Chris writes:
> > From: cfb [mailto:chris@bryden.net]
> > (....)
> > Engineers should think outside the box.... unfortunately, most
> > design these days is driven by marketing surveys and focus
> > groups whose respondents consist of the most average that
> > humanity has to offer.
Marc Printz responds, topologically:
> I think its better to think into, even inside the box nowadays since
> everyone else claims to be operating out of the box and its really getting
> crowded there.
Personally, I've been so much more creative ever since I started
thinking outside the inner tube.
To Chris's point:
Focus groups that "consist of the most average that humanity
has to offer" are indeed a drag. Why, you might get some kind
of undue emphasis on average-user experience, resulting in
some crummy anyone-can-use-it mobile-phone data service
like i-Mo....
Uh, well anyway..
In all seriousness: there is an interesting book out recently called
"The Myth of Excellence," which had its origins in a customer
survey that came back with all the wrong answers. Try as they
might, the authors just couldn't get the right answers from these
people. People just couldn't understand what they *should* want,
dammit.
Finally, they gave in and started listening. And reinvented the
obvious: "The customer is always right."
Another blinding epiphany: truly successful companies (generally
not more than a handful for each mature market) tend to excel in one
category of customer satisfaction, differentiate within a second,
and do just well enough in all other categories to be acceptable
to their target market.
I.e., "excellence in everything we do" is at best a management-fad
shibboleth, and at worst it's fodder for mindless corporate bullying
in the can't-get-no-respect non-critical corporate functions.
But the average has its place: whether it be in employees, products
or services.
(It better have its place. Or else I'd be totally out of work.)
> Join the movement under www.thinkintothebox.org (*)
> *) just kidding
Or a management fad in the making: Book title: "Think *Into* the Box: How
to get Your Company Eternally Mired in the Bog of the Mostly Average,
the Myopically Focused, and the Unnervingly Profitable."
I'll drink (Koolaid) to that
-michael turner
leap@gol.com
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Received on Fri Oct 12 12:23:36 2001