When
I was responsible for developing new 'knowledge products' for a major
professional services firm, we did it the old fashioned way. We
identified all the content that was available and asked the practice
leaders (the guys footing the bills) which content they wanted. We
didn't talk much with the front-line people or find out what jobs they
did, or wanted to do, using knowledge. The practice leaders, ignorant
of what was possible, told us, often, what they thought we wanted to
hear. Then we went away and had fun designing sophisticated
multi-functional Intranet websites and tools that would accommodate all
this stuff, in the way that made sense to us
as 'information architects'. Then, we flooded their e-mails and
newsletters with messages telling them what content was now available
(messages few people read), and developed training courses and CBT to
show them how to use the fancy tools we'd bought or built (training few
people took). And we were surprised when most of our 'users' didn't use
or like the content or tools very much. Duh.
A recent article in Business Week (thanks to Paul Graham for the link) describes the importance of getting your new technology product approximately right fast,
and fine tuning it once it's out in the market. Traditional product
developers would be aghast at such an idea, since it sounds hasty and
unprofessional. But today, with the appropriate caveats ("this is still
in beta") it makes sense (and not just for technology products) because
rapid iteration is the best way to perfect a product, and because
customers are essential to that process.
As I've explained
before, 'finding a need and filling it' entails finding the
intersections of 'jobs to be done' and communities of people who do (or
want to do) those 'jobs'. This is illustrated in the need/affinity
matrix above. This is not the way designers and marketers ("the
customer doesn't know what he wants") usually think. Designers think in
terms of features and benefits. Customers think in terms of the job to be done. They don't want a 1/4" drill bit (even if it plays iTunes music); they want a 1/4" hole.
It's the jobs to be done that the entrepreneur should be looking for --
jobs that existing products and services, for some reason, don't
satisfactorily do. (And a reminder: make sure you understand that reason -- it can save you a lot of grief.)
Likewise,
marketers think in terms of demographics. But these days demographics
is no longer a good way to parse your market: The days when a product
could be made for a certain specific homogeneous age group, cultural
group, or gender are long gone. Our affinities -- the people or
communities with whom we share a particular need or want -- are now
extremely complex, and getting more so.
So you need to find the
intersections of (unmet) needs and affinities. In the example in the
matrix above, vendors have recently (in the last decade or so)
discovered a need for decks and fences that require virtually no
maintenance. People don't have time to keep these structures looking
beautiful. The solution the inventors came up with was moulded plastic
(or wood/plastic composite) decking -- no cracks because of thermal
resilience and no painting because the colour is baked right in. The
vendors discovered two main communities interested in such products --
people with no time (or, if they were to be honest, lousy carpentry
skills), and people worried about the newly-discovered health and
environmental dangers of creosote and other wood preservatives.
Once they'd found the intersections, the next step was to develop a strategy canvas (this is a Blue Ocean Strategy term, but I'll use Kathy Sierra's intriguing 'equalizer'
metaphor to demonstrate it) that would differentiate, in the eyes of
the identified customer communities, their product from traditional
wood decking and fencing materials:
The
four customer-valued attributes in which the new all-plastic (Eon --
blue line above) and plastic-wood composite (Trex -- green line above)
decking and fencing outperform traditional wood decking and fencing
materials (red line above) are sufficient to outweigh the cost
advantage of wood. However, while Eon and Trex are making great inroads
into the decking market, they have not been as successful in the
fencing market because one of the key customer-valued attributes of
fencing is minimizing the labour of digging post holes, and the new
products really aren't an improvement in that area. There's a great
opportunity for an innovator who can come up with something that moves
that sixth slider way up.
So what does this have to do with
iteration and the wisdom of crowds? Well, as designers and marketers
are quick to point out, the customer's needs and wants are never that
clearly articulated. They probably don't know what they want or need
(most of us are not very imaginative), especially if it's something
that hasn't been invented yet.
The vertical axis of the need/affinity matrix is therefore initially fuzzy. Iteration clarifies it. Show
people something that meets what they think they need, and with enough
iterations, they and you together will hone in on what they really need
that you can produce.
The inventors of plastic decking and fencing (back in the 1980s) didn't do very well, because people couldn't imagine
using it. They couldn't visualize it. The iterators like Eon and Trex
who developed prototypes, installed a few free of charge so that
customers and neighbours could see what they were getting, and kick the
tires, and suggest improvements -- those were the vendors who made money filling this need.
Likewise, the horizontal
axis of the need/affinity matrix is also initially fuzzy. With less
time available each year, customers were clearly clamouring for
lower-maintenance products. But those customers probably would be loath
to admit that, compared to previous generations, they just don't have
the skills to build, repair or maintain such structures. And who would
have guessed, if they hadn't done a lot of research 'in the crowd',
that consumer concerns about health, safety and the environment would
lead to an aversion to, and then a ban on, creosote and other toxic
wood preservatives, throwing the entire industry into chaos? And what
about people in struggling nations who don't have electricity?
Snap-together decking does away with the need for power tools. Tapping
the wisdom of crowds entails interviewing and surveying as many people
as possible to get a consensus not only on the need, but on the
categories of customer, the affinity groups, who have that need. Such primary research (which requires wearing out a lot of shoe-leather) would ask questions on issues such as:
- the aesthetic acceptability of various styles, colours and options of plastic decking and fencing
- how
the relative noisiness of a plastic deck (due to its lower
sound-deadening qualities and 'cracking' noises during thermal
expansion and contraction in the sun) affects its attractiveness
- to what extent the light weight of a plastic fence detracts from the sense of security it offers
- the willingness of 'home centres' to make room to stock and support a product that 'competes' with its wood products
- the
willingness of contractors to pass along the savings from faster
installation to their customers (do they see this as a threat of fewer
hours, or an opportunity for higher margins?), etc.
This is
hard work, but as long as you have the time and passion for it, it's
not expensive. It will give you a lot of information about the
communities of customers who will buy your product, and, by iteration, exactly
what they would prefer to buy. That puts you light years ahead of
traditional companies, who invent in a lab, design in a vacuum, and
then advertise to anyone who will listen and hope for the best.
So get that alpha or beta, that model or prototype, that drawing or concept diagram, out there, and show it to the crowd. Then, working with the potential customer communities you've identified, find their need and fill it. |
12:51:42 PM 
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