Prototyping Social Capital

Ask the Customer Questions

How do you know whether what you're designing for customers is something they want, moreso than their other options? Something they'll use, moreso than their other distractions? Something they recommend to others based on their experience? My friend Laurel Bowman over at The Conversion Group answers the question with a deceptively simple yet prophetic line at the end of her email signature:

It's as simple as that really. Yet surprisingly many companies prohibit meaningful conversations with customers. Instead they insist on innovate-in-a-vacuum.

Mark Jacobs recently wrote an article, Branded, in the New York Times Magazine with a great illustration of the benefit that can be gained by interacting with customers. In it he talks to Phil McAdams, president of Wrangler’s Western Wear division, about what they've learned from customers to make Wranglers the 60-year category killer:

The pockets are positioned high in the back so that riders don’t sit on their wallets, and the belt loops are set a little wider in front to accommodate a championship buckle. They are made with flat rivets that do not scratch saddles and large zippers that riders can handle with gloves. The tapered legs fit tightly over boots so that they don’t drag like the flared “boot cut” jeans, which have little to do with practicing cowboys; and the inseam is four to six inches longer than the norm so that when a rider is in the saddle, the bottom of the jeans sits just so on the top of the foot.

It's possible "Rodeo Ben" Lichenstein, who designed the "boot cut", knew everything he needed to know while working in his Philadelphia office, but I'd wager he was a practitioner of Laurel's tip throughout the 40's: at rodeos, with cowboys, asking questions.

Lower the noise

As any infant can attest, watching others can be really insightful. People's behavior is on display. Unless you're observing rocks though, there's a good chance you can unnecessarily influence what you're looking to measure. When you watch from afar, observations can be gained without disrupting the scene as its unfolding. Anthropologists and field biologists are black belts in observation. Ninja's too I hear. When the noise is low, the true unmet needs show themselves. Watch specifically for what people are _not doing_. You can ask the customer questions with your silent observations. For a quick primer, pick up Jane Fulton Suri's "thoughtless acts?" (hat tip to Diego).

Of course you can ask the customer questions directly. Conversations, too, are constrained by the signal to noise ratio. In any conversation stream, some of the information will be valuable (signal) and some of it will not be (noise). Further, the questions you ask will influence how the other person responds, so it's very easy to introduce more noise unless you create conditions for people to give their un-directed opinion. Open-ended questions are a start, but even better, try to recreate the anthropologists' observation -- give the customer a context and enough breathing room to become enveloped by their own doing, almost to the point where they forget you're involved. The art of the customer conversation lies in when to drift back in with a follow up question and when to let the scene unfold untouched. This type of "anthropological conversation" is at the heart of the Listening Labs (one-on-one website testing) we ran at Creative Good.

So lets say your team is responsible for designing a new new device to compete with the iPhone, or you're responsible for creating the tv, online and print ads for the marketing rollout of the alternative to the Wii. Don't wait to preview a "finished" product with a small focus group. What could you do today to involve customers throughout the entire design process?

Labor Day -- The American Dream Remixed

(I want people to seek and do what they love.)

This weekend we get a freebie from the government, an extra day to spend away from work. I suppose part of the idea of Labor Day is to reflect on the work that we do, though I'm not sure that's really what most people do. Instead, we're focused on enjoying time with our friends and family -- as we should be. I wonder though, at large how often do people reflect on their work? For many, the short answer is not enough.

In my unscientific set of conversations with people in New York, Boston, Los Angeles and San Francisco over the past few years, I've noticed a pattern that will be of little surprise to you. A lot of people don't really like what they do. This is not breaking news (e.g. see the recent Conference Board study that suggests fewer than half of Americans are satisfied with their job). In fact it's so common, some call it a fact of life. There is a population of people who, if they made the time to reflect this weekend, might conclude they are living out Thoreau's "lives of quiet desperation". They, for their own reasons, fell into a series of jobs, perhaps that began as early as when they graduated from college, that pay the bills but do not offer much additional satisfaction or growth.

Work of course is not life, but simply a part of it. Many would argue why look to work for so much when growth and satisfaction can be found in family, community and so many other non-work places. I agree; we should not demand work be the sole source of fulfillment. However, with work commanding well over half of our waking hours for 40 years, isn't it natural, if not practical, to expect more from work?

All of this is well-trodden territory.What's different is I want people -- you -- to want more from work. The first American Dream was to seek and find success based on one's talents and contributions, unencumbered by class, wealth or race: market meritocracy. The US has created conditions so favorable for the initial American dream that in the 20th century a new one emerged to supplement it -- that each generation would be financially better off than the preceding one. As a corollary to the first, this second dream has not only been possible but on average fulfilled.

I'd like to add a new stretch goal to the American Dream. I want people to seek and do what they love. I want people to find the intersection of their talents and their interests, and make a living from it. I don't want people to settle for a job simply because they're competent at it. The first dreams are still in play -- let's reward results irrespective of privilege or status and set the target of each generation to achieve more than its parents. Yet let's go further, let's help people do a better job at finding their personal power alley. I want people to take the American Dream and remix it to their own tastes, or as Thoreau continues in Walden, "let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

What if even an incremental 10% of your co-workers were truly into their jobs? It's easier said than done. Helping to get it done is what I'm going to be experimenting with over the next few months. I hope to share more soon.