The RapidChip Fallacy
Mar 7th
“The market is going to face this big, nasty problem and they will have no other choice but to use our product to solve it.” – Excited Entrepreneur
Most of the time, this entrepreneur is committing the same fallacy that we faced when working on a failed project called RapidChip.
This fallacy is related to, but different from the “If you build it, they will come” fallacy. This one is committed by excited technologists assuming that simply building the superior technology will draw customers. It leads to a rude awakening when, even though the technology is amazing, no one wants to buy it.
Instead of committing this fallacy, our excited entrepreneur knows that success comes from reducing a customer’s pain. Unfortunately, his excitement about his own solution creates a blindspot when regarding how the customer sees his solution. Solutions not only need to solve a customers pain, but also need to solve it in a way that the customer is expecting.
You can image an entrepreneur selling bionic feet believing he has the perfect solution to foot pain. Simply amputate the foot, and use this amazing bionic replacement. Unfortunately, this fails to consider how people think about solving foot pain (usually something other than cutting it off).
A more real world example was RapidChip. The intent was to solve a big industry problem: as transistors continue to shrink, manufacturing the silicon gets more expensive. RapidChip provided a solution. Essentially, we would manufacture half of the chip, allowing customers to customize the other half. Because the cost of manufacturing half of the chip would be shared between multiple projects, the overall cost of each project would be significantly reduced.
At first glance, this appeared like a great solution, but it overlooked the perspective of the customers. We assumed that customers would continue to create products that relied on custom chips. But this wasn’t their only choice. One option was for them to buy another companies chip; another was to make their next product applicable to a wider class of customers thereby justifying the cost. Our solution was only attractive if the customer had already decided to look for a new technique for manufacturing chips and knew that we existed when they were doing their planning. Our solution only works if multiple projects can share the bottom half, unfortunately, this means designing your chip around a specific half that already exists. This was a constraint they never had to deal with before, and so they were solving the expense problem with other solutions, or demanding we create a custom bottom half just for them, which unfortunately eliminates the entire value proposition.
This wasn’t the only reason that RapidChip failed, but once the above fallacy took root in the minds of those working on it, we failed to consider what other alternatives customers would use, nor had we considered how to convince them to accept the additional constraints of RapidChip. We didn’t seek to design the technology to be easy for customers to move to. It is easy to become so enamored with the elegance of your own solution, that you fail to consider the way a customer will see it.
Every solution introduces its own set of constraints. Just because your customer has a critical problem and you have a solution, doesn’t mean yours is the only solution. More importantly, never underestimate the ability of a man in desperation to find a solution no one else had considered.
Always, always, always consider the alternatives that a customer may already have to solving their “unsolvable” problem and be honest about the constraints that your solution imposes on your customer, and then design the solution so that the customer sees it as an obvious choice.
Further reading:
- Customer development – A process described in detail by Steven Blank
- If it walks like a duck, and looks like a duck, it’s a duck – A good discussion of lessons learned from a failed start-up. His paragraph with this title is related to the above.
Book Worth Reading: The Inmates Are Running The Asylum
Mar 1st
This week I got a rental car that had three buttons on the front of the dongle with the keys. In most cases, it’s lock, unlock, and open trunk. On this key chain, it was lock, unlock, and alarm. Seriously, the alarm was front and center and exactly where you would normally expect another function. At least twice in three days, I hit the alarm button while thinking I was unlocking the trunk. And there’s nothing that feels more foolish than drawing everyone’s attention as you scramble to turn the stupid thing off.
No one likes to feel stupid, and yet that’s exactly how so many computer interfaces make us feel. Making matters worse, computers are now integrated into almost every part of our lives – from our car remote to our kitchen appliances.
