The idea that never materialized

Three summers ago i was taking my lunch break on a patio that we were working on. For lunch i had a turkey sandwich with plain chips and some Frito Lay con caso chip dip. As i was nearing the bottom of the dip jar i was getting frustrated with the amount of cheese i kept getting on my knuckles every time i would go in for more. After finishing lunch i got back to work. About an hour later i had one of those eureka moments. For some reason at that point of time i cam up with idea of having a threaded jar that would allow you to twist the bottom of the jar and push the contents inside the jar to the top. I thought this was a genius idea. When i got home i did a little research and found nothing like it. A weekend later i started doing research on how to thread the inside of a glass jar. This turned out to be a difficult process without having the necessary tools to do so. I wanted to make a prototype of the twist-able jar so that i could take the necessary steps at introducing my idea after getting it patented. With working 50 hours a week and taking a summer class my whole twisted jar idea put off to a later time and forgot about. This past fall i started thinking about it again and found out that someone had just patented a very similar idea. The product is called "Jar with a twist". Im still mad at myself for not getting on it sooner because this could have turned out to be a great opportunity. Next time i have another, eureka moment, i wont sit on it.

Cause v. Purpose

What is the difference between cause and purpose marketing? Never really gave much thought to this until it was brought up in class and it is important to be able to distinguish between the two. Cause marketing is more of a company deciding out of the blue to donate to a charity for whatever reason to help boost sales. Purpose marketing deals with a cause that is already "baked in" to what the company is all about. In the article Cause v. Purpose by Max Lenderman, Traction found that a majority of people support brands with a cause attached. Those same people are realizing that everybody is starting to do it which raises the question of the authenticity of it. Are those companies supporting different causes just to push their product? Or do they truly support something for the long run. As a consumer, it is always important to be aware of the different tactics businesses may use to draw you in.

Here is a different view point of a cause v. purpose related example. Steven Rinella is an avid outdoorsmen who hunts and fishes for a living by producing a television show on the sportsmens channel called meat eater and is also a writer who has published a number of books. Rinella is an advocate for raising the awareness of hunting and its importance to conservation and is a strong supporter of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP). The TRCP is a powerful group whose main purpose is to protect critial habitat and our public lands. Although Rinella is not a brand, he is in some regards a spokesman for the hunting community who believes in a cause that is directly related to everything he does in his show and writings.

Cost of Social Norms

Chapter 4 in the book predictably irrational is an interesting topic and is very true in my everyday life. We all operate under certain norms weather they are social or market (financially) oriented. Norms are what give us order and direction but both social and market norms can be taken very differently depending on the situation. Social norms have to do with what we personally believe is the right thing to do that is based on our values. Market norms are basically what you are willing to do for a certain amount of money.

The other day i helped a friend move from gateway to Bozeman. It was in the later afternoon and i had nothing going on so i was more than happy to help him out. The move only took us one trip and had all of his stuff moved into the new house. When we finished with the move he treated us to pizza and beer which is more than i could ask for in such a small task that took only took an hour or so. If he would of told me before hand that he was going to pay me $12 an hour, or whatever the rate, i would have immediately been thrown off by the money offer because i am acting under a social norm rather than a market norm and changes the whole reason of why i am helping him in the first place. The gesture of feeding me pizza and beer far outweighed the value of cash i could have made in this scenario.

Our perceptions can change dramatically depending on the situation at hand. If this were someone i was helping move on Craigslist my mind set would be totally different. I would be taking it as more of a "work" job rather than a "fun" job. When you are acting under a social norm you are less likely to consider it work and receiving things like dinner or a simple thank you are sufficient.

Re-Branding

Ride snowboards has been around for over 20 years. They have seen it all when it comes to the many different trends snowboarding has gone over the years. One of the main reason Ride has been able to stick around unlike many other companies that began around that time was their ability to adapt to changing times. When i say trends in snowboarding im talking about the technologies in snowboards, graphics, and the overall team that represents their brand. Ride has recently gone through a major re brand in their company. They are now taking on a whole new look to their brand. They have incorporated a whole new team of young street riders that are up and coming and well known by the snowboard community. This has been successful so far with Ride. More people are talking about how they can't believe so and so switched from one company to Ride snowboards. They are really pushing to get themselves back out on top in the snowboard industry and are taking the right steps in doing so. With this years videos coming out in the spring and next fall, i believe Ride will see a great return on their investment.

