The Future of RadioShack

The other day I heard RadioShack was hosting an agency review...only to find out that I was a day late and a dollar short as they'd already chosen the agencies to participate. Honestly, I think the size of my shop would have kept us out anyways (people being how they are good ideas can only come from international agencies) but I was pissed at myself for not even having the chance to be told no.

Today, as our planning director and I were grabbing lunch it occurred to me that I really shouldn't give a crap whether we got in or not if my real goal is to share the idea that RadioShack could be something more than it currently is. Money or no money in my pocket, what really excited me about the chance to work for them is the fact that they are in need of some directional realignment. I personally remember RadioShack as an 80s wunderhaven of tinkering and RC cars. Somewhere along the way, that was lost as Terri and Howie began slinging TVs at me. It might have been successful for a bit (same-store-sales wise) but it NEVER MADE SENSE. RadioShack should be known again for what it is: a tinkerers paradise. The store is about the opportunity to take things to the next level. Set up that 40 speaker surround sound system with 8 miles of cable. Mount your TV to the ceiling for in-bed viewing pleasure. Teach your kids to fix stuff AND become a little smarter by buying them a home electronics kit and let them make a robot.

When you mix this tinker/hacker mentality with the value-driven trend we are in as a society, RS has a huge opportunity to be the fix-it place. Don't toss that remote/TV/monitor/keyboard/etc. Make it work again...and make it better!

And with the US lagging far behind in engineering, why not take the opportunity to rebrand RS as the place to get excited about science. RS has the opportunity to not only be the purveyor of product but the source of instruction. Which in turn will lead to more purveying and more instructing and so on and so forth. Websites for TV tinkerers. Links to Lifehacker and Hack-a-day. Promo videos of cicuit bending bands that show how to use basic EE skills to your advantage musically and get people thinking about what else can be done with a soldering iron and a potentiometer.

Honestly, I think RS has made a step in this direction with their latest campaign "Do stuff." But, they have a chance to differentiate themselves further and they should take it. DON'T try to be a smaller Best Buy. DO be the store next to the Best Buy that's going to have a cadre of geeky employees to show you how to really make stuff cool. DON'T focus on selling commodities. DO focus on selling the potential to make commodities unique to the consumer. DON'T let yourself be known as the place that sells audio wire. DO be known as the place that sells gold-tipped, Swiss engineered hi-fi audio wire that only 1% of people know about. DON'T be everything to everyone. DO be the best resource to a group of willing evangelists.

RadioShack. Wire your world.

(Or some other great tagline ;)

Keeping an eye out

Sorry for the format of the last posts. As I begin to acquire more and more points of dissemination for ideas, thoughts and random things nobody cares to read, it's hard to keep up. In an effort to become more efficient I signed up for ping.fm. The premise is pretty simple: It allows you to craft one message and push it to all of your social pages (Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, LinkedIn, etc.). I have a similar app for my iPhone called TwitterFon and another called Twinkle. Of the two, Twinkle is pretty cool as it allows you to share Tweets with people who are by you geographically. the idea is intriguing but leaves a gap in terms of what you can say (not that this is all bad) as you have to account for Twitter limiations on your blog should you choose to push messaging to both. In my mind it also raises the question, "Is this how it should be?" By that I mean should your Tweets and Status be the same? Can one person be multiple people online or do we have to reflect real life? Of course I can't answer these questions, but the threat exists. What will happen when it gets too real and that potential client or boss finds your Tweet on 20-something co-eds cranking hard in Cabo right after your blogger link on identifying business growth areas through souble regressive analysis? Hmmm...

In other news, the gal pal and I adopted a dog last Sunday. He is an adorable cocker spaniel who was abandoned. With a little time and love I think we'll be able to make him a friendly little guy but right now it's a difficult road - though he seems to progress a little more each day. In my attempts to see what the hell a dog does all day (and to make sure he isn't barking his head off) I set up a web stream with the help of my uber-tech friend Adam. If you care to take a look check it out here: http://tinyurl.com/d5sfep. It works best in IE 7 or via Windows Media Player. The process of setting it up was definitely informative and it makes me wonder what else people could be doing with web cams in the communications/business industry. Nurseries and dog day cares have started to install them to allow doting parents to watch every second of their kids' lives. Why doesn't every local restaurant or coffee shop have a stream set up so you can monitor the line? Why can't my local oil change shop set one up so i can see when my car is being worked on and when it's done? Maybe nobody would care, but in this age of information I bet plenty of people would watch.

sharing my love of awesome things: http://ping.fm/eEZeo

reading this interesting article on Googling and CO2: http://ping.fm/GqMKF Question is, does anyone care or is convenience the trump card?

Trying to streamline via ping.fm

It's been awhile

So, with the holidays mixing things up, I've been away. Not that anyone cared. But I'm back with a vengeance. Whilst doing a little research for a potential project with a client that involves Google TV Ads, I spotted this little logo in the corner:






And so, like any curious cat I clicked and was taken to the YouTube Symphony site. The idea is pretty simple: have musicians from all over the world perform music in front of a camera and then submit it to YouTube. The best performers will then be selected and their videos will be combined to play the symphony that each musician was playing an individual part of. Genius! And to make it even better, the selected musicians will then play the symphony live in Carneige Hall.

I think this is a great example of the collaborative power of the internet working to accomplish something that NEVER could have been done before. We hear stories of musicians working separate from each other and laying down tracks like a game of chess-by-mail, but I don't recall this many people ever doing something like this.

Anyways, check out the YouTube Symphony. It's today's cool thing.