The innovator's most important virtue
/Every day, billions of people use a tool that was invented to be slowest in its class. It's been bettered since, yet few people are aware of this innovation.
Want a clue? Look down.
The QWERTY keyboard was perfected in 1873 to overcome a design flaw in the original mechanical typewriters. If the user typed at full speed, the arms on which the letters were mounted would jam, making the typewriter effectively useless. Rather than innovate on this challenge, Remington decided to slow down the average keystroke. I guess this meant the page came out faster—without the jams.
It took another 50 years for the electric typewriter to solve this design flaw. Despite the fact that we've had a jam-free technology for almost a century, there's been no effective innovation in the means by which most of us communicate the written word today. Other keyboard layouts have been proposed in an attempt to speed up typing and slow the spread of carpal tunnel.
But the learning curve is simply too steep—dozens of hours—and it seems we'd all rather muddle along.
So as you head into work tomorrow with a head full of innovations, spare a thought for the Rogers adoption curve. The unprecedented success of the smartphone and Facebook could lead us to believe that great ideas spread like wildfire. Fact is, though a brilliantly simple design with a natural learning curve can be the key to commercial success, your audience may not care—they may be happy with their typing speed.
Finding the effective innovation takes time. If you're the one championing change, a new technology, or anything that requires people to adopt, you better work on your patience muscle..
If Remington had exercised a little lateral thinking 150 years ago, how much faster would we be typing today?
ON YOUR WAY HOME TONIGHT ...
Consider an improvement you are planning for your customer's experience. Ask:
What will the customer gain? Or what pain will be relieved?
Do they care? How much?
What time will they need to invest to adopt your change? How can you minimize this?
Have they told you it will be worth it?
This exercise works for any change—how about a new process you are designing for your colleagues? With or without technology.
... and if you missed these related articles, go back and take another look:
Have you really solved the problem?
Have you simply moved the problem?
Do your customers care about you?