Jeffrey Rosenberg

Is there a role for users in innovation?

Not according to Jens Martin Skibsted and Rasmus Bech Hansen who wrote a piece for Co.Design entitled "User-Led Innovation Can't Create Breakthroughs; Just Ask Apple and Ikea" (Brought to my attention by the good folks at UserInsight, who wrote their own opposing post.)

The article's title says it all. If you passionately subscribe to the school of thought that users are essential to the design and development process it's a must-read (unless you anger easily) because this mode of thinking is quite common. But I think it's absurd and off-base. Here are the authors' four main points, with my corresponding counterpoints:

• Point: Users insights can’t predict future demand. Even the users themselves have no idea if they will like an entirely product before they start using it.
• Counterpoint: It is true that no one - users nor the brand - can predict with accuracy the demand for an innovative offering. So is it better to create the offering in a vacuum and then see what happens? Or is it better to iteratively learn at key development points (or throughout the process) what is working and what isn't? It doesn't mean you take what users say completely at face value. It means that you give them a voice, a seat at the table. It's one of many inputs. The investment in conceptualizing, developing, marketing, distributing and servicing offerings is enormous. Why take the risk of being on the wrong trajectory?

 

• Point: User-centered processes stifles creativity. Creative people will feel limited and bored, not inspired, if they have to start out a creative process with a lot of user knowledge.
• Counterpoint: I have worked with some incredibly inspired, mad scientist ideators and creative innovators. None of them - not a single time - have ever walked into a room and started banging out ideas. They all want to know: Who we are targeting? What are their profiles? What are their motivations? What are their habits? Then from there: Who are their competitors and what are they doing? What are the business goals? Where is the brand going? The answers form the platform for innovation.

 

• Point: User focus makes companies miss out on disruptive innovations. If a company bases their decisions on user studies, they will conclude that most radically new innovations are not rational to pursue. 
• Counterpoint: Correct. If you conduct user research and you do what users say you will probably suffer from incrementalism. But that's not how you use research. You use research to gain insights that you then synthesize with other key inputs, such as competitive intelligence, business strategies, and brand strategies to generate ideas and concepts that are breakthrough, transformative, innovative. (Although if you structure and moderate the research properly you will get some of that from users as well.) User insights should be used as an input, not as the answer.

 

• Point: User-led design leads to sameness. Even if user insights were useful, it isn’t a competitive advantage.
• Counterpoint: Competitive advantage doesn't come from insights that no one else has. It comes from unique products, experiences, services, or distribution models that are partially informed by user insights. Sameness is typically a result of focusing disproportionately on what the competition is doing. It's a brand's unique take on opportunities that leads to differentiation. And user insights can help uncover those opportunities.

Apple and IKEA do leverage insights, just not in a systematic way. Even the Walkman was created from real consumer need. A clear vision driven by a dynamic leader is critical, but that vision comes from a need, a marketplace gap, whitespace. That gap cannot be identified in the absence of user insights.

I have seen what happens when users aren't involved as sources of insight or as collaborators. It's dysfunctional and sub-optimized and always leads to big money being left on the table. Sure, some companies can pull it off. But even they can stumble badly. Remember the 1990's, Apple?

Countering top arguments against the social web

Well, we're 1/12th of the way through 2011 and I still find myself having to passionately (sometimes too passionately) espouse the virtues of the social web. (I try my best not to get defensive, which is a challenge, but that's neither here nor there.)

FWIW, here are four random arguments I hear daily against the social web, along with my counterarguments:

1. Online social networking will destroy old-fashioned in-person contact. I believe the social web expands both depth and breadth of relationships, and I don't think it's a replacement for in-person contact for the vast majority. My perspective is that it's pure enrichment: I know more interesting things about more people that I ever would have without social media. It strengthens the connective tissue among my relationships.
2. Twitter doesn't have staying power. So what? Twitter is merely a property / platform. The behaviors it has created will only solidify. Twitter may pass, but only because something bigger and better has expanded on its foundation. The behaviors it has created are becoming part of what we as people do.
3. "Checking in" is a waste of time. Checking in (via location-sharing mobile applications like Loopt, Gowalla, Facebook Places or Foursquare) means different things to different people. To some it's a way of enabling serendipity (my friend is having lunch near me so I'll go say hello), and to some it's a way of sharing something about themselves (I want to let my friends know I'm at the Statue of Liberty). Did we live just fine before location-sharing became possible? Sure. But now we get to share more things with more people and enable even more in-person interaction.
4. I don't care what my friend is eating for lunch. Some content will always be uninteresting to some people across all media. That said, it takes me less time to read what my friend is eating than it does to read the subject line of a junk email, so really, what's the downside? Plus I think it can a) spark conversation and b) lead you to be exposed to something new.

There will always be battles to fight (I'm still fighting battles with Fortune 500 clients about why they should care about their websites); all we can do as digital champions is keep plugging away and picking off the naysayers one by one. Onward.