If you build it, they will come.
This quote from the rather corny movie ‘Field of Dreams’ is used by author Pip Coburn to illustrate the mindset with which a lot of technology is build. Innovation is often driven by suppliers and not based on what users are after. In his book The Change Function:Why Some Technologies Take Off and Others Crash and Burn, he addresses two key issues in the technology industrie:
1. High-Tech Failure rates stink
2. Suppliers think they are in charge but in reality users are in charge
Coburn describes the old school thinking that is paramount in the field as
Change = f(Moore’s Law * Grove’s Law)
Former Intel CEO Andy Grove’s mantra suggests that the surest way to success is to focus on creating disruptive technologies that produce order of magnitude, or “10x” changes that alter the landscape. Moore’s Law can be ascribed to anyone suggesting that as the price drops, the market will flourish.
Coburn does not consider this thinking wrong, but argues that since it focuses on the supplier, not on the users, it is incomplete. It would be better to include the user’s perspective, as decribed by his Change Function:
f(user crises vs. total perceived pain of adoption)
This is a much more user-focused : It’s essential the user is in a crisis to motivate him to move to new products. Just telling him he should use this new technology usually won’t work. The total perceived pain of adoption is the user’s estimate of what it will cost him to adopt the technology. This can be monetary value, but usually the bigger components here are time and effort it takes to learn how to use the technologies.
For example, the Blackberry took off because the perceived crisis is high (lack of access to email while traveling), while the total perceived pain of adoption is relatively low (it’s not that expensive, and easy to use). On the other hand, things like interactive TV have been less succesfull then anticipated because of the lack of perceived crisis.
What I like about Coburn’s reasoning is that it’s user-centric. It’s all about the perception of the user.
It’s a good read, with loads of great quotes, although the large number of examples does get a bit tiresome. It is ofcourse very speculative, and I would have liked to see some scientific research results to back it up. You’d think that with all the money going on in the industry it should not be hard to come up with some solid research.
You can download the intro to the books from the Coburn Ventures website here.
