The Digital Lifestyle

Shortly after I joined Microsoft, I got to attend an internal event called TechReady. Think of TechEd and PDC for Microsoft employees.

During one of the keynotes, they introduced a video showing of Microsoft’s vision of the Digital Lifestyle. It was a great video because the background music, performed by Canadian girl band Magneta Lane, and it showed off a bunch of Microsoft stuff from Communicator to Windows Mobile (now called Windows Phone) to Zune to Live Services and more. IMO, it was a great use of Microsoft marketing where it showed how people can use various technologies (granted it was Microsoft centric) in their everyday lives to connect, socialize, and so on.

Your Digital Lifestyle: Girl from Mars

By now you’ve seen the I’m a PC ads where we see young kids showing the world how much smarter they are than you because they know now to take digital photos, upload them to the computer, and send them to people or blend them into one big photo. I think they’re cute and all, but they sort of miss the mark a bit. I believe the message we’re trying to promote is an underlying theme of “Life without Walls.” There are billboards and ads where you see a picture going from a TV screen to a computer to monitor to a mobile phone to a laptop.

The idea is an extension of the digital lifestyle introduced in the aforementioned video. The fact that you can few content and content with people anywhere. The NBA All-Access services is a good example of that. You can watch NBA games on your computer, your mobile phone, or on your TV.

So going from a cool digital lifestyle video to one of the latest Microsoft marketing ads is “Start your Windows Phone”.

I like the idea of what it’s trying to say, but I think the message gets lost due the hard pounding music that accompanies the video. (It could just be that I’m getting to old to appreciate this type of music.) If you read the tags that splashed through the video, these are all the things that we should expect to have if we plan to embrace this digital lifestyle (whether we consciously try to or not).

So the big question is how? Does Microsoft have the complete solution? No. Does Google? No. Does Apple? Does Verizon? No. Does anyone else? No. But things are in motion where each company and their solution(s) will have to rely on each other to deliver a piece of the puzzle. Kind of like the idea of the “fundamental connectedness of all things.” Its great that each company is striving to out play the other, but does it make sense to completely rely on one platform or provider to deliver it all? I don’t think so, and I’m sure a lot of you think the same way.

So with that said, enjoy the videos, think about your own digital lifestyle, and see you online.

Excelsior!