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.