But why are computer interfaces so bad? Alan Cooper explains why in The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. Unfortunately, computer programmers build interfaces that they would like to use personally, but computer programmers are not like everyone else, and they see the world differently. Cooper points out 4 key differences:
- Programmers trade simplicity for control:
Cooper explains the difference by comparing it to the direction you take as you board a plane. When programmers enter the plane, they turn to the left and sit surrounded by controls and gauges in the cockpit. They want to see and be able to control as much as possible the system in front of them. Everyone else turns to the right, they just want to get to where they are going. The result is that most of our software has about as many or more options than a plane cockpit. - Programmers exchange success for understanding:
Cooper asked a large group of programmers: How many of you took apart an alarm clock when you were young? Almost everybody. Okay, now how many of you put it back together. Three. Programming is about problem solving and in the process, you end up with many failed solutions before finding the one that works. Programmers delight in this process of understanding and subsequently solving this complex problem. Because complexity is fascinating, they assume the user will be as fascinated with the complexity as they are and want to understand all of the nuances. Reality: they don’t. - Programmers focus on what is possible to the exclusion of what is probable:
In computer programming, if you don’t consider all of the corner cases, your program will fail. As a result of the focus on edge cases, the interface prioritizes the possible (there might be some customer out there that wants to do this) vs. what is probable (Most of our customers will want to only run this operation). This is why most of the software you use has menus that contain 90% more items than you likely use. - Programmers act like jocks:
While I know many people in computer programming who behave exactly this way, this one didn’t resonate with me, but is probably summarized by a quote occasionally heard: “It was hard to write, therefore it should be hard to use”.
The Inmates Are Running the Asylum provides an excellent explanation and defense for why user experience design is needed in order to create a product that is actually desirable rather than simply being functional. Most of the process employed by User Experience Designers is to develop a sense of empathy for the customer that can be shared within the entire company. The result is a product that people love to use instead of put up with. An iPod instead of a key dongle that makes lots of noise.
The Importance of a Warm Up
Feb 22nd
Several weeks ago, we went to see Daddy Yankee in concert. He is one of the more popular reggaeton artists, which is mix between pop, rap, and latin music. Doors opened at 7pm, so we showed up 15 minutes early to queue up and get a good spot.
After waiting for about an hour, they finally opened the doors. It was standing room only, but since I’m about 8″ taller than the average Guadalajaran, every spot was a good one for me. At the beginning, they had a few video’s playing on some big screens and some background music. Shortly thereafter a DJ got up to spin some music, much to the delight of the crowd. Their set started strong, then started to fade, and pretty soon, it was obvious they were being asked to play for way longer than they originally expected to play. Eventually, we were back to having videos playing.
People stopped dancing and started sitting around just talking to each other. Finally, the next warm-up act took the stage, everyone at this point hoping it was Daddy Yankee, but it wasn’t. People were slower to get excited this time, but they were starting to feel the groove. The second warm-up act finished their set, and then there was a pause again. More boredom on the part of the audience, and eventually a chant for a refund.
Finally, around 10pm, Daddy Yankee (or someone who looked like him), took the stage and played 4 or 5 songs and the concert was done. During the waiting, you could experience the effect of a warm-up act, as well as the utter let down, when the momentum was not carried forward.
It gave me plenty of time to consider the benefits of a good warm-up.
Many emotional states are affected by the warm-up effect from our excitement to our ability to laugh. When we are having a good morning, we find it easier to ignore the not-so-good things, and accentuate the little things that continue our enjoyable. Groups are self-reinforcing. People mirror each other. Excitement breeds more excitement.
Understanding the warm-up effect can help when you want to make your customers or your group more receptive and excited about your next big thing. It is why keeping your target audience narrow can benefit you by building a group of excited motivated followers. Their friends will mirror their excitement. For example, how many of you have purchased something on the recommendation of your friend that just couldn’t stop talking about their – iPod, iPhone, Blackberry, etc. We get excited about something when others are also excited.
As in the case of Daddy Yankee, it can also backfire on you. When you have lots of fits and starts, it is even more difficult for your followers to get excited a second time, or a third time. Relatedly, it is also difficult to make one big announcement and expect immediate excitement.
Warm-ups matter. The better your warm-up, the better the response will be, so think about how to warm-up your audience before your next big announcement.
Doubt is the Spark Killer
Feb 15th
It may be that “Fear is the mind killer”, but doubt is the spark killer.
