Norm's Blog

This posting is courtesy of one of my co-workers who made a nice posting on my MySpace profile yesterday. She being a MySpace novice asked if it was ok to not include Tom, the ever present creator of MySpace, as a friend.

This question actually made me wonder about net etiquette for two reasons. The first was because when I signed up for MySpace I didn't realize that you had the option to not include him as a friend. It seems like a logical conclusion that you don't have to, but at the same point why wouldn't you? The second reason startled me even more, why would I want to include him as my 'friend' and how many other people do I not really want to include as my friend. After some careful thought and a couple hours of looking through all the social networking sites and buddy lists I have realized that there are a lot of people listed as my 'friend' that I can't figure out why they are still there or why they were there in the first place.

This brought me to the conclusion that all of my social networking sites are suffering from information overload. The big question is how do you trim back the list of friends without seeming rude? Until I figure out a polite way to remove people from my list, I must admit it is comforting to sign online and know that there is always someone online to talk to.

A few months ago one of my friend's told me that he was going to replace his very normalNissan with a Scion. Even though the brand is apparently four years old, I had to laugh at him because all I could think of when he said it was that horribly boxy xB. As the Financial Times described it "...the xB minivan - sometimes compared to a shoebox or microwave oven on wheels... (Financial Times, Wednesday, April 26, 2006, Page 11)."

Now don't get me wrong, my opinion of the xB has not changed but I do have to admit that recently my perception of the Scion brand has changed. I was compelled to re-evaluate their brand, not because I ran across an ad they ran or even because I drive by a Toyota/Scion dealership on my way into the office every morning, but because their grass roots marketing campaign hit me, like a runaway truck.

On mother's day weekend I was going through a pile of stuff that I had pulled from the Financial Times to read more thoroughly at a later date and I ran across an article by Bernard Simon on Marketing Position entitled "Scion brand greases the wheels for Toyota" that discussed the premise behind this four year old brand. Toyota like many other car makers is realizing that the customers purchasing their product are skewing towards the older side. They were missing out on the younger generation so they launched the Scion brand in an effort to gain a foothold with an influential market.

What made me really take notice on that fateful mother's day weekend was actually a generation that makes me look old at the age of 25. I teach swim lessons to several young kids on Sunday mornings. On this particular morning one of my lessons showed up with a glossy book of Scion cars and all their options that he, at the tender age of four, had picked up somewhere along the line. Immediately after his lesson ended my next lesson came in and promptly told me that his mom had gotten a new car for mother's day, the previously mentioned xB. Later that week my co-worker, whose son happens to be the proud owner of the Scion book, pried the DVD out of his son's hands so I could have a look.

I figured that since I had been surrounded, it was worth taking a look at the brand. The grass roots marketing for the Scion brand is something to be commended. Without running any television or print campaigns in the mainstream press they managed to sell around 160,000 cars, last year, and hope to sell that many this year. I am happy to have run across this unique brand, although it will not send me running to purchase the microwave on wheels. You can visit and even purchase a Scion at www.scion.com.