*tap tap*
This thing still on?
So, one of the side-effects of getting a promotion for a position that I did very little research into means that I'm now part of a department that I have next to no knowledge about. To my eternal shame, I am now part of Marketing, and transitioning from a hard science tech oriented role to becoming another cog in the eternal bullshit factory has required that I do a lot of external reading to get up to speed.
But.
It's going well, so far. I enjoy most of what I do, and it's interesting work. On the other hand, I am now constantly evaluating things from a "product" standpoint. I stumbled across this article a little while ago: http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/18/the-offline-glass-ensures-you-talk-not-text-at-the-bar/ and I initially thought "That's kind of a neat idea. Force people to not be phone/Facebook addicted when they're out at the bar with their friends."
After a couple hours, I'm more concerned that the condensation from the glass will wreck the phone, and the bar runs a liability risk for destroying people's gadgets. I saw what the cost would be for my phone if I had to pay for the thing out of pocket, and I'm pretty sure "let it get soaked at the bar" isn't something my provider will look upon kindly.
If I got asked to solve this problem, I'd go about it from an incentive-based standpoint. A few bars here will grab a pint glass if you're running a tab and just drop slips in it with your drink orders then total it up at the end of the night. I'd suggest adding a small discount to all drink prices for any group or customer that added their phones to the pint glass / container and left them behind the counter for the time they're out. Obviously all drink prices immediately go up by $0.50 to offset any lost cashflow from the 'discount'. Problem solved, no new hardware required.
Or redesign the glass to funnel all condensation off using a channel in the glass base, or whatever. I'm open to other options here.
Just a thought.
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