Earlier in my career, I had the opportunity to hire a number of great engineers and tried to help cultivate their careers. In the process, I found that one of the most difficult things to teach was initiative. Some were capable of seeing what wasn’t there and knowing how to fill the gap. They had the spark to initiate without asking, and moving the group closer to its goals. This is one of the most important skills that anyone can cultivate.
At the same time, it’s hard work. After hiring the full team, I then had to lay them all off. I went from being a manager back to being an individual contributor. Honestly, I was looking forward to taking a break from identifying and driving a number of projects to being told what projects to drill deep on. I noticed however that I was still raising issues and working more with my manager’s manager than directly with my manager. I asked him about whether I should be getting more direction from him. He said, “Look, you’re a senior engineer. I fully expect you to be out there identifying and driving issues with all levels of management that you need in order to bring them to resolution”. It was the kick in the pants I needed.
Much like a spark plug, it requires a lot of high-voltage energy to initiate. It can be exhausting and because you see so many gaps, it can be difficult to know which one is most important and which will add the most value. In fact, the ability to correctly identify the most valuable and most important is a key refinement of the skill of initiation.
I’ve seen some try to take initiative but were not able to filter which of the missing things was most important. Sometimes functionality is more important than aesthetics, other times it’s the opposite. Investing your time by initiating a project that is not important, ends up being a waste. Much like many of the inventors on the show “America’s Top Inventor”, unable to see that their invention was not important nor even necessarily relevant, in spite of spending their whole life refining it. Unfortunately, there usually isn’t someone to guide you in whether something is important because you’re the only one that sees just how important the initiative is.
As a result, doubt and second guessing is common place. I’ve seen many very intelligent and capable people not initiate because they worry about whether they will succeed. They don’t feel like they know enough, or can learn fast enough, or can make good decisions. Or they don’t take their head far enough away from their own assignment to look around and see what is falling between the gaps because it’s harder to do that, than just staying nose down. So they pause, they hesitate, they wait for someone else to be the spark.
In the end, this is what prevents more initiative than anything else, doubt that you can. Everyone has doubt, even the leader who appears incredibly confident. But those who face their doubt, and initiate anyway, are the ones who move things forward.
While it’s certainly true that you can’t have everyone initiating in random directions, and as we saw earlier, sometimes initiating is choosing to follow someone else’s crazy idea, still, people with the spark is what both our world and our businesses need most: People who step out and take a risk because there is a gap that needs to be filled.
Nature of Leading and Following
Feb 11th
Concrete and concise stories of leadership are hard to come by, but the video below provides exactly that. It creates a visual picture of the relationship between leaders and followers.
I originally saw this video on Seth Godin’s blog in the middle of last year. Seth mentioned that we need more “Guy #3″s. Since then, I’ve often come back to reflecting on this video when I think about leadership and the nature of crowds. It’s proven to be a valuable mental picture when thinking about how movements spread.
So when I saw that this video was used in a TED talk by Derek Sivers, and that he made some additional excellent observations, I wanted to share it with others. Plus, he received a standing ovation at TED, and it’s easy to see why.
Below is his version. Enjoy:
Guest Blog: Mawy had a Yittle Yam
Feb 9th
[In response to my post on Tea Bog Beet Knee, Matthew Ritzman, a friend of mine, wrote a response that I thought worthy of more attention. Matthew and I met while he was President of the local Toastmasters club that I attended. His speeches always tied in personal stories and how they impacted him and his story below is another excellent example. Tea Bog Beet Knee was about the responsibility of the communicator to speak in a way that can be understood by his audience, this is about the other side of that coin]
The more I understand the hurdles of getting my point across the more amazed I become that any communication can happen at all. In the very best of scenarios, information is lost between the speaker and the listener.
We present our ideas and we absorb concepts, often in rapid succession. When we are the ones trying to make sense out of the senseless, there are many things we can do to help facilitate communication. One is to familiarize ourselves with the vocabulary and the ways of speaking of the other person.
