One thing I've noticed is how different brands 'impute' values by the type of person they will hire. The "cheap and nasty" brands hire people of colour, with disabilities, etc. Possibly a toxic effect of this is we then go and associate those brand values back to the people who work there.
For example, in New Zealand, we have two supermarkets owned by the same company. New World, and Pak'N'Save.
New World is where our version of the "soccer mom" goes to shop. It's the most expensive supermarket, it features large delicatessens, etc. When you go there, as a soccer mom, the type of person you see working there reminds you of your daughter's friend.
Pak'N'Save, the cheap supermarket, embodies cheap. The supermarkets have bare concrete floors, their advertisments feature stick figures because "we're so cheap, we can't even afford good advertising." What type of person works in Pak'N'Save? People of colour, people with disabilities, etc.
I don't really know what my thoughts are here, yet. I don't think this is a conscious decision on the part of the brands or the managers, but it seems like people are used to impute brand as much as advertising or anything else. And nothing seems to impute that more by being served by a person who looks like they can only afford to shop here.
I'm not putting a value judgement on this: but it seems like something that's important to notice.
I'm heartbroken by the loss of Readmill. Met some incredible people in the margins of books, and have had long and thoughtful conversations with fellow readers, authors, and myself.
Readmill have done an awesome job at giving us tools to rescue our data. But where to put it? How can we keep getting value out of the time we've invested into Readmill? I personally have over 600 highlights and tens of thousands words written in the margins, now locked up in a big JSON dump.
A few of us have banded together to build a tool ( http://readshelf.co ) to rehome your Readmill library. It'll sync your Readmill highlights up until July 1 (and you can upload your dump as well.) When Readmill shuts down for good, we're hoping there'll be a nice replacement service that we can integrate with—giving you some continuity with your library.
Of course, all of your stuff will be exportable in a useful format; lest history repeat itself. In fact, we're really keen to hear suggestions on:
- a sustainable business model for something like this
- some best practices around your data: access, portability, etc.
One thing I've noticed is how different brands 'impute' values by the type of person they will hire. The "cheap and nasty" brands hire people of colour, with disabilities, etc. Possibly a toxic effect of this is we then go and associate those brand values back to the people who work there.
For example, in New Zealand, we have two supermarkets owned by the same company. New World, and Pak'N'Save.
New World is where our version of the "soccer mom" goes to shop. It's the most expensive supermarket, it features large delicatessens, etc. When you go there, as a soccer mom, the type of person you see working there reminds you of your daughter's friend.
Pak'N'Save, the cheap supermarket, embodies cheap. The supermarkets have bare concrete floors, their advertisments feature stick figures because "we're so cheap, we can't even afford good advertising." What type of person works in Pak'N'Save? People of colour, people with disabilities, etc.
I don't really know what my thoughts are here, yet. I don't think this is a conscious decision on the part of the brands or the managers, but it seems like people are used to impute brand as much as advertising or anything else. And nothing seems to impute that more by being served by a person who looks like they can only afford to shop here.
I'm not putting a value judgement on this: but it seems like something that's important to notice.