Questions, questions and more questions for what’s possible after COVID19

It’s been almost a month a month of confinement here in Spain. And a bit more than a couple months of thinking of how things could change (or I would like them to change) after all the COVID19 and signs of pandemia go away. I have been telling my friends that I really hope we don’t get back to the same mistakes, attitudes, mindsets, and stupidity that brought us to the era before the pandemia. I really hope things change in a positive way, despite there are signs that many things, could turn even worse in terms of political extremism, racism, intolerance and other non-easy-to-treat maladies that are killing ourselves as a global society.

I hope things don’t get back to what they used to be. I hope, we can drive positive change. So after some inspiration captured in readings and conversations with Ana, Bea, Carlos, David, Marco, Oscar, Paola, Pilar, Rafa, Ricardo and Sergio, I wanted to share some questions and speculations of what could be possible. My goal? Start a conversation, and…why not a movement?

It’s hard to start pointing out topics without thinking in systemic consequences and implications, so I will give it a try by asking questions first.

A higher awareness of antisepsis and our relationships with people and objects?

• How could social interactions look like?

  How will displays of affection and care change? How could we maintain an intense social engagement while keeping in mind social distancing? How will social conventions adapt? Im thinking of how people greet in different cultures, from vows to hand shakes to hugs to one kiss, two kisses, three kisses… :). How will parties, and social life be in the near future?

• How could our interaction with public objects and services that require “contact” change?
  That is ATMs that require pins and touching screens; vending machines where we need to grab objects from; public transport that needs handles that are touched by everyone and even some spaces like gyms and companies, that installed fingerprint readers as a second authentication factor. So, is this the moment for a more intense application of sensors? Will this (finally) be the moment to add new factors like behavioral authentication? (Bert, Pamela, wink, wink). If so, how might we balance the effects of surveillance with privacy and freedom?

• How could transport systems change?
  Think of airports and waiting rooms. What’s the proper distance to place chairs to provide rest and social distancing? How will boarding lines be? How should planes and buses lay out be rethought to keep distances? Could this end the focus on efficiency (squeezing as many seats as possible) of low-cost airlines? Will air travel become more expensive but also a less polluting industry, given a lower frequency of flights? How should the air travel business models adapt?

• As this situation is not just a first world problem, let’s think of how could we ensure that basic services are available to all? Not just public health, but even more basic services such as access to clean, drinkable water, electricity and communications?

A new understanding of doing business, company purpose, work and humane behaviors?

It’s been hard for me to digest the tension between staying healthy and safe, while keeping the economy going. It’s been great to experience what’s essential and what’s not. And how we can live without many things that consumerism has led us to think as essentials. It’s being harder for me to not to empathize with micro, small and medium businesses (my dad used to have one) and how complicated their situation is. But then, it’s also harder for me to think how will companies survive in a new era, keeping the same orthodoxies and metrics that made them successful in the past. Some questions that come to my mind are :

• How will companies change their way of measuring success? How could they move into a more sustainable and planet conscious growth? What if we change the measure of success, both corporate and personal? What if we rethink what profitable means? What if people only purchase to companies that have a serious commitment towards life quality of their customers, their employees and not just shareholder financial profitability?

• Now that we are proving remote work is possible (for some of the fortunate ones). What’s the workplace like? How could we build home spaces that set the right boundaries between work and life? Will we be able to work with any company from anywhere? How should tax and payment policies adapt? How could employers guarantee a decent internet connection and proper ergonomic health in this new workplace? How could work insurance policies work for this way of work? And more importantly, around company culture, how could companies ensure a proper set of rituals and perks that make “organizational cultures” and employee brand unique?

• Will we keep falling into the traps of consumerism, fast fashion and planned obsolescences? Do we really need to buy stuff while we don’t do anything positive to reuse, refurbish, repurpose or discard effectively? This makes me think of how companies communicate and instigate an endless model of consumerism. And how many of them focus on the insecurities of people to make them consume more? (hello consumption influencers, who have made a way of living out of this).

• Who will we buy to? Will this be the time when we as consumers go back to the mom-and-pop and medium-size shops?

• How could we include those in the hidden economies that move whole sectors and bring daily income to their households? I’m thinking of LatinAmerica and its informal economy.

• Lastly, I think these weeks have been also the moment to show our appreciation for those heroes that have allowed many of us to live in a more than decent way. Those heroes are not only the health care professionals and carers, but also those working in public transport, drugstores, taxi drivers, the riders in the delivery services of the so called "gig economy", the ones working in restaurants, police officers and other professionals. How could we create a long lasting, tangible recognition for those anonymous heroes working in different services?

I know I might sound naïve for many. But I believe, we have an opportunity to start differently. To think on people first. To redefine what success and profitability means. And to believe that change is possible.

Thoughts and comments are always welcome and hey, this is just a conversation starter!

Luis

@luiseduardodejo

Take two: Human needs are not what most companies are tackling

Published on September 12, 2014

After my first post I got very interesting comments, funny messages, feedback and also some misunderstandings. For those who got a bit confused, I didn’t mean to say shampoo companies were wrong. It was just an example that I experienced in my past life as a marketer; an analysis of how human perspective is different than industry perspective; and how human perspective might open different opportunities for innovation.

