I found this fascinating quote today:
Alan Smith, partner at The Movement and Trish Papadakos founder at The Institute of You tell us why design is more than just colours and typography. They also share their insight on design thinking for businesses. Duration 32 Minsdormroomtycoon.com, Dorm Room Tycoon, May 2010
You should read the whole article.
I love this blog more than I can describe. I've written in it for around 3 years now, but recently I've been posting over at my other blog instead. It's much more focused around entrepreneurship and design, while this is more of a general blog.
So if you're interested in the design and entrepreneurship stuff, then head over here:
http://www.danieltownsend.co.uk/
If you like the more general stuff, then keep reading this blog! It won't be going away any time soon.
Cheers.
How should a product be marketed? As pro, or as premium?
Just a casual observation made by rummaging through my bag....
Pro products:
What makes certain platforms good, and what makes them bad?
I was pretty neutral on the subject until recently. I was working on a side project called Genius Hub, which allows international students who are thinking of applying to a UK university to talk to a student currently studying there. They pay fees of around £20,000 a year so making the right decision is important.
We thought it was a neat idea, and even though my co-founder and myself aren't international students, we would've valued such a service when we were applying to university.
The development model which we've become accustomed to is heavily customer focused. So early on we wanted as much feedback as possible from prospective students. We looked around the web, and the most popular place for such people was thestudentroom.co.uk.
We got some fantastic feedback from the people on the forums, and we implemented all of their suggestions, right down to the wording of some of the phrases. This is testament to the helpfulness of people when asked for advice on a product or a service.
Shortly after we were banned from the site. We received no prior warning - we just got an email through saying we were banned, and that all our forum posts had been removed.
Obviously we were annoyed. A quick browse of the site will show forum discussions relating to every conceivable topic, ranging from Tesco vouchers to sexual preferences. But for some odd reason, having a constructive conversation about website design with some students overstepped the mark.
We'll never know what their reasons were for banning us, but it taught us a valuable lesson. In much the same way that Apple runs the Appstore, decisions are made by certain people which appear almost arbitrary. They seem to forget that people are capable of making their own decisions. People didn't have to reply to our forum post - they did so because they found it genuinely interesting. In fact, it was one of the top five most popular stories at the time.
The next time we need some feedback we'll only ever use agnostic platforms. I use the word agnostic, because these platforms don't have any rigid beliefs about what's right and wrong - basically, anything goes. It comes down to the individual to make their own decisions. At the moment there's precious few agnostic platforms, and I reckon the most important is Twitter.
I can basically post anything on Twitter without it being taken down. If people don't want to listen to it, then they can stop following me. It's that simple.
If people think Twitter is some mindless waste of time, then they're wrong. It's value is huge, because it enables real, unhindered conversation, without some random tosser poking their nose in and saying what's right or wrong.
It's become incredibly popular nowadays to have a team spread out geographically, and collaborating remotely. There are obvious benefits - money is saved from office space, transport, light, heating etc. However, there's some major downsides which people fail to consider.
When people collaborate remotely, they need a shared understanding about what they're working on. This usually involves falling back on existing paradigms about how a product should look and perform. For instance, if I was collaborating remotely with some colleagues on the design of a chair, and I asked each person to take care of one part, you can almost be guaranteed that the final product would be the most generic, unexciting chair in existence.
A vaunted example of distance collaboration is Linux. However, it suffers from the same difficulties as the chair. If I'm sitting at the center of a vast web of collaborators, and I somehow need to distribute tasks to each of them, then the fastest way to do so would be to look at an existing product and break it down in to its constituent elements. For instance, if I wanted to create a word processor, then that wouldn't be too hard - I could break down Microsoft Office into chunks of functionality, and people would have a fair idea about how they all fit together. But if I wanted to build something fundamentally different then that would be incredibly hard, if not impossible, because people would have nothing to refer to.
This is one of the fundamental challenges of distance collaboration. Networks of people don't create innovative products unless they're capably managed. If the intention is to build an innovative product then the vision has to be incredibly strong and well understood, otherwise people will fall back on existing paradigms and create a generic product.
I study engineering at university, and I've discovered that engineers are really good at making assumptions. If I was to write down the one key skill of an engineer, then I'd say that was it.
In traditional engineering, we might make assumptions about the type of fluid that we're dealing with, or the composition of a material. Businesses make assumptions too, but they're about their customers, and their competitors, and all sorts of other things. But unfortunately, they're not always as successful as engineers.
The reason is really simple - business assumptions might be valid when they're conceived, but over time they can become very, very wrong.
A good example is Polaroid Corporation. Their entire business was founded on two main assumptions:
I've been fascinated by this phrase ever since I first heard it as a teenager.
