F2FWTC™
Face to Face With the Customer. You can send out as many surveys as you want but you’ll never understand the aggravation your user community is feeling until you’re sitting across from them while they struggle to use your software.
Category: Innovation
Agents of the Epiphany
There are two forces at work when developing a product. Agents of Chaos and Agents of the Epiphany. Agents of Chaos state emphatically what needs to be built for customers, without ever speaking to a customer. Agents of the Epiphany don’t know exactly what needs to be built but routinely…
I think one of the biggest challenges we face…
Is that people that have a “good idea” (aka, recognize a true pain point) don’t know how to get a prototype in people’s hands in order to test it. Most think you need a developer, a “technical co-founder”. That’s shit. If you can’t write a single line of code then…
Prolific.
Crank out as much as you can as fast as you can. You may think quality matters, but recent studies show that it doesn’t. Quality ideas are a function of a quantity of ideas. Ever sit in “brainstorming” sessions and absolutely NOTHING of value comes out at the end? I’m…
Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design
Good design is… Innovative – The possibilities for progression are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for original designs. But imaginative design always develops in tandem with improving technology, and can never be an end in itself. Makes a product useful – A product…
Well… [Google|Microsoft|Facebook|Amazon] could do that…
I’ve heard this three or four times over the last six months, not only with ChannelLauncher but with other companies that are getting off the ground in Tampa. Originally my response was (at least when this was said about ChannelLauncher) to defend. “Yes but here’s our approach…” It’s become clear…
The Most Daring of Ideas
In March, Paul Graham wrote a post about the top 7 most daring startup ideas. At number 4 was “Internet Drama” which discussed how video content delivery will be changing consumer’s viewing habits. He also identified two ways that this was likely to play out – either Netflix, HULU or…
Falling DVD Sales
In this month’s issue of The Deal, way back on page 48, there’s a discussion of how “Disruption has been rearranging the media landscape…” There’s a brief paragraph “…falling DVD sales, insufficiently counterbalanced by … digital sources like Netflix Inc.” Essentially the article is pointing out a number of sub-sectors…
TV 4.0
Still struggling with seeing the need for smart tv’s? They’re cool, have lots of features, price points are dropping and screen sizes are increasing. But that’s not enough. I think we’ve got it all wrong – surfing the web or porting Android apps to them isn’t where this should be…
Envision the Future.
I was at ITS2011 in Tampa last week watching Carlos Dominguez give a presentation about innovation and how the best companies approach it. After giving a handful of examples he asked the crowd “How many of you take time out of your week to actively envision what the future will…
Now Reading
Planned books:
- The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. by Daniel Coyle
- The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Brant Cooper, Patrick Vlaskovits
Current books:
-
Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (Strategyzer) by Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith
-
Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation by Phil McKinney
Recent books:
- Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant
- Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz
- Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, Chris Fussell
- Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than your by Salim Ismail, Michael S. Malone, Yuri van Geest
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
Agents of the Epiphany
There are two forces at work when developing a product. Agents of Chaos and Agents of the Epiphany. Agents of Chaos state emphatically what needs to be built for customers, without ever speaking to a customer. Agents of the Epiphany don’t know exactly what needs to be built but routinely…
I think one of the biggest challenges we face…
Is that people that have a “good idea” (aka, recognize a true pain point) don’t know how to get a prototype in people’s hands in order to test it. Most think you need a developer, a “technical co-founder”. That’s shit. If you can’t write a single line of code then…
Prolific.
Crank out as much as you can as fast as you can. You may think quality matters, but recent studies show that it doesn’t. Quality ideas are a function of a quantity of ideas. Ever sit in “brainstorming” sessions and absolutely NOTHING of value comes out at the end? I’m…
Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design
Good design is… Innovative – The possibilities for progression are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for original designs. But imaginative design always develops in tandem with improving technology, and can never be an end in itself. Makes a product useful – A product…
Well… [Google|Microsoft|Facebook|Amazon] could do that…
I’ve heard this three or four times over the last six months, not only with ChannelLauncher but with other companies that are getting off the ground in Tampa. Originally my response was (at least when this was said about ChannelLauncher) to defend. “Yes but here’s our approach…” It’s become clear…
The Most Daring of Ideas
In March, Paul Graham wrote a post about the top 7 most daring startup ideas. At number 4 was “Internet Drama” which discussed how video content delivery will be changing consumer’s viewing habits. He also identified two ways that this was likely to play out – either Netflix, HULU or…
Falling DVD Sales
In this month’s issue of The Deal, way back on page 48, there’s a discussion of how “Disruption has been rearranging the media landscape…” There’s a brief paragraph “…falling DVD sales, insufficiently counterbalanced by … digital sources like Netflix Inc.” Essentially the article is pointing out a number of sub-sectors…
TV 4.0
Still struggling with seeing the need for smart tv’s? They’re cool, have lots of features, price points are dropping and screen sizes are increasing. But that’s not enough. I think we’ve got it all wrong – surfing the web or porting Android apps to them isn’t where this should be…
Envision the Future.
I was at ITS2011 in Tampa last week watching Carlos Dominguez give a presentation about innovation and how the best companies approach it. After giving a handful of examples he asked the crowd “How many of you take time out of your week to actively envision what the future will…
Now Reading
Planned books:
- The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born. It’s Grown. Here’s How. by Daniel Coyle
- The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development: A cheat sheet to The Four Steps to the Epiphany by Brant Cooper, Patrick Vlaskovits
Current books:
-
Value Proposition Design: How to Create Products and Services Customers Want (Strategyzer) by Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Gregory Bernarda, Alan Smith
-
Beyond the Obvious: Killer Questions That Spark Game-Changing Innovation by Phil McKinney
Recent books:
- Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam Grant
- Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz
- Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World by General Stanley McChrystal, Tantum Collins, David Silverman, Chris Fussell
- Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than your by Salim Ismail, Michael S. Malone, Yuri van Geest
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance