In any case, I’m sick about it and already going through withdrawals.

The only bright spot is that I might have to break my promise to myself to wait a few years before ordering an Apple iPad. I just heard this week that I can easily transfer all my Kindle books to the device from my Amazon account. So, you tell me – did I lose the Kindle by chance? Or was it subconsciously on purpose?

I wouldn’t put it past me.

One of the most provocative ideas she suggested was centered on the Kindle. She admitted when it was first released she thought it was a technology that would stick around for a few years and fizzle out. Now with the high adoption rate of the Kindle and introduction of the iPad, she believes it could revolutionize education.

Especially now that technology has become so portable and inexpensive to manufacture, the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is shrinking. Why will school districts continue to pay for expensive textbooks when they can assign a Kindle to a child and download all of his or her textbooks onto one small mini computer for so much less money?

Consider the buying power of a school district. It could negotiate incredible deals from Amazon, Apple or Barnes & Noble to get the electronic reader/iPad-type product. Plus, it would save the cost of ordering new textbooks when the older versions become outdated. All a school would have to do is download the most recent update for a far better price. Even low-income schools would be able to afford a better tool for children to learn.

My husband is a teacher and he will tell you that today, in order for children to desire learning, it has to be interactive. There are endless possibilities for interaction from the Kindle and other similar technologies for a child. It’s enough to get me writing our school district, even though my twin girls are not even 1 year old yet.

In these times of education budget cuts, it’s important to look for ways to save money and improve the quality of education. I think Marian Salzman might have the answer.

One of the best points Brennan makes is that customer service IS marketing. If you are marketing to women and are failing to work closely with the customer service team, you’re making a huge mistake.

Women can become instant brand loyalists if they have a great customer service experience. Take me, for example:

Recently, I purchased a Krups coffee maker. The coffee maker is not an appliance I care a lot about. I just wanted something that looked nice and had a thermos. I chose a Krups because I had a gift certificate. But, for some reason, it kept randomly overflowing. That means I’ve cleaned up major coffee spills at least three times a week since I purchased it in December. Grrrrr…….

I finally reached my breaking point and made the dreaded call to customer service. The person I spoke with was amazing. I told him my problem and he immediately said, “That sounds like a defective thermos. I’ll send you a new one.” That’s it. I didn’t have to do anything else. And now I’m a loyalist. I’ve told tons of friends and family about the experience. And I’ll definitely be purchasing another Krups when the time comes.

Unfortunately, not many marketers are focused on improving and then promoting their customer service. And those that are often miss the mark.

Take a look, for instance, at the new 2010 Zappos campaign.

They are smart to focus on the fact that you talk to a real person when you call their service line and that they are open 24/7. But the creative execution is just odd.

Women are the most time-starved creatures on the planet. We want to hire your brand so we can delegate items on our never-ending to-do list. And women follow a mantra one of my former managers used to tout: “Be slow to hire and quick to fire.”

That means if your brand wants to keep its “job,” you need to be looking for ways to add value.

USAA, a financial services provider for members of the military and their families, is an expert at adding value. And one of their best examples is their auto negotiation service. That’s right, if you opt for an auto loan from USAA (which has extremely competitive rates), they will do the negotiating for you.

Obviously, they realize that women purchase 65% of all new cars and 53% of used cars, and influence 95% of all auto purchases.* Plus, women HATE to negotiate. In fact, women will pay as much as $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car.**

You can even handle the whole business online. I’ll definitely be delegating this task to the USAA brand.

*Road & Travel Magazine
**Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide

What follows is a barrage of messages that violate every rule of e-mail etiquette possible. Especially the “reply-to-all” golden rule that professional e-mailers like me know is sacred: Reply-to-all is like using 9-1-1 . . . it should only used if you truly do need to let everyone know something important, such as, “The microwave is on fire again. Please evacuate the building.”

Did these people miss out on E-mail 101? No one cares if you would rather bring organic bran muffins instead of conversation hearts. (Except the kids, of course. But that’s another blog.)

