Asking The Wrong Questions

Don’t you hate "research" that's based upon questions like...

Please rank the following problems with current (fill in the blank) software:

1. Cost
2. Support
3. SOA compatibility
4. Feature breadth
5. Licensing
6. Shortage of skills
7. etc

It really sucks as research, because it perpetuates the status quo.  “87% of people surveyed indicated that Feature Breadth was the most important issue.”  Useless.  No wonder most of that junk is funded by giant incumbents.  It’s a smokescreen that lulls everyone into not thinking originally or clearly about the very topic it purports to address.

Tamara Adlin published an interview with Brenda Laurel, in which Brenda talked about the bias power of conventional wisdom.  She’s brought out distinctive software (e.g., video games for girls), because she knew how to ask the right questions.  In her words,

I was pretty fed up by that point by seeing how the gaming world was very gendered.  I wasn't going to accept the street wisdom that girls just didn't play computer games period, end of story. That was not something that made any sense to me since I was a game player. We did a lot of work with thousands of kids and tried to understand the kinds of play that attracted girls; not just computer play, but play period. I think if we'd asked what kind of computer games girls would like, we wouldn't have gotten an interesting answer. So we asked deeper questions....

Too often when evaluating new opportunities, we all ask the wrong questions.  We enter into the conversation with so much bias, that our language and metaphors and entire frames of reference are all jacked up.  We box in the respondents cognitively, preventing them from taking us to a riskier-but-richer discussion of their lives, aspirations, and needs.  THEY don’t think about "the box" naturally, but we make sure we point it out for them right up front.  It makes us feel smart and prepared -- when we get answers very similar to those we expected (HUGE shock).  But, it really just shows how scared we are to hear how much more creative we need to be if we are going to deliver something really new and meaningful for their lives.

Ever since the TDWI conference in August, I’ve been haunted by the notion that forward progress in Business Intelligence has stalled because everyone is still regurgitating the same approaches from the 1980’s.  The surveys are set up with those answers in mind.  BUT SERIOUSLY, do we really believe that there’s nothing new needed in BI?  Everyone has normalized warehouses and query tools -- yet thousands and thousands of IT and BIZ leaders from firms of all sizes still flock to TDWI looking for answers to why they don’t really have business intelligence (as opposed to Business Intelligence).  And, the advice they still get is (with a few "lunatic" exceptions, like Mark Madsen and Matt Schwartz and Colin White): here’s how to build a better warehouse or buy a good reporting tool.   

As Seth Godin puts it in his interview with Tamara, "the status quo isn't enough of a reason ... to accept something. Part of being an entrepreneur is about going into a place where something isn't happening, making it happen, and having the marketplace thank you for it." 

If you want to find a major opportunity for breakthrough, make a list of all the scary places that your mind wants to avoid...and ask your potential patrons to tell fantasy stories that cover all those scary topics...and watch how they work today when dealing with your scary areas...and then weave something beautiful and original from the threads of your fears.

Oh, and ignore all of the conventional wisdom groupies.