Its in the Flies

If you have ever walked into a fly fishing shop and looked around for at least 5 minutes, its not hard to see that everything they sell is expensive. Weather it is fly rods, waders, boots, fly tying materials, nets, packs, and so on. If i had to take a guess i would say that most of their monthly sales comes from rods and reels but that is not the case and it actually only makes up about 10-20% of total monthly sales. If you think about a printer, most of the money that is made is not from selling the actual printer, the money is in the ink cartridges. Just like fly shops, the money is not in the fishing rod, it is in the flies. The flies are what keeps the money coming in as well as the customers. Today the price of your most basic fly pattern is about $2.50. Some of those fly's consist of a piece of string tied to a hook. It is expensive and adds up quick and i have yet to meet anyone that has been out all day fishing and hasn't lost at least 3 or more to a tree or the bottom of the river. 

Which leads up to my next topic of online sales of flies.Who wouldn't want to save money for basic fly patterns like the San Juan worm or simple bead headed nymphs which consist of minimal material and skill to make. Those are the types of flies i would be buying online but still buying the more sophisticated flies at my local shop that i know are of high quality, design, and will stand to last. Although it is a matter of time before someone steps in and starts selling flies online and becomes a reputable seller. As soon as word gets around that you can buy well made fly's online at half the price, people are going to react. This will eventually bring more competitive pricing to all areas as well as more innovation in the design of flies. With more competition, fly shops (who actually know what the fishing industry wants) will have a first mover advantage over their online competitors. Shops might have to lower their margins when it comes to flies but will be able to make up for that with their "specialty" flies that aren't available online. People will still be buying rods, reels, and everything else from the shops because most people still like to touch and feel those types of products before they buy (at least i do). Not too many people are very concerned about seeing a fly in person before buying because they know exactly what they are getting. As time goes on i feel like it will be harder for shops to compete with online fly sellers and that is a scary fact because without those shops we have nothing. You can't replace the feeling of walking into a shop and talking to friendly people that work there about fishing and hearing their own opinion about a product. When it comes down to it, a fly is just a fly, but a fly purchased at a local shop comes with an experience and advice that an online retailer will never be able to knock off.

NUDGE

The book Nudge by Thaler and Sunstein was an interesting read. The whole idea of the book was about the choices people make and how we are led in different ways to make better ones. This book doesn't just tell you that if you are eating unhealthy you should quit doing that and eat healthier foods. Instead it simply exposes people to what is called choice architecture to help boost a certain response to something. Choice architecture basically means the different ways choices can be presented to somebody. A very basic example of choice architecture would be the design of a 4 burner stove top as described in the book. The oven at my house has the nobs in one row above the burners and as dumb as it sounds it always makes me double check to see what electric burner got turned on. Having the nobs positioned in a way that represents burners on the stove top indirectly influences my decision which therefore is an example of choice architecture. Thaler tries to find a common ground between libertarians and paternalists. This works because you can give people the freedom of choice and at the same time structure those choices in a manner that will help them. Thaler states that the golder rule of libertarian paternalism is offer nudges that are most likely to help and least likely to inflict harm.

An example of a clever Nudge i noticed was this past Christmas when i was skiing with my family at a hill in Minnesota called Afton Alps. I grew up snowboarding at this place and always remembered their being cans everywhere while going up the lift. There was a trash at the top but that didn't seem to help much. Since the last time i had been there, which was about 4 years ago, they had put a big trash can under the last lift pole. Instead of people throwing their cans off the lift they would hold on to them and try to make the basket.
This was an easy answer to their on hill trash problem and people enjoyed it at the same time. This is the kind of stuff that nudges are all about.