I was so excited this week when I stumbled upon a site that I think could change my life: www.SignUpGenius.com. Sign Up Genius lets you get rid of paper and e-mail chain sign-ups forever. It’s a lot like Evite. If you need to coordinate a snack list, volunteers, party supplies, pot lucks, carpools and more, Sign Up Genius lets you dump in your information and then send a link out to the people involved. They can simply click on the link and go to a private or public Web page and sign up. Instead of having a person handle the details, the site does it for you. And everyone has one common place to get their information. Best of all, it’s free!

If you’re a parent who coordinates a lot of events and activities, www.signupgenius.com is for you. (And it’s very nice for the rest of us, too.)

One of the first and most successful advertisers to do it was Sonic.

And now others are following suit. Just check out the new Toyota Sienna campaign – it’s very fun.

But this “quirky couple” execution is now old news. Marketers: if you’re looking for a way to differentiate your brand, and you’re looking at creative concepts featuring a funny, real-life couple, you might want to think twice.

We’ve also realized that since we’ll be moving, it’s probably time to get a new washer and dryer to go with the new house. Like most women, I like to research my purchases online before I buy. So, I was checking out the appliance Web sites and I came across the new Kenmore site. If you haven’t checked them out for a while and you’re looking for new appliances, now is the time! Wow! I never thought I could feel so strongly about a washing machine.

Since I’m new to motherhood, I’m still getting the hang of stain-fighting and washing massive amounts of clothing. Before children, my husband and I had two or three loads of laundry a week. Now I’m lucky to get through the week with five loads! After seeing what the new Kenmore front-loading washers can do, I’m ready to make my purchase. It steams clothes to remove wrinkles (who has time to iron anymore?), it has a sanitizing setting to remove germs from stuffed animals and pillows, and best of all, it has new cycles that make pre-treating stains a thing of the past! I was also impressed with their new look and new Web site. It has great animations of how the clothes move through a cycle, and they also created a Kenmore studio where they record demonstrations of their products. The video is available through their Facebook page, and they have very helpful demonstrations. It’s a really cool way to use Facebook to promote their new products and look. Kenmore-like your tagline-that’s genius!

The retailer selected nine inspiring women to sport its clothes in the catalog, which features small notes about each woman and their lives. It’s brilliant because women love to learn about people. For women, people are THE most important part of life. And we love to learn about the details of other people’s lives.

Of course, the campaign wouldn’t be complete if J. Crew didn’t provide more. You can go online and read handwritten interviews with each woman that discuss their work, love and personal style.

You see, when a woman interacts with your brand, she is measuring it in her mind. Think of it as a bar chart in her head .

She may do this subconsciously, but more often then not, she has predetermined the criteria and is consciously making notes on how your product or service measures up.

This can make our job as branding agents and marketers quite difficult. We all want to believe in the standard branding charts. You know, the ones that have the big-picture stuff like your brand promise, strategy and vision as the core, with the tactical “less important” items on the outskirts.

But when it comes to women, a branding chart should look more like a game of Jenga. All the pieces have equal weight. That means that the way a customer service person talks to a woman on the phone, or the sentence a blogger posts, matters just as much as your brand mission.

And, if the wrong piece is pulled out or goes awry, the whole brand can come crumbling down.

But here’s the good news. If you get it right…If you pay attention to all the details of your brand just as much as you pay attention to the big-picture stuff, you will create the best salesperson your brand has ever seen. Because when a woman experiences your brand, she is not only measuring it for herself. She is also determining how it stacks up for all the other individuals in her life.

If she determines that your offering will enhance the lives of her sisters, parents, friends, children, etc., she will tell and sell. And that’s an opportunity you can’t afford to miss!

The same thing happened to me with the Amazon Kindle. I am an avid reader and jumped on the chance to eliminate the extra paper and dollars that my library is taking up. I was lucky enough to snag one just before the holiday rush of 2008. Of course, I only loved my Kindle for approximately two weeks, when the announcement of the Kindle 2 was made. Again: cuter, cooler, etc., etc.

Right now, I am D-Y-I-N-G to get my hands on one of the new tablets that have come out. Should I go for the enTourage eDGe? Maybe the Apple iPad? Can I get over that name?

The real question is: Will I learn my lesson? There is a certain satisfaction in being able to tell people about a new technology that you’re using successfully. But I’m thinking that the real satisfaction may be in waiting so that others can “work out the kinks” for me. So this time, I’m shooting for the Early to Late Majority adoption rate. We’ll see how long I can wait.