My younger daughter, Josie, has developmental delays. She has a limited vocabulary, has difficulty pronouncing certain letters (she uses ‘Y’ in the place of ‘L’ and drops most of her ‘S’ sounds) and letter combinations, and speaks slowly with a very metered cadence. She seldom has the luxury of saying things in a different way, so she goes with volume and repetition. (We are actually very happy for whatever words and fragments she provides – she used to say, “EEEE, EEEE, EEEE, EEEEEEEEE” when she wanted something). We’ve found that she often says some pretty remarkable things, but we have to pay close attention and analyze her words to figure out what she’s saying.
With effort on both sides, we are often able to figure out what she’s trying to get across.
As an example, her sister, Kallan, brought home a recorder from school, and was learning, “Mary had a little lamb,” by playing it over and over. Josie, who doesn’t often string together words together came up with two complete sentences.
STOP………………. PLAY……………… THAT
STOP………………. PLAY……………… THAT
I………………………TAKE……………….EEE……………..AWAY
The long pauses between words and limited enunciation are barriers to communication, but they aren’t completely insurmountable. By understanding her patterns and the context we found the intended meaning (and the unintentional humor).
Besides merely listening to understand, another thing we can do is engage additional media. I tend to communicate best with the help of pictures. Dan Roam, in his book, _The_Back_of_the_Napkin_, discusses how drawings can break down barriers and help us identify and solve problems. He gives some useful strategies for attacking problems with pictures. Pictures can be understood in situations where language gets cumbersome.
True communication is a two way street. It really comes down to a partnership between the audience and the presenter. In fact, the best communication happens when both parties do their very best to communicate clearly as well as listening to truly understand where the other is coming from.
The Power Of Purple [The Phoenix Airport Sucks]
Feb 6th
If an airport was designed like most software it would look exactly like the Phoenix Suncity Airport (PHX) and, like many software companies, PHX offers consulting and tech support. Fortunately, their consultants are free and take the form of an army of purple-clad senior volunteers. In spite of this, every time I visit this airport, I’m shocked at its poor design.
To illustrate this point let me take you through my first hand experience of this airport. I was flying with my mother-in-law from Guadalajara to Phoenix. She had to catch a connecting flight to Denver and I to San Jose.
After clearing immigration and customs, we proceeded on a long walk to the end of a hallway, took the poorly marked elevator, accepted the free hand sanitizer and were dumped into what we later learned was Terminal 4. Let the games begin.
Upon entering Terminal 4 your first goal is to find your connecting flight so you look at the first set of monitors you see, which we did. Unfortunately, this set of displays contains only the list of international arrivals. Not much help.
We looked across and saw another bank of monitors. We went to look up the flight and saw that the only airline listed was US Airways, our airline. But her flight was not listed. The only clue we had was that the person who checked her bag after customs had suprisingly stated she was on a United flight, which now led us to believe that it was a code share flight. But how were we supposed to find her gate?
At this point, like with so many software packages, the option you’re looking for simply isn’t where you think it should be. So we walked over to the very friendly consultants in purple. Our consultant seemed a little bored, but gave us the helpful hint to take the escalators marked “baggage claim,” down to a bus to get to Terminal 2 (where United flies). This is the software equivalent of,”Oh, its easy, just hold down the shift key while double-clicking with the mouse”.
Having read the slightly more helpful training manual (brochure of the airport), we came to understand that there are four different terminals. Each terminal has airlines assigned to it and while I can’t speak for all of the terminals, Terminal 2 has simply numbered gates. Terminal 4 has 4 wings (A-D) which each have about 30 gates. This doesn’t include the international arrivals which dump you into Terminal 4. Terminal 4 is only US Airways flights.
After talking to our purple-clad consultant the first time, we looked back at the escalator and seeing markings that indicated it was to baggage claim, we asked for confirmation that we really needed to shift-double-click. She reconfirmed, “yup, take the escalator down.” Then she added some new information. “Find door 22 and take the bus from there.” Note, the instructions were not, “follow the signs that say: Connecting to other terminals.” There are none. Having received our quest from the oracle, we proceeded into the lair.
Now that we knew the secret door number we set off in search of the magic bus. Upon exiting the door, we saw a sign labeled “Airport Bus.” Again, no indication what the “Airport Bus” is, or where it goes, we ask the driver if this is the bus that takes us to other terminals. Upon confirmation, we board and take a brief rest for our journey.
