Redefining normal
I recently attended an interesting talk on disruptive innovation that brought together Even Heggernes (Country Manager, UK & Ireland, Airbnb), Omid Ashtari (MD, Europe, Foursquare) and Heather Leisman (MD, EMEA, Hotel Tonight). I guess you could call it a mobile selection of the businesses du jour.
Before I delve into the discussions of the evening, it’s worth defining the term ‘disruptive innovation’. Clayton Christensen, the HBS Prof. and all-round business brainiac, originally coined it, describing it as:
“a process by which a product or service takes root initially in simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves up market, eventually displacing established competitors.”
To put that into context, the Light Emiting Diode (LED) is disrupting the light bulb — sorry Edison. Despite starting as a fanciful and expensive alternative to light bulbs, the energy saving benefits and superior light quality were clear for all to see. Now the technology cost has fallen (it’s set to drop below $2/kilolumen by 2015 — incandescent bulbs cost around $2.20/kilolumen), so we starting to see the use of light bulbs falling. In fact, many cities around the world are now actually switching to LED street lighting.
So why were Airbnb, Hotel Tonight and Foursquare giving a talk on Disruptive Innovation? Well, they’re all disrupting an industry.
Airbnb, and to a lesser extent Hotel Tonight, are providing the same service as an online hotel booking service and arguably actual hotels themselves, albeit in a slightly unconventional (read: authentic) and in my opinion — and also I’m sure the opinion of the 4 million Airbnb customers who have booked rooms so far — a far more convenient way. One which many years ago, would have seemed odd. Advertising your home as a place for strangers to come and stay. It’s bizarre concept when you put it like that.
However, in our connected world, where we share even the most personal of information openly, staying in a room in someone else’s flat provided we get a better experience and with half the hassle/cost is a no brainer.
Airbnb’s stats also speak for themselves. Since opening for business in 2008, it is now active in 30,000 cities worldwide. Perhaps more interestingly is that international business has played a huge part in its success, with some 75% of bookings including a non-U.S. component, either on the listing or renting side. You can see why it’s earned the unofficial nickname of ‘The Scourge of the Hotel Industry.’
What was less clear to me was how Foursquare was disrupting an existing market?
Luckily Omit was on hand to answer that question. Foursquare changed the way people think about sharing their location, moving from a society in which friends (and strangers) knowing your every whereabouts was intrusive, to one in which sharing our locations via check ins — and opinions on that location — has become a form of social currency, positioning oneself (although sometimes falsely) as someone who is cultured and ‘in-the-know’ about their city. Gaming the experience may have helped to keep users coming back in the first instance, I mean who doesn’t love to collect badges, yet it was the gradual change in mindset that helped to disrupt what had come before it; review sites and restaurant critics.
It’s interesting to note that technology was simply an enabler of disruption in this case, nothing more.
(Omit also shared with us some feedback on a product they developed called Radar, which used GPS to provide users with real-time recommendations as they walked down the street. Unfortunately it was a battery suck — falling foul of one of the largest technological constraints facing the mobile industry at the moment — but the idea of continuing to develop the product beyond just checkins and badges was there).
Now I bet you’re wondering, how does this affect what I do? How will this help me develop ideas that disrupt? Well, I’m guessing since you’re reading this blog, that you work for an agency of some sort (or you’re my mum). So for us, I think it’s about realising that people, whether that be customers, clients or even colleagues, don’t always know what they want. They are often comfortable, even happy, with the product or service they are already using/delivering and aren’t interested in trying anything else. It suits their current way of life and thinking. However, if we want whatever we create to disrupt what has gone before it, then we need to think carefully about how we can place that person just outside their comfort zone.
Whether that be technologically, socially or economically, we need to disrupt their perception of what is normal.
And once we’ve placed them there, we need to deliver an experience that makes them think “you know what, it’s frickin’ awesome over here. I want me some more and I’m going to tell my friends.”
If they don’t have that reaction then we need to re-evaluate our product and iterate on it. And if iteration isn’t possible then ‘pivot’ in a direction that can provide that experience.
Only then will we start making stuff that matters and, in turn, redefine normal.
Originally published at regularquadrilateral.wordpress.com on August 7, 2013.
