Posted by Welcome to episode #300 of Six Pixels Of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast. This is also episode #21.20 of Across The Sound. Joseph Jaffe is widely regarded as one of the top Marketing Bloggers (Jaffe Juice) and Podcasters (both Jaffe Juice in audio and Jaffe Juice TV in video). He is the author of three excellent books (Life After The 30-Second Spot, Join The Conversation and Flip The Funnel) and recently launched his latest venture, Evol8tion. A long-time friend (and one of the main inspirations behind the Six Pixels of Separation Blog and Podcast), we’ve decided to hold monthly conversations, debates and back-and-forths that will dive a little deeper into the Digital Marketing and Social Media landscape. This is our 21st conversation (or, as I like to affectionately call it, Across The Sound 21.20). This week, we talk about brands and technology. Is Nike a sporting goods brand or a technology company? After Jaffe waits in line for close to an hour at SXSW to score a Nike FuelBand, you may be surprised by what we come up with. Enjoy the conversation…
Here it is: Six Pixels Of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast – Episode #300 – Host: Mitch Joel.
- Running time: 55:07.
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- This week’s music: David Usher ‘St. Lawrence River’.
Download the Podcast here: Six Pixels Of Separation – The Twist Image Podcast – Episode #300 – Host: Mitch Joel.
Never another podcast episode or article 
Mitch & Joe … great conversation.
The issue of technology is an important question. I’m glad you never really answered it. The ambiguity actually helps. My own sense is that technology is a tool for accomplishing other goals or purposes. It is a means. I see this in one of the areas where I’m involved.
I’m on the board of a small non-profit that has a wide scope of connection to kids who want to do social change projects. One of our chief means of doing this is a website – randomkid.org.
I see us as an IT company. We use technology to help kids make a difference in the world and their communities. One of the directions we are moving in is to provide kids an online place where their co-curricular educational experiences, like their projects, can be tracked for use as a parallel transcript for applying to colleges.
The technology enables us to better serve kids who want to create social change. Therefore, we are a technology company, even thought we look like a traditional non-profit organization.
As always, a very interesting podcast. I believe that we need to distinguish between technology companies and companies that leverage technology. I worked for a records management firm (stores boxes of paper in big warehouses) once someone in the leadership team said that we were a technology company. And I said no, we still store paper in warehouses; technology is something we are using to reduce costs and give us a market advantage over our competitors. I feel that is what Nike is doing with the Fuel Band, leveraging technology to give them an advantage over their competitors. Where the line starts to blur is perhaps Apple. Are they more of a consumer products company than a technology company. I look at Cisco, HP, Oracle, IBM, Microsoft and many others as technology companies; Nike doesn’t come close. They do if you start to morph the meaning of technology company into something other than what I would say most people think today. But it is still worth contemplating.