We just got the blog and store up and running. It should be a good experience for us. I know the blog will help with our writing skills. One thing I want to say as a disclaimer about the blog: a lot of blogs come off as pretentious and I really hope ours doesn’t. I don’t claim to know very much about diy projects, just what I’ve done. I hope I never claim to be absolutely right about anything. Please disagree with me on something. I also hope this blog will be positively collaborative rather than primarily negative – that is, write positive comments that build upon the content rather than things like “that’s dumb” or “lame” etc. Time to explore how to set up WordPress some more. Hope you enjoy the site.
-Ray
Quick bit of background info about me: in addition to being an engineering student I’m currently working on my MBA. Recently, I’ve read a few articles on how companies are having difficulty marketing to the younger generation (Generation Y). We don’t watch commercials because we have Tivo (or DVR or a Media Center PC) or simply change channels, we don’t really listen to the radio because we have ipods or change the station during commercials, we don’t typically read the newspaper, we ignore internet pop up ads or block them, we are quick to spot product placements, and we often multitask – surfing the web while watching tv – making it difficult to keep our attention. How would you promote a product to this generation?
In thinking about my own buying behavior, I think word of mouth plays a significant role. The concept of “buzz” marketing has gained a lot of attention lately and I think there’s something to it. But overall I think that I buy new products based on the quality of the product and its benefits to me. I rarely pay attention to advertisements and if I see a funny one I rarely remember what company or product it was for. However, I know I may not be entirely aware of my buying decisions and everyone else probably isn’t exactly like me.
At an event a few weeks ago, I had a chance to meet an employee of Anheiser-Busch who’s task is to promote beer as a generic beverage to the new generation. He said in general our generation isn’t drinking beer as much, they’re going for mixed drinks like Red Bull and vodka, so AB is working with other brewers trying to promote beer as an overall product (because they know they’ll see some revenue from increased beer sales). I talked to him about what they’re trying to do to reach our generation and he said it’s hard but they have some ideas like trying to sponsor viral videos. I will say that I do notice ads where the website makes you see it and click continue before getting to the content that you want, but I find it annoying and I’m not sure how effective it is.
So, what ultimately determines how you hear about new products? Word of mouth? Popularity to the point where you notice it around you? If you were trying to sell a product to a group of Gen Y-ers, how would you do it? Feel free to comment…
I’ll start off by saying I’ve been busy over the summer months working on stuff. The hardest part isn’t making and hacking, its writing up the How-To. So here are some of the things I’ve been working on/completed over the summer that I haven’t written about yet.
Small Parts Drawer Cabinet:
For the longest time, I’ve had random parts lying around; motors, resistors, springs, switches….things you acquire after taking apart things. I needed a way to organize these parts. One option was buy a sweet industrial organizer from Stanley Vidmar found.
here or I could build one myself for a lot cheaper. The write up will come soon, I promise.
Linux VCR
Over the years of computer salvaging I have amassed a modest amount of components, enough for a few computers. I also had an old VCR which was collecting dust. I gutted the VCR and put a P3 with 128MB RAM running at 733MHz. I put a 250GB HDD in as well. Right now I put Ubuntu on it and plan to network the Hard Drive for extra storage space. Any other ideas of what I can do with it are welcome.
Serial Port Switches
By no means is this a new idea. I had a lot of help online from a variety of pages. They were all good pages and I’ll do my best to give them the credit they deserve. Anyways I wired up 8 switches to the serial port. I found a great plug-in for Winamp which allows you to control the media player using these serial switches. I plan to use them in a wireless music box which is also in the works.
Pressure Pads
I recently bought a interface board and wanted to play around with the pressure sensing pads. I won’t give too much away about what I’m using them for….sorry. Any ideas are welcome though.
The Make blog had an entry about the arduino microcontroller. I’ve done some projects with FPGAs before but I haven’t used a microcontroller which seem to be incredibly popular among hobbyists. I think I may have to check the arduino out. One of the ideas we’ve had for a project for a long time is usb controlled stepper motor. It seems there a variety of ways to do this. We purchased two DLP-USB245M-G’s from http://www.dlpdesign.com/usb/usb245.shtml and have yet to play with them. Life is too busy sometimes… I’m sure we’ll get around to it sometime soon. I doubt we have any readers yet but if anyone has done any sweet projects with microcontrollers or has any suggestions, feel free to let us know.
-Ray
One of our next project is a diy lovesac. If you’re never heard of lovesac checkout lovesac.com, they are beanbag-like chairs but instead of beans inside they have shredded memory foam. We’re going to try and buy some shredded memory foam and make our own for less than they sell them for. Let us know if you have any tips.
-Ray
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