A Growing Disconnect
I.T. has always been an industry that sells promises. Years ago, when I spent time in sales, they called it selling the “sizzle”. When you’re selling something very new, inventing technologies that don’t exist and creating benefits nobody knows about this is somewhat unavoidable. It’s caused some amusing moments over the years; once, when working as a Western Digital hard drive distributor, I saw detailed specifications on glossy brochures for products that never existed. Amusement aside it’s been a vital ingredient in getting new ideas across. History shows as an industry we’ve been pretty successful doing this. Intel, Microsoft, Google and Cisco are amongst the very largest and most profitable companies of the last decade.
As technology matures the importance of this sizzle fades, as people try it out and have positive or negative experiences with the reality instead of the promise. It becomes harder to fool people with only a promise and a flash player demo.
Another characteristic of industry maturity is the slow move of buyers away from feature based purchasing to benefit based purchasing. The idea of buying a specification, the faster processor or bigger capacity, changes. People become less fascinated with the technical detail. They become more interested in what actual benefit they gain - and they don’t care so much how you do it.
Internet connections are a case in point. As things stand, ISP’s sell a service on almost a single promise of so many ‘megs’. That’s a single specification of a complex system sold ‘featuring’ a quoted number, 2MB/4MB etc. It doesn’t actually promise, or guarantee in any way, a specific benefit to the buyer. Just a general inference that, all other things being equal in a laboratory, if it’s bigger it will be faster. The reality is, as with all things technical, God is in the detail and the ‘bigger’ promise doesn’t always delivery a better experience to the buyer. Sometimes a 2MB connection can move data faster than a 4MB one.
Internet pipes are very similar to water pipes. What the ISP sold you was pipe diameter, and that’s all. A theoretical maximum capacity. Sadly, as many people can attest, you can put a huge diameter pipe into your house from the street but still have poor water pressure. A smaller diameter pipe with good pressure, forcing water along at speed, is better than a big empty pipe that can theoretically hold more.
One day, when buyers discover these truths, ISP’s will have to start selling the actual delivery speed of the connection, because ultimately people don’t want the feature of a large pipe, they want the benefit of water under pressure. If I’m watching YouTube videos I want it to start now and not pause in the middle - and I don’t care about pipes.
Another example is an Android phone offer I received. It listed as the main reasons I would buy as; a gorgeous interface; a huge 4.3 inch screen and 4G. But a beautifully dysfunctional interface isn’t a benefit, it’s just a lesson in frustration. A huge screen is only as good as the content I can get it to display, which takes me back to my dysfunctional, but beautiful interface. And 4G might be no faster than 3G in the real world, whilst sucking my battery dry in 2 hours.
I’m not saying Android phones are like that, I have no idea because I don’t own one. What I’m saying is the advertiser was more interested in their features than what I actually want in my smart phone. Large screens and 4G transmitters may or may not improve my ownership experience one iota. I don’t care how big a screen is if the menu system is so poorly designed I can’t find the sleep mode.
Buyers don’t want meaningless technical specifications that look good on paper, they want things they will enjoy owing.
Most of this industry is still selling promises. Some have heard the drift of users and have started offering benefits like cloud computing; realizing users often don’t care how you deliver the benefit. But as their zero service model shows, I don’t think they have listened hard enough. Apple is one of the few who have embraced selling an experience users love to have, through careful attention of what people want. Almost nothing they sell is new technology. They didn’t invent smart phones, music players, tablet computers or desktop computers. And they’re going gang busters.
It used to be what you see it what you get (WYSIWYG). What Apple seem to be selling is what you see is what you want (WYSIWYW).
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