Dell Looking to Pick Up Women With New Website

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[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]And that's why we like you. But perhaps you're defending your opinion a bit too much here. I'm aware of an article for some holliday season a while back, where the author concluded that 'for women' merely meant 'in pink' by most companies definition. Now Dell has proven that they don't just think about the obvious bimbo stuff, but go a bit deeper. That's progress really. Perhaps you even wrote the original article? I don't remember the author.
.... If men don't know something, they don't wnat to admit it and go to such site. 2) If men don't know something, they'll ask some other male person who they think does. And thus get the needed information discretely.3) If men acknowledge to not knowing something, the woman in the relationship will automaticly promote themselves to the one in charge, and thus need a site aimed for women.[/citation]

OK, for starters. Wanting to engage in conversation especially when many comments are responses to her comments as the conversation evolves isn't exactly the same thing as repeating x over and over. So it seems more like she's keeping up with the evolving conversation rather than trying too hard to defend x point/opinion. New ideas/points/comments are brought up, its logical to respond. Unless she blasts a wall of text like I do sometimes and tries to cover a ton of angles at once...which everyone hates...and is usually followed up with "yeah but what about y exception!" 😉

In regards to the men vs. women knowledge thing...in general you state that a man is likely to research something they don't know, or ask one of their friends. Which would describe the majority of people on the planet.

Ime men are slightly more likely to research and women are slightly more likely to ask someone. Due to (I believe) the whole "you are a man be all stoic and manly" vs. "you are a woman be all social and bubbly" upbringing social conditioning thing.

The third line though is kinda nuts. I have visions of some wife chomping at the bit and going "HA!!! You know less, make way foolish man I am in charge now and shall make the purchase decision with you!". Granted some couples have scary control and finance issues to sort out, but thats a result of poor communication and ability to compromise, not gender problems. Not that gender isn't often thrown about as an excuse by one or both parties of course.

While I feel its safe to say that whomever has more knowledge about a situation often guides the discussion/research about it in most scenarios in general (not just sig others) that hardly = being the one solely in control of a final purchase decision. Especially on anything that cost a reasonable chunk of change.

The exception to this being if one of the people just doesn't care in which case their only concern will likely be the final dollar value. Even then, gender has jack all to do with it.
 
[citation][nom]eklipz330[/nom]WHY in god's name do you have +20? are there that many single men that hate their x's on toms these days? and yes its largely inappropriate other than the fact that most women dont give a fuck about technology, and need someone to hold their hand when buying something that uses electricity. If your not liek that, than congratulations, your more like a man. I never said its a bad thing, unless you think being a man is a bad thing. than your the sexist.^you see what i did there? =][/citation]


It's called sarcastic humor. And obviously it takes being a man to grasp this subtle nuance which leaves you as either a whiny, narcissistic woman who sits alone in the dark watching reruns of Sex in the City or just your run of the mill pillow-biter who wishes he was a woman.....who sits alone in the dark watching Sex in the City.
 
[citation][nom]croc[/nom]"Jane, you ignorant slut."I've always wanted to use that quote...Dell is at least trying to 'connect' with the female market. On a scale of 1 to 5, I'd give them a 5 for trying, but a 1 for execution. OTOH, their HQ is in Austin, TX... World reknowned for Big Hair, Sexy College Babes, etc. Maybe their test marketing was confined to Austin.[/citation]


+1 on your excellent use of classic SNL.

Also, I used to live in Austin and they don't sport big hair there...that's in Dallas. But the sexy college babes part is spot on.
 
@ solymnar : I suppose its valiant that you defend her although I know she can speak up for herself. But really you're not saying much that contradicts what I said. She's got a set point of view which only centers on the fact that there isn't an equivalent of the site for men. And that's what I'm questioning as I feel she should look a bit less one sided at it, and be glad that they evolved from female = pink to female = sensitive, in english not techish.

As for the rest you wrote, I can't really argue it. Your opinion is quite different from mine. I suppose people in your area are simply generally different from people I know.
 