I hope I can be more clear this time. I will bring a classic marketing example and an expanded interpretation that my good friend Marco and I presented at IE Business School in Madrid. We started quoting Thedore Levitt (author of Marketing Myopia):

“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole”

For those manufacturers that want to innovate by adding more features to their products, or making more sophisticated power drills, we have bad news: people are not necessarily looking for your tools, they are looking for the work that is done by the drill (a quarter-inch hole!).

But we delved a bit more and said that “people might not want a quarter-inch hole, they might want to hang a picture of their family”. And then we went even deeper: “people might not want to hang a family picture, maybe they want to feel closer to their family”.

So, asking “what features should we add to our power tools to be more competitive?” vs “how might we make people feel closer to their family?” might take us to different directions and opportunities. And I think that’s the human approach. Unfortunately, the power drill manufacturer might not be able to answer the second question with their current product portfolio but it must be a good trigger to start asking “what business are we in?”

Have you asked yourself what business is your company in lately?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have a great day,

Luis

@luiseduardodejo

Take one: Are You also Working on Innovation?

Originally Published on September 1, 2014 at www.linkedin.com.

Just ideas based on what I’ve been learning in these last years.

Innovation is an overused word these days. It’s also one of those words that we don’t know how to define. Just by quickly googling the word “innovation” I got almost 384 million results in a third of a second. That sounds like a lot. (As a reference, a search for “creativity” and “sustainability” gave me 197 and 39 million results respectively).

We look up to the googles, apples and ubers of the world; we want to be more innovative and we also want to have the word innovation on our business cards (yes, I’m part of that group, I know!). But how innovative are companies these days? And what are they doing to be more innovative?

From my experience, we are far from the ideal. But, is there an ideal when we still cannot agree on a single definition of innovation? My intention is not to define what innovation is, but to share some perspectives that I have experienced as I worked in innovation.

While working as a marketer in innovation for personal care brands at some CPG (FMCG) companies, we usually asked “what’s the next shampoo or haircare product we are going to launch?” That question led to some market and industry research, and let us prepare a clear product pipeline for the following years. We asked that question because 1. We knew how to make shampoo; 2. We had the resources and facilities to manufacture it; and not less important 3. We were good at making awesome marketing campaigns.

Following the shampoo example, we corporate employees tend to see users as shampoo buyers only. And we get even excited when we see our brands in someone’s shopping cart! Do you see my point? That’s the industry/company perspective. As Patrick Whitney (IIT Institute of Design) says, companies tend to see users as markets, not as people. And they tend to see innovation as product innovation only.

So, what if we asked a different question? As we were targeting 18–30 years old women, what if instead of asking “what’s the next shampoo we will launch?” we asked “What would make our users feel more self-confident and prepared for social interactions?” — I guess the answer would not have been “shampoo”. It would probably have included a whole system of solutions (products and services) that could have been out of the company’s current reach, thus leading to strategic partnerships and/or acquisitions.

But are companies willing to take that approach? I am not trying to make shampoo manufacturers give up their factories or other companies to get rid of their core assets. I’m just saying that if we start looking at our users as people, we might start asking different questions. And those answers, might open new opportunities for growth.

How to find the right balance for a user and a company perspective? I still haven’t found the answer, but we (our team and other user-centered designer friends) are working on bringing more user-perspective to companies. I don’t think there will be a single winning answer and we have to deal with that uncertainty.

As this is a conversation starter, what are your thoughts on innovation?

Luis
@luiseduardodejo

I invited a product manager to join some user research interviews...

Story 1. This guy had been working for over 25 years in his company. He was very afraid of talking to people. His fears made him very laid back at the beginning, but then I think he had a great attitude in terms of listening, learning and on thinking of the implications those conversations had. After 8 interviews or so, we could notice the concept we were testing was not strong enough as a key differentiator. We understood that the innovation was not on the device we were thinking about but on the content it would provide. It led us to leave the project aside and focus on things related to content. At the end, he told me "Do you know what's the most interesting thing about talking to people? It's that you discover things you never thought about" - And I said, emotionally "Precisely!"

Story 2. This was another guy. A very smart and experienced guy as well. He wanted to join the interviews as he cares about his product. We started listening to our interviewee (and potential target user). She started telling how she gets inspiration for her work, which belongs to the creative food industry. Our interviewee explained how traveling, reading, trying new flavors, talking to people helps her create better products...

Suddenly, the product manager said “Perfect! We have the right tool for you!”  And the conversation turned more interesting. Our interviewee started talking more about the tool, how it should be, what it could do, that it should be an app etc. etc. At the end, when I asked “how would you use it?” the answer was “well…it’s hard for me to imagine myself using this…but it’s cool…you should keep stuff this” (she also showed us she only had 2 apps in her phone)

Both stories led us to refocus our projects. One had a focus on learning. The other a focus on selling. Selling our ideas while doing research for discovery is not a good idea. In fact, it’s a really bad idea. People will turn defensive ("I don’t want to buy anything") or patronizing (“oh it’s great, love it! but I would not use/buy it”). People will try to be nice with us and our product as opposed to being honest, so that we can learn and improve. 

I’ve experienced many types of research. Some of them are the ones I used to call “ass-saver” research. Some others are revealing and lead to discovery (or more explorative research). Both happen in real life and it all relates to the type of culture we are working at.

This reminds me of an article I just read from Tim Brown, "analytical cultures tend to start with answers. Creative ones start with questions" I’ve been part of both types of cultures and I still think we need to find balance between both.