C: Ideation nation

I have the great fortune to be a technical person who works with Marketing on a daily basis. Now, don't get me wrong, I do love Marketing people (see, I even capitalize it out of great respect). They have such optimism and energy....that I get to crush daily. Basically my job is to tell people that their great idea is just not feasible within the bounds of physics or (more often) the bounds of finance. I am basically paid to be a killjoy; that is why I got an engineering degree.

A few weeks ago I was invited to an "ideation" workshop. Ideation is one of those words that should have stayed a noun but then someone (likely a Marketeer) got ahold of it and turned it into a business buzzverb. In our ideation workshop we spent the morning getting briefed on the following topics, and then we spent the afternoon thinking of products for the future. I have compiled my observations in a nice outlined format and not an idea map because I think idea maps are stupid, which is likely why the Marketeers make fun of me behind my back and curse my existence. Again, this is totally why I became an engineer.

• The state of the economy: For 45 minutes a dude told us that the economy sucks and that because people either don't have jobs or are fearful of keeping their jobs they are not spending as much money. He had several very sophisticated bar graphs showing the GDP and unemployment rates over the past 60 years that he clearly downloaded from www.wsj.com.  I guarantee he makes 3x what I make....excuse me while I vomit for a second.
• The "green" trend...and yes, you have to use air-quotes when discussing this: People are all about minimizing consumption and going green; there is even a consumer green scale with 5 different degrees of "green" that are color-coded from those who don't give a crap (a light mint) to treehuggers (dark forest green).
  • My favorite was the "fake green" - they talk the talk but don't walk the walk. You have to market to them in a special way by basically patting them on the back for their "green" ways while at the same time "teaching" them to actually be environmentally friendly. You have to convey all of this in a 3" x 3" area. 
  • Consumers want companies to help them to be green so they do not have to exert any effort or pay more. I call that "lazy" but apparently that is really a mid-level green - a lovely shade of kelly green to be exact.  
  • Baby Boomers are actually a very active green generation- it's not just the young'uns. I am not surprised by this at all. Old people LOVE the weather channel and that is all about nature and the environment. Plus they love to worry and being green is all about worrying about the planet.
• Generation Y/Millenials: Apparently the young folk are the most politically and socially active generation in the past 60 years.
  • I disagree; mainly because I use my little brother as the benchmark for Generation Y and I am not sure he could name the Vice President. I think he only knows who the President is because ESPN followed Obama's NCAA brackets.
  • I think that Generation Y thinks they are the most politically/socially active generation in the past 60 years. And perception is way more important than reality in marketing, so when it comes to Gen Y, marketing is a snap - just say that by purchasing your product, they are somehow doing good for the community and/or environment. Recycle one piece of paper and you are good to go.
  • According to the Marketing research, Gen Y like to use online social networking sites to "connect" and learn about new products. "Connect" must have air-quotes too. The Marketing take-away on that one is to have a Facebook page. Connection complete.
• Individualism: I am not sure why expensive research was required to come to the conclusion that people like to feel like they are individuals and have choice; I would say this quality likely pertains to all mammals. But I do know that it spurred the most painful discussion I have ever witnessed in which multiple Marketeers got into an in-depth discussion about the difference between "unique" and "individual" and the need to define both separately to ensure proper consideration of the 2 words. A part of me died during that discussion.

After all of those great presentations, we got to brainstorm. All of my ideas involved things that cost $0, which means they were rejected outright. All of the ideas that are either physically impossible or cost a zillion dollars were deemed as "visionary" and incorporated into our 5-year plan.

I decided to let the Marketeers have their dreams now knowing that I will get to squash them in good time. "That" "will" "be" "so" "fun".

Comments

[Amy]

According to this yahoo article:

http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-articles-6_lucrative_paths_up_the_career_ladder-799

marketing is the number one most lucrative path up the career ladder. Engineering, sadly, was number 5. I can only blame our parents for not sharing this type of information with us when we were in high school.