My initial thought was that ok, that may be true, but if we took it to its logical conclusion and nobody knew anything, then the world would be a pretty crap place.
The phrase came up again in a Paul Arden book I was reading over Christmas, which used the anecdote of a young architect. This architect was at a pub handing out business cards, presenting himself in such a way that anyone who met him would've thought he was the best architect in the world. The flip side of the coin is an ultra talented architect who spends all his time at the office and never goes to the pub.
The 'right person' in the opinions of all the pub goers, is the guy stood there marketing himself. He might not be the best architect, but he's the one they'll go to with any questions about architecture - i.e. he acquires the status of guru.
This is the power, and the weakness, of knowing the 'right person'.
People should do their best to convince the world that they are the right person, because that's where people go when they want a job doing.
But people should think carefully before accepting someone as the 'right person'. Look at most successful entrepreneurs in the last few decades. If people had a business question, do you think they would've gone to Bill Gates? It's unlikely, even though he's one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, and by admission by Warren Buffet, one of the greatest business minds. Do you think Steve Jobs was the 'right person' to start a company with all those years ago? Popular opinion would probably have said no.
It's not who you know - it's who you really know. That's where the real power lies.
I'm a bit late to realise this, but there's a lot of unique opportunities at the moment as digital products cross over in to the physical realm, and vice versa.
People are getting increasingly attached to their data (especially as it exists on the web), and making this accessible through physical products is an obvious opportunity. Products which have managed the cross over exceptionally well are the iPhone, but less obvious examples are:
The BBC Olinda Radio...
Which has social networking features so you can see what your friends are listening to. Big deal you might say, but people like ritualistic things. Listening to the radio is a big part of my life, and being able to segment that away from my usual computer usage is important. And as computing and networking power becomes even more pervasive, there's room for intelligent usage of these kinds of social features (but no intelligent fridges please - I don't feel like sharing my eating habits quite yet....).
The flip side of the coin is bringing physical products into the digital realm. Developers sometimes exist in their own bubble, developing products which are useful to other computer fanatics, but which aren't so useful to the general public. There's a lot of opportunities in solving problems associated with everyday things. Transport for London has done a great job providing real time data about their bus service. Another great example (only a prototype at the moment) is this iPhone app which shows a map of air quality.
Some products straddle the boundaries. For instance, the Wattson electricity meter allows people to see what their electricity usage is at any time via a glowing ornament which sits on the table. A future feature is to allow the owner to upload the data to the web, to compare electricity usage with other users.
It's an exciting time to be designing new products and services. We have to remember that they're being designed for the internet generation, who have grown up in a world where the digital world and the physical world have merged. It makes sense that our products do the same.
It's amazing how much failure has become a topic of discussion in start up and design communities. Some people preach "fail early and fail often". And other people wouldn't even admit to failure being in their vocabulary.
What's going on here?
The real issue is fear. You can't be scared to start stuff. If it all goes tits up, then it isn't the end of the world. But neither does that mean that the entrepreneur should resign themselves to failure - they have to fight tooth and nail to influence everything they possibly can to give themselves the greatest chance of success.
If something doesn't turn out, don't just focus on what went wrong - look at what went right, and do more of that next time.
When looking at failure, we should think of it as a long term investment. The stock market might go up, and it might go down, but long term it can show considerable gain. The same is true of start ups. Take Paypal as an example. They started out offering payments via mobile phone (short term failure), which evolved in to the Paypal we know today (long term success). Something is only a true failure when it comes to an abrupt end. If the Paypal founders had quit altogether after their initial struggles, and never started another company, then that would've been failure.
As it happens, most people have set backs at one time or another - it's called life. And the beauty of entrepreneurship is it produces all kinds of unexpected by-products. A company could be inadvertently sowing the seeds of future success, even when the company in its current incarnation is about to crash and burn. An example is Acorn computer, whose work on 32 bit RISC architecture led to a spin out company called ARM, which has met with tremendous success in the portable electronics market (approx. 98% of mobile phones use this processor architecture).
But long term success requires lots of determination. Determination and hard work is what drives entrepreneurship. You don't have to be super smart to be an entrepreneur, but you do have to be determined. The current preoccupation with failure has missed the point. It's not good to fail, but it is wrong not to try.
Opinions seem split on Avatar, so I thought I'd say a few things about it :)
Avatar Review
I went to the Business Start-up event at Olympia on Thursday, and got talking to an SEO guy.
It seems like most people have an interest in SEO these days, and I'm no exception. Even though there's a huge number of books on the subject you can usually pick up a few anecdotes or tips from someone working in the field.
