Take Time Out before Slapping on a Label
Failure is such a dramatic word. So final.
While many are quick to pronounce the demise of an ambitious project, I like to think of myself as an optimist.
I believe that many technologies succeed, but perhaps not in the time or manner preferred.
Whether the criteria are financial, market, social or psychological, timing seems to be the linchpin to everything.
Two terrific examples come from the article The Top Technology Failures of 2014. In short order, this article pronounces failure for Google Glass, Brazil’s EEG Exoskeleton, Bitcoin and a handful of other ambitious efforts that are by no means kaput.
For example, the section on Brazil’s EEG Exoskeleton describes a paralyzed person kicking the soccer ball at the 2014 World Cup with a brain-controlled exoskeleton. “Rather than a man rising from a wheelchair and walking, the exoskeleton seemed to have achieved a simpler task of moving one foot forward to hit the ball.” See the video here.
Is this culmination of “17 months of insane work” not enough to meet our insatiable needs?
The section on Google Glass deals with a well-funded product with no firm delivery date.
Why do we pronounce failure? Supposedly it wasn’t widely adopted (I deliberately avoid the word “fail”) because of the social stigma for the wearers. I have not been an avid follower or tester of this technology, though.
I propose that Google Glass’ slow adoption is purely a social acceptance problem that relates to time. As society is exposed to technology, they become more accepting. I think this product is ahead of its time.
Timing is critical to evaluating the exoskeleton, as well. The ambitious team had a short amount of time to develop and build the device, then train the user how to control it by a specific date. They achieved, in my opinion, a great goal (pun intended).
Did these two technologies fail? No. But neither did they meet their fully desired goals… at this point in time.
That doesn’t mean failure. They both are very likely to continue development and I believe will re-enter the market in the future.
Would you label the results of the Google Glass and the EEG Exoskeleton as a failure? Should failure be proclaimed when the product doesn’t sell as much as anticipated earlier in the process? Or misses a deadline? Do you think time was a factor or just a reasonable excuse?
The question of time is one we routinely ask clients to consider when evaluating a new idea.
How do you factor in time when determining whether a technology is a success?
Graphics credit: Tim.Reckmann (Wikimedia)
I just published this post yesterday but that a new and related news article “Google Glass’ new boss wants to redesign the headset ‘from scratch'” was just published today at http://www.engadget.com/2015/02/04/google-glass-2-designed-from-scratch/.
History has many examples of people labeling a technology a failure too early. See my collection of False Predictions (http://www.slideshare.net/waynecaswell/false-predictions-44416193/).
Timing has a lot to do with real failures, but there’s a difference between being too early and too late. Too Late better fits the definition of failure, but I have another. To me, a product or technology is a failure when it doesn’t serve a need, never will, or makes things worse. Like doctors, developers should keep to the Hippocratic oath, “first do no harm.”
An example I saw many years ago at CES was a computer mouse that could double as a telephone handset. I imagined the use case of getting a call and picking up the mouse only to say, “hold on a minute while I look that up,” then using the mouse to find and open the right file and navigate to the info I needed, all the while keeping the person on hold.
Rather than design something because you can, designers should first understand the need, and that’s why marketing is critical in early stages of product development. The example I think of here is Intel’s approach to determining product requirements, which I like. They’d often start with ethnographic market research, sending a team of anthropologist, psychologist and sociologist into consumer homes to understand their busy lifestyles, how tech solutions might help, and the difficulties of adopting those solutions. That work would feed into a Market Requirements document to define the purpose and function of an innovation before feeding into a Technical Requirements document that defined specs.
I wanted to make a quick update to this post to show that Carl Zeiss is pushing Google’s design further down the road, perhaps this update will make the concept more palatable to the marketplace? http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/09/carl-zeiss-smart-lens-curved-glass/