Your first idea is 💩
Bram, my partner in crime at Carat, talks frequently about how your first idea will generally be crap — that it takes work to go from the first idea, to develop upon it, to get to something with strength and merit.
That’s as true in an ad agency as it is in a product agency and in life generally — good stuff takes time (that’s why my favourite recipe to cook is risotto).
As I read this morning about the $99 Fridgecam and see ridiculing comments; as I look at my now redundant Dash buttons; as I think back to Amazon Firephone and Google Glass — the first instance is always going to get it wrong.
It’s about doing and learning.
Take what you learn and embed the thinking in to later versions.
Many organisations will talk about ‘test and learn’, putting tests into the market to see what happens, but often they’re novelty, tactical innovation with the wrong measures — to get column inches or to excite a consumer, rather than to understand more about the consumer or the technology.
The missing bit is not just the LEARN phase (what happened) but also the DO-AGAIN-BUT-BETTER phase. Taking the best bits, and iterating them into something bigger, better, smarter, more useful and more usable.
Yes, a $99 Fridgecam seems daft — but the service layer to suggest ‘here is something you could cook tonight based upon what you already have in the fridge, so you don’t waste food’ is brilliant and much needed.
Amazon’s Firephone had embedded object recognition technology to ‘see objects’ and send you product links. This technology is now available across fire and android devices, and now doubt has fuelled the work behind the upcoming Echo Look alexa device with inbuilt cameras. Dash buttons are less about the one-touch interface, more about understand how people use the devices and behave around them, and Amazon’s relentless pursuit of frictionless commerce. Google Glass failed to capture the imagination of consumers, but lives on in the Enterprise sector, and AR has been growing in its prominence over the years since the headset project went quiet, and products like Pokemon Go landed — VR/AR now being one of the hottest topics to discuss alongside AI.
So, I’m redefining “Test and Learn” to “Try, Learn, Do Better”.
You’ll learn more from your first toe dipped into the water than you will from reading the case studies of others or pointing fingers at ‘stupid’ first steps into using new technology in different ways.
Don’t lambaste the first generation — learn and build from it.
Now, I’m off to see what I have in my fridge to make breakfast.