@neiro
I guess its not so much defending as it is relating. On a topic that I'm genuinely interested in I often want to figure out what and why people think the way they do about something and I'll often follow the conversation, probe/challenge/etc. It seems fair and reasonable and I didn't feel jane was getting out of line. If anything I'm defending my own habits. That and someone shouldn't really have to defend their right to speak up, particularly if they are doing so in a reasonable manner. 😉

I guess to me on many levels its a bit pathetic that a computer needs to be marketed to someone based on their gender. I understand the reasoning and marketing and years and years of history behind it. It makes perfect sense and it is the reality of the situation.

But as someone who would like to see real equality among people, catering/handholding to a specific gender/race only serves to try to highlight and undermine differences based on gender/race. Rather than simply acknowledging that different people have different needs, regardless of breast size and skin color.

AKA if I make a club that is specific to african americans/hispanic/asian/women etc. one can say that I'm being sensative to their needs. Which is just another way of saying they are too different from the rest of the population therefore they need special considerations.

Vs. making a club for people interested or concerned about x topic/activity. Which is open to people regardless of how they were born. If a particular subset attends that's fine but at least its not singling out by race/gender.

So to me, dell could have about as easily created a more fleshed out subset to their website that served the exact same purpose without singling out a gender for it.

I mean...unless you computer helps with birth, or menstral cycles...last time I checked they are pretty gender neutral. 😉


It could very well be that the people around me are very different from the ones around you, or that we were raised different and see things with different eyes, or a combination. Who knows?

I personally can't imagine living with this fear that "oh no, my wife might find out that she knows more about x than I do! I'm sooo screwed!". Her and I regularly have long conversations about a variety of things. Its inevitable that she'll know more about various things than I do, why shouldn't she?
 
This is possibly my favorite, less technical article. XD
P.S. I think that dinner comment was made for the lolz. If you're offended please make a comment to counter it. If it's not lulzy, it doesn't count.
 
Oh there's absolutely no fear related to how it works. It's quite simple really. If Man doesn't know, Woman will simply take over and figure out what needs to be known. It's a safer way to do things, as women in general are a bit better at shopping. They don't just look at the number of buttons or the list of features, but evaluate how many of the buttons and features are needed.

As for gender equality - it won't happen. Simply because we are physically different. Females have more 'pathways' between the different parts of the brain and thus don'y rely on reflex or routine memory to complete serveral unique tasks at once. They however aren't on average as physically fit as males making them less suitable for a variety of tasks. That's simply how it is. Now that doesn't deal with the 'wife in the kitchen and bedroom, and husband at work' system - but that's long gone anyway. Only those in their 60s or older are familiar with how it works, and let's face it - they're a dying type of person.

Anyway. Catering to a specific gender works - it's really that simple! Car manufacturers have known and used that fact for years to make all the small shopping cars sell. Sensible stuff like crumple zones and fuel economy are highlighted and they're trying to cater to women, cause men try digging for horsepower, topspeed or road holding charactaristics - which aren't an incentive to buy such car. Now ofcourse like Jane being a computer literate person, there are women who care about accelleration and stuff like how much of the electronic aid can be disabled, but they're not as many as there are women who do not.


Oh and lastly - I didn't intend to sound as if I didn't recognize her right to speak her mind. I like free speech, so I don't. I'm just afraid she'd make herself appear as an idiot like crashman does when he vigirously defends his decisions and points of view even after being proven wrong. After all they both have a tendancy to 'put down' those who reply in a childish way to them, so risks are she could get an image attached like his - and I'd rather not have that happen. One literate but overly arrogant jerk is enough for any one community.
 
I read the first page of comments, too lazy to go on.

Basically Dell was on the right track to target a specific audience, however they need to be sure to specify who their audience is using the website. They should have started the website with "Are you into this, this, or this, this or this? then blah blah" This way you aren't insulting a large number of women by characterizing them with these things. This way they can also expand the website to help other women who are less stereotypical =P. Then further could spin off the website to men. It's called abstracting, but we can't expect a multi-billion dollar company to know what that term means 😉.