After successfully finding the United Airlines counter (very thankful for inadvertant tip from the baggage recheck guy), we arrived at the correct gate, said our farewells and I then embarked on the solo journey back to my own gate.
I eventually made it back to Terminal 4, searched in vain for some indication on how to find my flight but to no avail. By now I had given up on any illusion of self-sufficiency and asked the nearest purple friend who replied, “Oh, you’re on the wrong side of the airport, but you can take the elevators up over to the left.” I looked over, and there were two down escalators. But now armed with the pointer about the elevator, I ended up finding my destination.
Terminal 4, Wing A, Gate 13.
Why do they call this airport “The Friendliest Airport in the US” inspite of being so user unfriendly? Because even the most skilled way-finders have to ask for help from the friendly purple brigade. While it’s hard to know how they could design this airport any worse, but to their credit they do have people wearing bright colors offering some semblance of assistance. What they should probably do is replace their signs with, “Stop trying to figure it out on your own, just ask a purple person.”
Navigating this airport successfully exemplifies most software interactions. If you’re a regular user, like someone who flys through Phoenix often, you learn your way around and it becomes second nature. But if you are an occasional user you’re in for an adventure that will later require some form of nerve tonic. Oddly, you are grateful for the purple people sitting next to you telling you, “Yes, now hold Alt-A, while pressing the enter button. See, it’s exactly what you wanted. Pretty cool, eh?”
It’s more friendly to simply help people achieve their goals in a self-sufficient way by designing things so they are easy to find. For instance, why have Terminals, Wings and Gates? Why not simply have a terminal letter and a gate number? People can deal with numbers over 30. Moreover, why not have all of the flight panels contain all of the flights so that anyone can figure out where they need to go. And why not add signs that indicate exactly where you should go to change terminals?
Too often, when we build our companies or products, we look at them the way I do the Denver airport (or probably how my friends see the Phoneix airport), as something that seems obvious. As such, we don’t consider the pain that new users go through in accomplishing their goals. Empathizing with our customers experience to help them meet their goals leads to having a business that doesn’t have to be staffed by hundreds of friendly consultants.
Cultural Inertia
Feb 2nd
Often, as a leader, you can see the long term consequences of a culture if it continues unabated. You see people taking habitual actions that lead to horrible ends and you want to encourage them to change, but changing a culture is never as simple as you’d like it to be.
Recently, I finished reading Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
While I found a good portion of the book a bit contrived, one of the more subtle themes is the nature of cultural and societal norms. As such, this book encourages an interesting thought experiment about societies, both large and small. The narrator, as the lone educated man, desires the return of the old culture and the old productivity. He remembers what America was like and wants to instill the same values, often using diatribes to try to motivate change. He wrestles with helping them understand the challenges that lie ahead, but right now they are surrounded by plenty (i.e. shops full of goods). He wants them to innovate rather than scavenge — to provide for themselves rather than taking the ease of simple consumption.
Ultimately, he changes his tack. He stops forcing school and stops giving speeches. He “invents” a bow and arrow from a tree, built by his own hand, as a game, so that when the bullets no longer fire, they will still be able to hunt. In the end, working with the culture to improve some aspects of it.
It is very difficult to change any culture. Each culture is comprised of self-reinforcing cycles. We look to others for assurance in our actions and they look to us for confidence in theirs. If you start pushing for change too hard, they stop looking to you for validation. You simply become an outlier. Don’t push enough, and nothing changes. Changing is more work than staying in the rut of the status quo.
However, the size of the group can make a dramatic difference in it’s cultural fungibility. For instance, when the group is small and the connections between them weak (like a new startup) the culture is highly influenced by the founders. The culture takes shape and continues to evolve as new employees join them. Each new employee affects the culture some, but their influence tends to be completely subsumed by the others influence on them.
