Last year I was recommended by Tom Peters (well actually, when I say I, what I really mean is I and 200 other people sitting listening to Tom Peters talk) to read Why Men Don't Listen And Women Can't Read Maps.
It's a great read, funny and insightful without being too heavy.
Tom Peters referenced the book in his talk to make a point about the importance of women as an often overlooked yet highly valuable (and powerful) market demographic. In short, most advertising and commerce is designed and conducted with a male target bias. Tom says this is wrong, I agree.
Moreover, it says that men and women don't simply respond differently to things on a socially conditioned basis; like fluffy pink dolls stuff versus hard metallic blue gun/death stuff. We're biologically wired up differently. These differences manifest themselves in various ways, not least the propensity for men to not listen (mostly to women) and for women to be particularly bad at reading maps.
So, you'll forgive my wry smile when I caught myself the other day - for the umpteenth time I might add - failing to follow audible directions given to me by the female voice that sits inside the Satnav system in my car. Either I'll drift off in thought, be distracted by something or other and before I know it, I'm heading off in the wrong direction having completely missed or ignored the repeated audible directions like "Turn left in 200 yards" issued forth in a rather proper English accented female voice.
There's clearly some kind of karmic gender law that's being broken here. Either that, or sexy female voiced Satnav systems (until recently found mostly in big, butch cars for men) is a fantastically ironic in-joke.
Which I just got.
It's a great read, funny and insightful without being too heavy.
"A woman knows her children's friends, hopes, dreams, secret fears, what they are thinking, how they are feeling. Men are vaguely aware of some short people also living in the house." (Extract from "Why Men Don't Listen And Women Can't Read Maps" by Barbara & Allan Pease)
Tom Peters referenced the book in his talk to make a point about the importance of women as an often overlooked yet highly valuable (and powerful) market demographic. In short, most advertising and commerce is designed and conducted with a male target bias. Tom says this is wrong, I agree.
Moreover, it says that men and women don't simply respond differently to things on a socially conditioned basis; like fluffy pink dolls stuff versus hard metallic blue gun/death stuff. We're biologically wired up differently. These differences manifest themselves in various ways, not least the propensity for men to not listen (mostly to women) and for women to be particularly bad at reading maps.
So, you'll forgive my wry smile when I caught myself the other day - for the umpteenth time I might add - failing to follow audible directions given to me by the female voice that sits inside the Satnav system in my car. Either I'll drift off in thought, be distracted by something or other and before I know it, I'm heading off in the wrong direction having completely missed or ignored the repeated audible directions like "Turn left in 200 yards" issued forth in a rather proper English accented female voice.
There's clearly some kind of karmic gender law that's being broken here. Either that, or sexy female voiced Satnav systems (until recently found mostly in big, butch cars for men) is a fantastically ironic in-joke.
Which I just got.
