Meaningful

ch1

Peter Drucker spoke about decades ago: ‘the purpose of business is to create and keep a customer’. Drucker goes as far as to say that the customer is the ‘starting point’ of a business’s purpose.

[Y]ou’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to gure out where you’re going to try to sell it ... And as we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with ‘What incredible benets can we give to the customer, where can we take the customer?’ Not starting with ‘Let’s sit down with the engineers and gure out what awesome technology we have and then [ask] how are we going to market that?’

Before Apple introduced iTunes, people waited for CDs to be released and shipped. Before Nespresso, people paid for coffee by the jar or went to Starbucks. Before Kindle, we needed bookcases and packed one or two books to take on holiday

What happens because your product exists? Or as author Michael Schrage would say, ‘Who do you want your customer to become?’

Before [your product], people did. After [your product], people do.

Success is not what you make, but the difference that it makes in people’s lives.

Technology is not just taking us forward—it’s taking us back. It’s giving us back the ability to better understand our customers so that we can be not only useful, but also important to the people we serve. Upstarts like Lyft and Airbnb are stealing a march on their competitors not just because they have information about their customers, but because they are intentionally building organisations that use that information to create better experiences—ones that make people feel good and give them a story to tell.

Every business today, no matter its size or legacy, faces four massive challenges.
they are:

1.Clutter

  1. Competition
  1. Commoditisation
  1. Consumer consciousness

It turns out that affinity that is earned, not attention that is bought and paid for, is what’s powering business growth now.

Our job is not to simply obsess about the features and benets of what we are making; it is to wonder and care about the difference it could make to, or the change it could bring about in, people. Our job, as Steve Jobs put it, is to ‘Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.’

The best way to get attention, then, is to give it unconditionally rst.

ch2

e future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind—creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

The truth about disruptive innovations isn’t that they disrupt industries, but that they disrupt people’s lives for the better. Any innovation that is adopted or idea that spreads succeeds because enough people want the change that happens as a result

How we interpret both hard and soft data matters (smiles and frowns are data, too). Sometimes we use it to conrm our assumptions rather than to question them. Despite all they thought they knew, Tesco lost their market dominance by failing to stay relevant to people.

Innovation, sales and marketing are less about ideas and persuasion and more about understanding. We forget that. People don’t want one more nudge in the direction we have decided they need to go. They need us to build our businesses around what we notice will make their lives better

Edison sought to understand how his light bulbs would t into the whole electrical system and into people’s lives. The value wasn’t merely in the discovery; it was in making that discovery accessible so that it created a difference.

We can’t help but be drawn in by emails that address us by name or services that allow us to express our individuality. Companies are getting wise to the fact that we want to customise everything from our coffee (there are over 80,000 possible combinations at Starbucks) to our shoes (fteen shades of grey at Shoes of Prey). And so businesses where we can create beautiful, personalised photo books, like Artifact Uprising, or bespoke perfume studios where we can design our own unique fragrances are growing and thriving. It seems that the more ways brands can give us to feel we are one of a kind, the better

So, what’s left? We have come to care about all parts of the buying journey as much as we care about ownership. That mindset is reected in how much we now value design and in how much time, thought, care and money companies devote to creating the perfect unboxing experience

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Disney’s MagicBand is an all-in-one device that uses radio-frequency identication (RFID) technology to enable visitors to the theme park to have frictionless holidays. The MagicBand leverages data from sensors and users to create the ultimate in experiences that seemingly anticipate the visitor’s every need. No need for tickets, cash, itineraries or menus as your MagicBand records your preselected choices and credit card details.

ch3

Old rules of brand awareness:

Make something for everyone.

  1. Tell our story.
  1. Attract customers.
  1. Build brand awareness

New rules of brand awareness:

  1. Understand the customers' story.
  1. Make something they want.
  1. Give them a story to tell.
  1. Create brand affinity.

That’s why fashion brand Kit and Ace don’t describe their products; they tell the story of the customer’s life with those products in it. An $88 scarf isn’t a scarf; it’s a ‘cashmere hug on a cold day. Like the rst sip of soup on a cold day or a warm body curled up beside you under the blankets, surrounding yourself in warmth tops the list of simple pleasures.’

[I]t’s seeing the invisible problem, not just the obvious problem, that’s important, not just for product design, but for everything we do. You see, there are invisible problems all around us, ones we can solve. But rst we need to see them, to feel them.

Disruptive innovations:

  1. Start with a purpose and a small problem, rather than a big idea.
  1. Are based on what people do, not what they say they do.
  1. Leverage data to get closer to users, customers or fans.
  1. Can be more responsive to customers’ behaviours and needs.
  1. Tap into consumers’ latent desires.
  1. Connect the disconnected.
  1. Create value where none existed.
  1. Disrupt people’s lives, not industries—aligning with the user’s worldview

and often changing what people believe is possible for them, thus

changing their behaviour.

  1. Begin by facilitating or creating change for a small group of people at the

edges.

  1. Seem obvious only after the fact.

Story Strategy

It turns out that the best way to create a solution is to name someone’s problem or aspiration. Meaningful solutions are those that are created for actual people with problems, limitations, frustrations, wants, needs, hopes, dreams and desires that we then have a chance of fullling. These solutions are born from investing time in hearing what people say, watching what they do (or don’t do, but want to) and caring about them enough to want to solve that problem or create that solution that takes them to where they want to go.

And yet it took smaller players like Dyson, Uber and Airbnb to respond to those needs and bring about change: an easier way to keep oors clean; peace of mind for taxi passengers; a friendlier (and less expensive) place to stay while travelling

the innovation journey on the Story Strategy Blueprint begins at point 1, with the prospective customer’s story, and guides you through an exploration process that will help you translate her problems from opportunities to insights, and from insights to products and services that provide her with the features and benets she needs and the emotional benets she wants.

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  1. STORY

Think about who your customer is beyond basic demographics like sex, age and income.

Describe a day in her life as fully as possible.

What is her worldview?

What does she care about?

How does she spend her days?

What problems does she encounter?

2.INSIGHT

your understanding about what she wants to do—but can’t—and start thinking about how your products and services might help her. Where do you have the opportunity to make the most difference to her? These insights may reveal valuable information about possible ideas for products and services, as well as ways to scale and market them.

3.PRODUCT

Information gained in 2. INSIGHTS will inform the kinds of products, services and marketing you create for your customers. Think in terms of both rational and emotional benets, tangible and intangible value. What features and benets are required to help solve your customer’s problem? How will using your product or service make her feel?

4.EXPERIENCE

Walk through the customer’s journey from awareness to affinity and from purchase to evangelism. Consider every touchpoint and the effect your product has on how your customer feels and how she perceives herself.

what’s changed for your customer as a result of using your product? For example, the Shoes of Prey customer with larger feet who previously couldn’t nd a pair of great shoes to t her now feels more feminine. She walks taller (literally and metaphorically) and has more condence.