Also I'm sorry, but I burst out laughing in the middle of a lecture when I read the very first comment. I started laughing harder when I saw it had 20 likes, and 21 once I clicked the button. Sexism is cruel; Sexist jokes are hilarious!
 
[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom] Oh there's absolutely no fear related to how it works. It's quite simple really. If Man doesn't know, Woman will simply take over and figure out what needs to be known. [/citation]

I've never encountered this being remotely trackable to gender. Its almost always a product of a balancing act between who cares about the item in question more, who has more spare time/energy to learn about it and who started out with the most info.

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]It's a safer way to do things, as women in general are a bit better at shopping. They don't just look at the number of buttons or the list of features, but evaluate how many of the buttons and features are needed. [/citation]

So very not true in my experience. /shrug
Women in general are more likely to be compulsive shoppers due to how they are in general raised to think of shopping as fun (with a mixed bag of results). But that doesn't in any way make them more likely to be smart shoppers. Being a smart shopper more often seems to go hand in hand with the ability to manage money well. Which I see both genders fail and suceed on pretty much on par with each other. I see both get suckered in ads, looks, bells and whistles they won't actually use etc. pretty evenly.

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]
As for gender equality - it won't happen. Simply because we are physically different. Females have more 'pathways' between the different parts of the brain and thus don'y rely on reflex or routine memory to complete serveral unique tasks at once. [/citation]

This is a very misleading statement, for one, scientists don't really have a good enough grasp on how your brain works or developes to really measure brain lobe interface speeds etc. Not even in loose terms, though they do throw around a ton of speculation based on which areas "light up" in response to various stimuli.

Specifically however the notion that the interconnects are known to be better set up in women vs. men is simply not true:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/heshe.html

That said what matters is the end result and in tests on spacial relations, multitasking, memory, etc. etc. etc. The end results were extremely slight average differences based on gender with much more notable ones from person to person ignoring gender.

A follow up to this showed that any degree of training in any of these areas effectively erased the gender average difference into a margin of error.

Which makes sense. Its pretty clear that people can train their minds to get better at x tasks, even late in life. Thus if your upbringing makes you focus on x skills practically from the day you are born, your brain will get trained up in the those areas acordingly, gender has little to do with it on average.

Go figure.

People don't like that though, they want simple reasons to justify differences in how people around them behave (men from mars women from venus BS). They don't like the true answer, people are a complex mixture of thier unique inherited genetics and a sum of their life experiences and associations.

I do agree that equality will never happen and we'll always have some measure of sexist racist people due to a combination of ignorance, laziness, and the need for people to feel both unique and like they belong. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth shooting for when possible. :)

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]
Catering to a specific gender works - it's really that simple! Car manufacturers have known and used that fact for years to make all the small shopping cars sell. Sensible stuff like crumple zones and fuel economy are highlighted and they're trying to cater to women, cause men try digging for horsepower, topspeed or road holding charactaristics - which aren't an incentive to buy such car. Now ofcourse like Jane being a computer literate person, there are women who care about accelleration and stuff like how much of the electronic aid can be disabled, but they're not as many as there are women who do not.[/citation]

I completely agree that marketing to a gender or some social subset works. If it didn't companies (like dell now) wouldn't bother. While it seems to me that the macho car oriented guys tend to be more 35yr+ and that "most" younger people in general seem to be looking for more efficient vehicals there is still a clear tendancy for a guy to be more likely to go for the sporty vehical or mod it etc. Like I said, I do understand the reality of the situation. I just don't care for some of the not so harmless side effects of people buying into some of the gender differences they are sold on and perpetuate in their kids.

