Customers Included: Importance of Audience
Any start-up workshop begins with HOW important it is to go out and engage with your target audience, because with an audience, you have don’t have a start-up. Mark Hurst wrote a book, Customers Included, and presented a talk at IxDA which I attended. The presentation was very illustrative. Mark showed two examples: a failure and a successful one. Let’s talk about the failure.
The failure was PlayPump. According to their website, their mission is: Roundabout Water Solutions, who has an agreement with the South African Department of Water Affairs and the Governments of Malawi and Lesotho, is raising donor funds to supply rural communities, with clean drinking water, by means of a sustainable pumping system, called a PlayPump, that is powered by the play of children.
The PlayPump was installed in Malawi. It was colorful and fun looking. Contrary to popular belief, Malawi already had an accessible source of clean drinking water. They discovered that the PlayPump took several children 3 min and 7 sec to pump the same amount of water that one person could pump in 27 sec. The PlayPump installers came to the community and installed the pump, however they did not first consult the community about their need for a pump. Even though the project seemed innovative, it was not functional. The Malawi community did not benefit from that pump, and here is why (more detailed info here):
1 .Cannot provide water for an entire community
2. Not suitable for adult use
3. Safety issues
4. Designed to be operated by a crowd of children, running at full tilt
5. Storage tank was not user-friendly
6. Durability issues: expensive to install and maintain
So Innovation + Functionality vs. Innovation for the sake for Innovation
The successful example is the story of Prospect Park in 1979.
In 1979 no one wanted to run Prospect Park because it was unattractive and fostered criminal activity. An ad seeking solutions was placed in the local newspaper. A 30 year old non-New Yorker woman with no experience of managing a public property was picked to run the park . This woman began her job by going to the park and observing it. She wanted to find positive life there. She found one group of people who routinely used the park: dog walkers. She talked to them and discovered they would like the option to let their dogs off their leash. She decided to accommodate the dog walker group by implementing the “leash loss” law in the park. After the park was more comfortable for dog walkers, she found another group: joggers. They would always run the perimeter of the park avoiding any trouble in the middle. She then made the park more friendly for this group so they could enjoy the park in it’s entirety. She then targeted the ball players and then families that visited. Step by step, group by group the park became alive. Once dog walkers and joggers visited, ball players realized it was a great space to go out and play. After all three groups adapted the park, families saw that it is safe and they could visit with their children. Point being that she found one focal point and then built up.
What the Prospect Park Manager did, Mark put into 3 main rules:
1. Observe customers directly
2. Discover key unmet needs
3. Build consensus
To make an impact it is important to bring decision makers to the research and to the customers. Always remember your audience. This is why Meanwhile is prototyping every month and constantly adjusting their design. We are reaching out to our audiences for their feedback and needs. Don’t forget about the people that will be using your product!
