product-development voyeurism

Actually Subaru is a lot clearer about what the 2009 Subaru Forester isn't. Apparently it's not a Honda CR-V, Mitsubishi Outlander, Saturn Vue or Toyota RAV4. And that's a good thing.

There is no confusion on Subaru's part, however, about who buys the Forester, why they buy it and how they use it.

In developing the 2009 model, Subaru conducted consumer clinics as early as 2004 to determine what Forester owners thought. Even more telling, according to Tom Caracciollo, Subaru of America's director of product planning, was what was learned after the clinics. By observing participants as they drove away, Caracciollo and his team learned about the ways people actually equipped the Forester and used it, even simply peering inside to see what kind of items were lying around.

This product-development voyeurism was extended further by searching for Forester owners who posted pictures of their adventures on Flickr.com, a photo sharing site. There were the inevitable dog lovers, cross-country skiers and hikers, but the most prolific poster was a guy who posed his Forester in front of the entrance sign to the many national parks he visited. And then there was the couple who stuffed a calf in the back of their Forester to deliver the animal to a relative's farm.

From all this, Subaru was happy to discover that owners loved and trusted their Foresters, but it also took to heart the areas that needed improvement. For example, Subaru eliminated a major source of wind noise by making the crossbars for the rarely used roof rack an optional item. At the same time, load capacity of the crossbars has been increased to 175 pounds, so if you do use them, you can carry more.

In addition, cupholders have been incorporated into the door panels to stow the ubiquitous oversized water bottles that were observed to be a necessary part of the Forester active lifestyle. Interior colors in easily soiled light beige and ivory have been replaced by a more user-friendly shade of gray. And a retractable "snack tray" holds food and beverages for rear-seat passengers.

Patrick C Paternie, "First Drive: 2009 Subaru Forester XT," Edmonds.com, 26 Mar 2008, www.edmunds.com/apps/vdpcontainers/do/vdp/articleId=125348/pageNumber=1

Give Engineers Room

Google engineers are encouraged to take 20 percent of their time to work on something company-related that interests them personally. This means that if you have a great idea, you always have time to run with it.

It sounds obvious, but people work better when they’re involved in something they’re passionate about, and many cool technologies have their origins in 20 percent time, including Gmail, Google News and even the Google shuttle buses that bring people to work at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.

If your 20 percent idea is a new product, it’s usually pretty easy to just find a few like-minded people and start coding away. But when the thing you really want to work on is to make a broad change across the whole organization, you need something new — you need a “grouplet.”

These grouplets have practically no budget, and they have no decision-making authority. What they have is a bunch of people who are committed to an idea and willing to work to.

Bharat Mediratta as told to Julie Bick, "The Google Way: Give Engineers Room," New York Times, 21 Oct 2007, www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/jobs/21pre.html

Every time you add something you take something away

"What’s the most ignored paradox in software development? Every time you add something you take something away.

Screen real estate. Interface clarity. Simplified testing. Shorter development time. Certainty. Agility. Managability. Familiarity. Adding anything dilutes everything else. That’s not always a bad thing, just be aware of it. Be aware of the trade-offs.

The dilution effect is why maintaining a clear vision for your product is so important. Without a clear understanding of the limits and boundaries of your product, the product will morph into something you no longer recognize. Or worse, something you can no longer manage or control.

Jason Fried, "Every time you add something you take something away," Signal vs. Noise, 37signals.com, 4 Mar 2006, www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/every_time_you_add_something_you_take_something_away.php.

it is better ... to grow out of something ...

We believe that it is better for customers to grow out of something than to not be able to grow into it in the first place. And there are a lot of products out there where new customers can't grow into them anymore because they have gotten so complex and have so much stuff that they are too confusing for new people and that is when disruptive businesses can come in and nail the simple side of things, which is always a bigger market there is always more people willing to use something that just works than complex professional stuff.

Transcribed from Jason Fried, "10 Things We've Learned at 37signals," 2008 SXSW Interactive, 8 Mar 2008, audio.sxsw.com/podcast/interactive/panels/2008/SXSW08.INT.20080308.10Things37Signals.mp3, quote starts at 55:25.
Additional references:
Sean Ammirati, "SXSW: Lessons Learned at 37 Signals," ReadWriteWeb, 8 Mar 2008, www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_lessons_learned_at_37signals.php.
Jason Fried, "Question your work," A design and usability blog: Signal vs. Noise, 37signals.com, 17 Mar 2008, www.37signals.com/svn/posts/913-question-your-work.
"SXSW session recap: Jason Fried of 37signals," Hoover’s Business Insight Zone, 9 Mar 2008, www.hooversbiz.com/2008/03/09/sxsw-session-recap-jason-fried-of-37signals.

When in doubt, do something

When we started OpenSocial [a universal platform for social-network applications], we didn't know what the outcome was going to be. But we knew that this was an area where there was an opportunity to do something dramatic and game changing. We asked, 'What's the easiest way to get third parties to build compelling applications for social networks that leverage Google's assets?' We started running a bunch of experiments. We set an operational tempo: When in doubt, do something. If you have two paths and you're not sure which is right, take the fastest path. What's true in physics about objects in motion is true when you're creating a product. It's easier to keep moving and change course than when you're sitting and thinking and thinking.

Chuck Salter, "David Glazer (part of The Faces and Voices of Google)," Fast Company, March 2008, p. 84, www.fastcompany.com/fast50_08/google_david-glazer.html.

okay with ambiguity

I'll ask candidates who aren't engineers how to build a Web crawler. The right answer doesn't matter. I want to hear you think the problem through, because the odds are good that since we're an innovative company, you're not going to know how to do what you're going to be asked to do. You're going to have to figure it out. I want to know that you're okay with ambiguity.

Chuck Salter, "Douglas Merrill (part of The Faces and Voices of Google)," Fast Company, March 2008, p. 77, www.fastcompany.com/fast50_08/google_douglas-merrill.html .

embrace change

Q: What do you think it think it takes to succeed in the sea level of an innovative company?

A: Well, you have to be innovative, which means you have to embrace change. And change is threatening to many people.

I often hear people say they want to be in a company like ours, but they never have been and once they get there the pace of change is very unsettling.

We have taken the Ross Perot approach to evolving the business model. And by that I mean, we try many versions of one thing at the same time and let the market place tell us which thing works best. And then we rapidly iterate on that thing to make it better and better and better and better.

The alternative approach would be to study it ad nauseam, pick one, put the one thing in the marketplace and then slavishly work to improve the one thing. That is not the model we have built the business with.

We pride ourselves on our ability to very rapidly iterate. And to test, test, test, test, test, test, test. And let the marketplace inform us about what works.

Transcribed from "Featured Interview: Barry McCarthy, Chief Financial Officer of Netflix," iinnovate podcast, 13 Jan 2008, iinnovate.blogspot.com/2008/01/mccarthy.html (quote starts at 14:56).