He was telling me about one of his clients, who had purchased a franchise selling health supplements. The client paid to have a website made, but was disappointed when it only ranked number 600 in Google search results. The situation stayed like this for a few weeks, with the site doing little or no business. What are most people trained to do in a situation like this? Pay for Google ads of course!
This is what the guy did. He set his budget at a few hundred pounds, expecting it to last a month. Initially there was very little traction, and the man decided enough was enough - he'd take a break for a few days. When he checked it again over a week later, he realised that he'd gotten 60 hits. But sadly, the conversion rate was zero....
And to make matters worse, all of those hits were generated via Google ads. In the space of a week he'd blown hundreds of pounds, with absolutely no return. Yikes!
I'm sure this happens all the time, but franchises must be more susceptible than other businesses. There could potentially be 100 other franchisees, all playing the same game. Of course he was never going to be high in the rankings!
In terms of the conversion rate problem, the guy should have taken an entirely different approach. He should have identified the relevant communities online, and tried to build a relationship that way. Once he had some traffic (and hopefully a non-zero conversion rate) then he could have made a more informed decision about the effectiveness of ads. If he had a 20% conversion rate, and average profit per transaction of £5, then to pay more than £1 per click would be insane.
Even if the strategy was to build up a customer base, it's still a flawed approach. The aim of a new business must be to protect its cash flow. Otherwise it'll go bust (especially in the health supplement market, where there isn't any VC money sloshing around).
I took away another lesson - engineer your website from day one to perform well in search rankings. This aligns with what I was saying in my post about customer focus. There's no point being a generic company with no USP. In order to optimise for SEO you need to have a very clear idea of who your customer is, and then tailor the content appropriately. It isn't rocket science - but it's something that is often overlooked.
SEO newbies should avoid making the same mistakes, and check out the following:
Google SEO guide
Google analytics
Plug-in SEO
I get the feeling that a lot of companies in the technology space are scared to strike out and do something innovative. Instead they're watching each other, waiting until they can see where the industry is going, and then dutifully following.
Some companies have based their entire business practice on doing this. In fact it has a name - fast follower innovation. A classic example is Microsoft, where they move in to a market when they see a competitor making some money. But the problem with being a fast follower is that things are getting too fast to follow. This is why some companies are always playing catch up. This is clearly happening in the smart phone market where companies are desperately trying to regain lost ground from Android and the iPhone.
What these other companies need is:
1. More faith in their own judgment
2. A clear vision for the future
The first point depends on a strong corporate culture, and a decent CEO. The second point depends on defining what's ideal, which is something I'll touch on in this article.
When I talk about what's ideal, it doesn't have to be feasible given the current set of technologies available. It's all in the realm of tomorrow's world, which is what makes it so powerful.
My ideal car will never need refueling, will be fast, comfortable, stylish, have plenty of room for luggage, can accommodate my entire family, and will emit no C02. My ideal computer will be thin, sturdy, lightweight, powerful, silent, and efficient. This is from a consumer perspective.
From a company perspective (and in particularly manufacturing) there's already some well known things which make a product more ideal.
Firstly, to have as few components as possible. If one component can economically perform the task of multiple components then it should do. It reduces assembly time, reduces failure rates, reduces inventory, and countless other things. If companies are scared of innovating, then this is something they should try. During the last 100 years of manufacturing, reducing components has been a sure fire way to innovate. Here are some examples: the integrated chip, the macbook unibody, living hinge designs etc. and even object orientated programming in computing.
The next thing is to look at is demographic change. You can download fairly accurate data from the UK National Statistics website which gives you insight in to how the country will change in the next few years. People are getting older, and are retiring later. There'll also be comparably fewer people of working age who'll have to work harder. What products can help these people?
Another sure fire way to innovate is to try and boost service revenue. As our economies become more service orientated, it's a safe bet that services are a way to innovate. A company with innovative services will be more attractive to a consumer. The iPod wasn't necessarily the best hardware, but when incorporated with the iTunes service, it became a compelling proposition.
My final example concerns looking for under developed parts of the system. Every system will have parts which have been neglected. A tremendous amount of effort has gone into developing processors, but not so much effort has been spent on track pads, or mice, or power adapters. Apple got some fairly easy wins by innovating in these areas. These parts of the system don't require huge R and D budgets to make an impact, which means that other companies should have prioritized them as innovative opportunities.
There's countless other ways to innovate, which aren't terribly risky. I'd advise companies to try and exhaust all of these options before they resort to financial engineering, and outsourcing as a way to protect the bottom line. The future might seem uncertain, but some things can always be relied upon. Technology isn't like the weather - it doesn't take sudden U-turns. Have faith in the future, and innovate. It might be easier than you think.