Relatedly, as I mentioned earlier (“Inertia of Uncertainty”), as time passes, we, as leaders, stop noticing the things that we wish were different. As a result, when you come into an organization new, and wish to change things, you must over-communicate what you want to change and hold the line with solidarity. There is a limit to the amount of change that will be accepted, so you must pick the right battle and persist. No single speech will evoke change. The change has to be encouraged at every opportunity and violations of the change called out. This takes longer than you think it should take, but as with the narrator in Earth Abides, once it’s done, the changes persist long after your gone.
The rudeness of not following my unstated expectations
Jan 28th
Imagine the following situation: You invite an acquaintance out for a cup of coffee. They strike you as someone you might like to know better and figure this could be a good way to get to know them outside of your normal social circles. They graciously accept and you’re looking forward to it. The day arrives and you show up at the coffee shop, only to see that they’ve invited some of their other friends to come along. How do you feel?
Over the last few years, we have lived in several locations. The latest move to Mexico has been most revealing about the subtlety of human communication and connection. Each of us has been taught by our culture and more specifically by our family, a set of expectations for proper behavior.
These are the ways that we interact with one another that is considered polite and civilized. But, not surprisingly, different countries have different sets of expectation and patterns of communication.
One of my friends who lived in Germany once asked her boyfriend to be brutally honest with her. He responded that he didn’t think he could ever love her, but wanted to be friends who touch. Lesson: the Germans tend to be what Americans call “brutally honest” all the time and asking them to be “brutally honest” pushes beyond most Americans’ comprehension.
Here in Mexico, things don’t usually turn out to be this drastic, but far more subtle. It’s easy to think that when they violate our uncommunicated social expectation that they are being rude. Of course, this ignores all of the times that we have violated their unstated social expectation unawares.
Oddly, conversations about most of these things are difficult. You can’t say to your friend, “Hey, you’re not going to invite anyone else are you?”. It’s too strong, or at least it feels to strong if you’re an American. Unstated expectations tend to remain unstated without some spark to engage in learning more about what exactly is expected and being flexible on the other person when they violate your expectations — not from intent, but from ignorance. More over, even after it is stated, it is often difficult to explain why. These are things we learn from living in a society together.
These differences for what makes for polite or rude behavior show up all the time among families as well. Different families have different expectations of one another and different ways of communicating with each other. This can often come out in work situations – we each carry around our own set of expectations for how others ought to behave and can easily be offended when they don’t do so. Or worse, even assign to them a motive of malice.
Now, when I hear someone say, “That person was so rude”. I hear, “That person didn’t meet my unstated expectation of social norms”. And even though it seems to happen more often when there are major cultural differences, it happens just as often in the workplace, in families, in friendships. If there is offense, it’s good to discuss it so the other person can be aware, but it also has to be coupled with grace for them if they violate it again in the future. These types of values are not changed instantly.
So, back to the coffee shop, with you, your friends and their friends. Either you can stew, or you can remember that they may have thought it was rude to not to invite their friends. Better to simply enjoy the event for what it is, and the next time say, “I’d really like to get to know you personally. Do you think just you and I might get breakfast sometime?” – And hope for a better outcome.
Visualizing Our Mental Limitations
Jan 26th
When I saw this picture on my friend Daniel’s blog, I immediately thought it was an excellent picture of one of the themes that I write quite a bit about – our inability to both predict the future and recollect with accuracy our past. In both cases, we don’t see things as clearly as we think we do.
We see today clearly (the double-six). We remember yesterday, not horribly but sufficiently to see that it fits contiguous to where we see ourselves today. We see tomorrow with a little clarity and also how it fits with today. But as we get further away from both yesterday and tomorrow, our focus becomes increasingly less clear. What’s interesting though, is that we maintain mental models that assume we have clarity in both directions. We don’t remember things clearly, but we think that we do. We don’t really predict the future well, but we believe we do (or we wouldn’t keep doing it).
So perhaps a picture is not only worth 1000 words, but also quite a few blog entries. 
[Picture provided courtesy of Daniel Solorio, a designer/photographer here in Guadalajara. Today is Daniel's birthday and so I thought it was an appropriate day to finally blog on one of his photos that I really liked. He and his roommate are in a competition to post a picture they take every day. The pictures are definitely worth looking at.]