[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]
Oh and lastly - I didn't intend to sound as if I didn't recognize her right to speak her mind. I like free speech, so I don't. I'm just afraid she'd make herself appear as an idiot like crashman does when he vigirously defends his decisions and points of view even after being proven wrong. [/citation]

Understood. Though in this case its hard to prove much. I totally understand what you are saying but as you mentioned my experiences in life and the people around me seem vastly different than yours. Though if this thread is a any indicator I'm more the exception than the norm. Nothing much to be done about that. 😉
 
[citation][nom]solymnar[/nom]I completely agree that marketing to a gender or some social subset works. If it didn't companies (like dell now) wouldn't bother. While it seems to me that the macho car oriented guys tend to be more 35yr+ and that "most" younger people in general seem to be looking for more efficient vehicals there is still a clear tendancy for a guy to be more likely to go for the sporty vehical or mod it etc. Like I said, I do understand the reality of the situation. I just don't care for some of the not so harmless side effects of people buying into some of the gender differences they are sold on and perpetuate in their kids.[/citation]
I can understand why you think that is the case, and in part it is. More younger people now than 20 years ago care about economy over other charactaristics. That simply because there are so many desirable things out there that they really have to prioritise, and those picking economy most likely don't care about the car at all, but simply need/want 'a car'. The reason however that you see 35+ guys more interested in sports cars and the like is largely due to the same thing. 20 years ago people were generally getting offspring at around age 18-24 (now it's a more broad range), thus people who approach 38 can start to think about stuff they've always wanted but had to down prioritize. The youth that wanted the audi quadro in the 80s couldn't afford it then, but now their kids have moved out, they can get one - or a modern equivalent from subaru or mitsubishi for that matter. I work at a place where we among other things educate aspiring car mechanics. And they quite confirm that young people today are no different from earlier. These people merely can't afford the really cool cars, and are left to create them themselves, or merely repair them for others. In 20 years time though, they'll be able to aquire that austin healey or rx8 or whatever they fancied though. I myself added the luxury of buying an alfa romeo before I had turned 26 (the age where insurrances drop drastically in denmark) and found that while it was really cool compared to the old audi 100 I had before, it was so very expensive to insure and service, that I ended up selling it when a few years later the engine blew. That wouldn't have happened to a bloke in his 40s as he'd be more likely to have the spare cash.
So. In short the reason you see 35+ interested in performance, and young adults only in practicality is due to prioritizing economy.

[citation][nom]solymnar[/nom]So very not true in my experience. /shrug
Women in general are more likely to be compulsive shoppers due to how they are in general raised to think of shopping as fun (with a mixed bag of results). But that doesn't in any way make them more likely to be smart shoppers. Being a smart shopper more often seems to go hand in hand with the ability to manage money well. Which I see both genders fail and suceed on pretty much on par with each other. I see both get suckered in ads, looks, bells and whistles they won't actually use etc. pretty evenly.[/citation]
Quite obviously we're living in very very very very very different social surroundings. What's your origin anyway ? I'm 'defending' the system of the lower middleclass danish population, and probably the upper middleclass isn't much different.
I would readily assume that systems work different in very poor families due to nessecity. And in really rich families I suppose everyone has the option to just get what they want, or simply hire experts to think for them. But I don't know either of those groups really. We don't have many poor people in denmark, and the rich stick to their society.
 
Oh and not being very medically minded, I only know about brains what I've been told in documentries and stuff. So I don't remember exactly what the things are called that from my gathered knowledge are responsible for the differences you deny are proven. But it's got something to do with the average brain is put together. I'm aware that neural pathways in the brain get initially created 'when needed' and thus what you do is what you get better at. But there are those 'links' between the rather small part responsible for 'logical thinking' and another part I've forgotten. There are supposedly more of those links in female brains. Now those are physical things they can somehow measure, so that part must be proven. But I haven't got any insight knowledge of those things. I just use my brain as it is really. I don't try to understand it.
 
That was the part I specifically linked an artical to for you. It talks about that exact assumption of having more cross connections between the hemispheres in females. Some studies made this conclusion (the results of which you obviously came across somewhere). Other studies disprove or directly contradict it which is what the article is about.