There's a commonly held misconception that a new product should be targeted at as large a group as possible. I used to think this - until my friend made me realise how dumb I was.
I'll take Malcolm Gladwell's example of coffee. I could create a new blend of coffee which I think everyone will like, but when I ask people's opinions the approval rating is only around 50-60%. How could this be?
The answer is pretty damned obvious - not everyone likes the same stuff. We are human beings, with individual tastes and biases. Even Coke isn't liked by everyone. But Coca-Cola are smart, and they realised this a long time ago. You don't like classic Coke? No problem, have Diet. You don't like Diet? Have Coke Zero. In this way Coca-Cola manages to capture more of the market than it could possibly hope for with a single product.
Since an entrepreneur only has limited resources they're unlikely to launch with more than one product, so they have to carefully pick their target consumers. There's no point in targeting everyone, because a product with a 50% approval rating isn't going to set the world alight. But if you can create a product which 10% of people think is fantastic, then you're on to a winner.
This is because the world is full of mediocre, generic crap. If somebody feels like a product has been designed especially for them then they're going to buy it. And they'll tell their buddies who might also buy it.
The challenge is selecting which group to target. It's usually a good idea to target lead users, who're respected for their exceptional taste, or high level of technical understanding. Here are some examples:
Apple Macs are strongly associated with the design community. Everyone expects a designer to have a Mac. This in itself is incredibly powerful, but when you consider that designers are the trend setters of the future, it has a halo effect to other users.
The same is also true of fashion, where designers produce garments for the top end of the market, and then produce diffusion ranges once the desirability of the product has been established.
Another example is Etsy who carved out a profitable niche by providing an alternative to eBay for producers of craft items. They now dominate that area of the market, and could conceivably expand in to new areas. If they'd gone head to head with eBay from day one then they would've been annihilated. Even if they'd reached widespread acceptability, they would've struggled to build a strong, long term business. It takes time to hire good people.
My final example is Facebook, who started out by targeting college kids. They're now the biggest social network in the world. Pick your target market carefully, build a strong team, and then go mainstream. Anything else could spell disaster.
I came across a great video covering Steve Jobs' introduction of the first iPod. It's an interesting watch because it tackles the assumption that Apple are unique in their abilities to predict new products.
Imagine you have to design a computer from scratch.
Now imagine that computers haven't existed up until that point, so nobody has any idea what a motherboard or a processor is. How would you go about designing such a thing?
People are designing new things all the time - products, services, jobs, laws....so they must experience similar difficulties. Fortunately there's a tool which can help them.
Smart Little People is used predominately by engineers to tackle technical problems, but it's equally applicable to other forms of design. One way to approach the computer design problem (at least at a conceptual level) is to let smart little people take the place of the components. A smart little person is basically a super intelligent human being which can do anything you tell it to. This allows you to escape the trappings of considering 'is this technically feasible?' If we consider the main functions of a computer to be accepting information from a user, sending it to a CPU, accessing memory, outputting information to the screen, and running system maintenance programs, then this can easily be tackled with the smart little people approach. We don't care whether the computer uses a keyboard, or a mouse, or any other form of input device - we just let a smart little person take care of it. Likewise, we don't care whether the CPU is multi-threaded, multi-core, RISC, or whatever - again, a smart little person can take care of it. We follow a similar approach for each component of the system.
The beauty of this approach is that it allows us to pose questions in a non-technical way. A marketing person could say 'well, why don't we have another smart little person who communicates with all the other computers?' In traditional technical language, the marketing person would be disadvantaged, and may feel nervous about offering suggestions. With smart little people this is no longer a problem.
Once all the smart little people have been identified, then the technical people can get to work making them feasible, content that management understands what they're working on.
Smart little people is even more powerful when we're designing services. Let's say we're designing amazon.com. Smart little people can be envisaged in the following roles: taking orders, processing payment, getting the item from stores, sending it out, restocking etc. I can decide which smart little people to replace with technology, and which to keep as real human beings. Over time I'm likely to use more and more technology - but this isn't the overall aim of a business. Businesses exist to make money, and in an increasingly competitive environment, those businesses need to be launched quickly.
A lot of start ups don't have the money to have the best technical systems, but they do have smart people who work hard. I think it's important to identify the elements which must use technology, and those which can be done by people. This is the first step to launching a service as quickly as possible. I've seen a lot of start ups develop massively complex technical systems, and go bust before even launching. Or even if they manage to launch, the technology might not be flexible enough to handle the variety of customer requests, which is so characteristic of service businesses.
My main message is for non-technical people to take heart. Focus on the customer, and don't get too worried about technology - you'll have plenty of time to develop the right systems. Keep smart and launch quickly.
