I'm involved in an ongoing research project about innovation in business that Schulich Executive Education is sponsoring, so my online travels are taking me to some interesting things these days as a result.
Today I found Dave Pollard's innovation flowchart, pictured here. [click to enlarge] It's a thoughtful chart and article, discussing the role of the customer in innovation:
There are two opposing views on the role of the customer in innovation. One school holds that all innovations start with conversation, observation, and understanding of the customer (current or potential) with the goal of surfacing and then filling an unmet need. The other school says that customers don't know what they need, at least until they see it, and sometimes a need doesn't even exist until a solution is available to fill it.
My own view is that both of these things can simultaneously be true and often are. However, let's start with needs and wants.
Needs versus Wants
The chart above seems to give priority to needs over wants. Unless we are talking safety and security needs [and sometimes not even then], wants drive more behavior among consumers than needs. I need clothes for business meetings; I want Ellen Tracy. People in general need to be able to hear their cell phone ring; they want cool ring tones. Or perhaps want to be cool. Or to fit in.
When we talk about unmet needs in the marketing world, we're usually really talking about wants. Let's face it, quite a lot of our money goes into things we want, not things we really need. [That's why we call it disposable income, after all.]
Do Customers Know What they Need?
Well, that depends on how you define need, doesn't it? [And can I just say right now that I wish I had a nickel for every time...] The Walkman is always raised as a good example of something we couldn't know we needed or wanted until we saw it. But that is really oversimplifying isn't it?
We knew that we sang to ourselves in our heads when we went jogging, before Walkman existed. We knew that lots of places people like to hang out played music on loudspeakers. We knew that people took portable cassette decks around. We knew about car stereos. We even knew about portable record players way back before cassette tapes became popular.
The truth is, music has always been portable for humanity through singing and playing of instruments. It's as old as the tribe.
It is not that customers knew they wanted a Walkman. But they could tell you a lot about what makes for a fun time when you're out of the house. And they knew music they liked was part of the fun.
Dave's Prescription for Innovation
I rather liked Dave's prescription for a general approach to innovation:
start with potential customers, observe what they are doing, converse with them about their frustrations and wants, identify constituencies or communities of customers with common needs or wants, and articulate the job to be done by the product or service that will meet those needs and wants... When you identify a whole group of jobs to be done for a whole group of different customer communities, you are ready to start imagining possible solutions...
This is exactly the kind of approach that well run organizations actually do use: generate deep understanding of their customers, from as many angles as possible. Get some ideas together. Test and refine.
Susan's Prescription
When you are thinking through the needs and wants thing, challenge your thinking every step of the way. Dive deeply into wants, hopes, aspirations and fears. Look for emotions.
There's a nice recap of Abraham Maslow here. His theory does't explain all motivation, but his list of 15 "being" needs is a great place to start if you are thinking about innovation. And it certainly explains why we value an Apple I-Pod for it's beauty, completeness, environmental richness, effortlessness, and uniqueness.