The end conclusion is that its hard to make a definitive statement when you have sets of studies showing different conclusions when looking for the same data etc.

So the only thing worth paying attention to for now (until they better understand how the brain actually works) is the end results. And there are very few well controlled studies on that with decent sizes of groups participating. Of those however gender itself seems to play a very very trivial role.

Many of the gender "studies" posted that people quote often have less notably than 50 people and don't control well. So the "conclusions" they draw are often pointless and have no real weight. But people like to read about it anyway.

I'm from the more culterally diverse (hispanic, asian, african american mixed) suberbs (st paul) of the twin cities in minnesota US and also spent part of my time growing up in the (not very diverse) farm areas of Mankato.

I hang out mainly with other adventerous geeks and geek couples etc (like computers, science, gaming, books, movies, anime, philosophy but also biking,hiking, cliff jumping, rollerblading, camping etc.). I grew up relatively poor, about half of my friends are boarderline poor to lower middle class for the area. The other half are mid to upper middle. I've only known a few weathly people somewhat closely, most of whom seem a bit out of touch with what life is like for most others. 😉

One nice advantage of where I live is the food, even the grocery stores carry wide arrays to cater to the different cultures here. Beats the tar out of normal minnesotan food for the most part.

I do likes me the spicy foods. :)
 
[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]I can understand why you think that is the case, and in part it is. More younger people now than 20 years ago care about economy over other charactaristics. That simply because there are so many desirable things out there that they really have to prioritise, and those picking economy most likely don't care about the car at all, but simply need/want 'a car'. The reason however that you see 35+ guys more interested in sports cars and the like is largely due to the same thing. 20 years ago people were generally getting offspring at around age 18-24 (now it's a more broad range), thus people who approach 38 can start to think about stuff they've always wanted but had to down prioritize. The youth that wanted the audi quadro in the 80s couldn't afford it then, but now their kids have moved out, they can get one - or a modern equivalent from subaru or mitsubishi for that matter. I work at a place where we among other things educate aspiring car mechanics. And they quite confirm that young people today are no different from earlier. These people merely can't afford the really cool cars, and are left to create them themselves, or merely repair them for others. In 20 years time though, they'll be able to aquire that austin healey or rx8 or whatever they fancied though. [/citation]

Good analogy. It makes a lot of sense from what I've seen too. I particularly agree with your point that there is an increase in expensive desirable things being a pretty big factor in "youth" (sub 35yrs). On a limited budget, anything you spend on a car takes away from money to put towards your other interests/toys etc.
 
Well I'll be honest and say I didn't care to actually read the other article. I don't mind getting smarter, but I don't like reading much about stuff I don't know sufficiently about to understand immidiately. If I am to learn more about how the brain works, I'll have to watch a documentry about it, or actually take part in the study (not as a subject). And in any event - it's been a long day that I will allow to end soon.

ps. by your definition of youth I'm young! yay! By mine you're old when you approach 30, which I'll hit next year.

Oh and a last thing - a diverse range of stuff to eat would be something I'd want too. But I can only pick between regular stuff that 'normal danes' eat as I don't live in a highly populated area.
 
[citation][nom]neiroatopelcc[/nom]After all they both have a tendancy to 'put down' those who reply in a childish way to them, so risks are she could get an image attached like his - and I'd rather not have that happen. One literate but overly arrogant jerk is enough for any one community.[/citation]

I am more than confident that of the 350+ comments I've posted in news discussions here, less than 10 have been written in a manner that would be seen as 'putting down' another commenter. I respect everyone's opinions but I also feel I have the right to stand up for myself when someone makes an inappropriate comment that is directed toward me and completely unfounded. It's really disappointing to hear you think I have an arrogant streak or that I have a "tendency" to act in a way that accounts for at most, 3% of my comments. I'm really sorry if you got that impression, but it's not me.
 
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