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Many of you have heard the stories about the Piraha tribe’s uber-simplistic numerical system: single, couple, many. Couple is several specifically identified singles, and many is everything else. So, let’s call it 1-2-Many. Even when they receive instruction on numbers above 2, they cannot (or will not) grasp those concepts. Their world has been defined for them already by the numbers through which they view the world.
Social scientists believe the tribe has the most primitive numeric concept of all human groups on Earth today, but we can learn a lot from them. Because few of us can count to Many.
For all our billions and trillions and google-plexes, most of us cannot count beyond Couple. In matters of business strategy, market segmentation, and product design, we continue to fixate on specific enumeration -- but an inventory of specifications is not equivalent to a generalization.
There is much talk today in business circles about the Long Tail -- specifically, how to profit from serving hyper-niched needs that compose the tail of the demand curve. To serve those needs economically, we need to approach product and technology and communication in radically different ways from our previous method of specific enumeration. We need to design for the unspecified Many, which should not be confused with the Mass.
The Mass is a market of a million undifferentiated (we think) singles. It is one specifically identifiable need, replicated a million times. And, it can be served with a single, centrally-delivered, homogeneous product or service. The Many is a million unique needs. It can be served economically only by a product or service that can morph to take on the character, functions, and feel desired by each One of the Many.
This is monu-Mentally hard, because for a long time we've been practicing counting only to Couple. It is easy to design software with drop-downs that allow a user to select any one of the set of specifically identified options for a certain function. It is harder to design software to allow for the user to define new options (not specifically identified by the designer in advance) and the associated new behaviors for that function. The same challenge exists for other disciplines, for instance Marketing. Imagine the power of marketing communications that evolve and morph as customers remix them to create micro-targeted WOM for niches that the marketer could not specifically identify a-priori.
That’s the power of counting to Many.
I see a lot of technology groups (software companies and internal IT project teams) focusing on features. Communicating features, comparing products based upon features, slaving to build a remarkable new feature. Here's the problem: people are more than just the sum of their tasks; they are lives. In a human life, style points count.
So, for a piece of technology to connect with a person, that technology needs to provide an experience that is more than just the sum of a bunch of cool features.
In fact, the ROI for a new feature declines exponentially the cooler the feature.
Ask yourself two questions about your product or project:
If you refocus what you are doing so that you reduce the first answer by 20 points and raise the second by 50%, your odds of delivering something remarkably valuable will improve dramatically as compared to focusing on delivering cool features.
Across the world, the less students know about science, the more optimistic
they are about the chances of solving the planet's environmental problems.
A keen interest in science does not always mean being good at it.
The Economist, 12/07/2007, summary of findings from survey across OECD countries
Many years ago, Porsche ran a magazine ad campaign around the slogan "Anyone who thinks the shortest path between two points is a straight line has obviously never driven a Porsche." I love that. Some cars are meant to travel the curvy road less traveled. Yes, it's more miles. But, sometimes it's actually faster. And, always it's more memorable.
I spent this weekend with one of our early employees who has gone on to great things elsewhere. We recounted the detours and backtracking that have been involved in Eyeris' path of innovation. We drove fast enough and took enough hairpins to give an F1 driver white knuckles. But, it was alot more productive in the end than it seemed along the way.
Much of what we in the West learn formally in school or management development programs is how to be disciplined linear thinkers. Some Oriental-style lateral and recursive approaches could shake things up for you and your team. Every once in a while, make a point of purposefully taking lots of detours; you might find something spectacular just off the beaten path of linearity.
Anyone who has ever tried to create something from nothing knows that while the shortest path between A and B is a straight line, that doesn’t mean it will be the most scenic.
Alas, the quest for answers is anything but linear.
Tracy Moon, Living Proof, from the collection Design Research, compiled by Brenda Laurel
One of the most powerful tips I ever received is that it's not about what the customer thinks about you or your organization or your product -- it's about how you make the customer feel about themselves when in they're around you, your organization, or your product. Doesn't it amaze you to see how many companies spend lots of time, money, and hot air trying to make customers think "Wow, those guys are really smart" -- when it would be much more distinctive and powerful to make the customer feel smart themselves.
As you are thinking about your next analysis or report or memo or presentation or web site or campaign or software application, be sure to spend time asking yourself about your audience's frame of mind -- and how you connect with them there and make them feel more self-confident. Trust me, they will remember where they got the Affirmation Drug, and they'll be back.
Design isn’t merely about the object but the extension of the object through its communications with the end user. Stacy Purpura, Overview of Quantitative Methods in Design Research, from the collection Design Research, compiled by Brenda Laurel
Eating sea urchin.
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Bending time.
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A TV show about nothing.
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Sailing west.
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Blasting men to the moon.
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Wouldn’t you love to have been in the room the first time each of those crazy ideas got pitched?
Since there are lots of bona fide dumb ideas out there, it's important to be able to recognize the actually stupid vs the apparently stupid. The latter are what breakthrough ideas look like, and you need those things if your organization is to thrive.
The creative process is more like play than like study. The best ideas start with the phrase 'This is a dumb idea, but…' David Canaan, Research to Fuel the Creative Process, from the collection Design Research, compiled by Brenda Laurel
These are the six ways of courting defeat:
1. Failure to estimate the enemy's strength
2. Want of authority
3. Defective training
4. Unjustifiable anger
5. Nonobservance of discipline
6. Failure to deploy elite soldiers
Genius, in an unexpected context, is often overlooked.
I once sat with Desmond Tutu on a flight in the states. The aircraft was huge, and he was sitting on the aisle. I watched as everyone filed past us, and no one recognized him. He exudes peacefulness and calm and caring -- I was uplifted greatly by our brief time. But, so many others missed that chance.
If you have not already seen the Washington Post article about how DC subway commuters ignored one of the world's greatest violinists playing a multi-million-dollar Stradivari, you can check it out here. Basically, 95% of passers-by did not even stop. They did not recognize genius in this context.
The human mind is just weird -- tremendous ability to appreciate truth, art, wisdom and abstract representation, but equally tremendous ability to ignore the same. That’s the power of bias. Preconceived notions. Prejudice. Insecurity. Self-justification. Distraction.
Some of the coolest uses of information and technology are being cooked up in plain sight -- but outside the walls of "proper" IT. If you can learn to control your bias, you might discover your organization’s equivalent of master performances in the subway station.
Art washes from the soul the dust of everyday life
Pablo Picasso
It always amazes me how many people impune themselves as "uncreative." The essence of being human is creating. We all create, and we all love beautiful creations. Some of the best quant geeks I've ever met are also some of the best musicians. Some of the best coders I've ever met have the greatest taste in art. And some of the most blue-suit-red-tie business types have created charts and presentations that are just simply artistic.
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I guess Picasso was right; there is something therapeutic about creating and viewing works of art. Even for Bob in Accounts Receivable.
