welcome, you can register here.

Why single out Women in Technology? While women have made tremendous strides in the roles we play in technology in the last 20 years, less than 25% of all ICT positions in Canada are held by women. According to 2010’s Labour Market survey, their visibility is dropping (23.9 % in 2010 which is down from 25.3 % in 2000). Women need to continue to support efforts of all women in this sector, working together to help all advance their careers and ensure we continue to pave the way for future generations.

The night is meant to be the start of a new support network. We have planned the event in a way to inspire women to build connections within the technology sector. There will be formal section hosted by local Chair, Angelique Mohring, Senior Director of the Office for the Chief Marketing Officer for OpenText with a night's keynote address from Waterloo Mayor Brenda Halloran.

I am most excited about the dynamic panel of women we have assembled to discuss their experiences in technology. The panel includes:

• Carol Leaman, CEO, PostRank - 2010 recipient of the Sara Kirke Award for outstanding woman in technology innovation and corporate leadership 
• Jennifer Smith, VP Engineering, Christie Digital Systems
• Sarah Shortreed,  VP, Planning and CIO Program Office, RIM
• Deb Krizmanich, CEO Powernoodle
• Reemah Khalid, Student at UWaterloo

We finalized the questions last night and I am looking forward to hearing their responses.

There will be light refreshment served and a cash bar. Students from Conestoga College are working on visual displays to utilize the Christie display technology in the event space at the Tannery. The event is sponsored by OpenText. They have been very supportive of the event and getting the local chapter up and running. All in all we are expecting a great event to kick off this chapter. 

Don't forget to register!

Building the Canadian Cloud at the Hub

One of the early stage technology companies at the Hub is Canadian Cloud Computing. When I do hub tours I sometimes get that quizzical look that says "what is the cloud."

My simplistic explanation to non-tech people, and you will see that I am by no means a cloud expert, is that the cloud has been around for a long time, it is basically just servers hosting data, nothing to be nervous about. Canadian Cloud Computing offers companies a cost effective alternative to buying and building their own server infrastructure.

I do add a consumer advantage from the cloud -- as digital technology becomes more and more a part of our daily lives, I expect that we will all be interacting more and more with a cloud and not even know it. Such as when we log in at the office to check that we did indeed turn off the iron this morning. If you want to learn more about how you can do that you should check out this Kitchener company - SafePlug.
 
Another example is Gmail and how within my account I have endless space to store email on their server. And this is a segue into the unique value  that Canadian Cloud is offering -- The Trusted Canadian Cloud - a fine balance between building a world-class cloud platform in Canada that is uniquely Canadian while still remaining a part of the global Internet infrastructure.

Basically it is about providing Canadian companies all the benefits of cloud computing without the global entanglements. In other words, because my Gmail account is hosted by an American Company, Google, all of my emails are open to scrutiny under the Homeland Securities Act. As Canadian Cloud Computing is obviously a Canadian company, the data they are hosting for Canadian companies would not be open to that type of exposure. And this is another good segue - data security.

Canadian Cloud Computing puts a GREAT deal of effort into data security. Their servers are located within a data fortress. Their secure networking systems provide encrypted VLAN access to content that is hosted on their Cloud Cloud Server with firewalled public IP addresses so customers can securely access servers through the Internet.

A philosophy of the team at Canadian Cloud Computing is that one size does not fit all when it comes to the Cloud. Some cloud providers focus on their own technology and expect you to adapt your business to their cloud platform. But at Canadian Cloud Computing they want to deliver all the benefits of cloud computing no matter what hardware or software platform you may use today - they want to offer the best platform to meet  unique Cloud needs.

It is kind of funny, Clouds and Fortresses... for storing data. It is a different age than what I grew up in and everyday is a new adventure in technology. 

Those crazy Grey Aliens

If you go to our website you see the three Grey Aliens who are featured throughout. They are cute and comical and if you search for them on youtube you will also discover they are lyrical and seasonal - Enjoy

As a blogger, what I learned this week

That when you are very busy with work and home life and volunteer work, the first thing to go is the blog.

Captains Blog, Grey date April 7th, the year 2011 - It has been a week since my last blog and that one I completed on the train ride to Toronto. My list of things to blog about has not been touched, nothing added, nothing removed. This blog is stuck in time lock.