8: Relevance and Innovation
"Innovation" has become a buzzword in the business world, tossed into sentences like a magical incantation by people who do not quite know what it means, only that it sounds vitally important and companies that do it earn large amounts of profit.
(EN: The author fumbles with this a bit, but to put things aright: innovation simply means doing something differently to achieve the same goal - rather than doing the same thing more efficiently.)
Relevance is the touchstone of innovation. Simply being different is not profitable unless the way in which you are different is relevant.
It's very much like inventions - some of them are wacky and serve no purpose whatsoever, and are amusing as novelties but have no staying power. The inventions that make their creators rich are those devices that are relevant to a need, which is what makes people want to have them.
In case that is not adequately self-evident, the author then considers the product development process with an eye toward relevance.
Determining Need
Many new products or product innovations represents solutions for no known problem, and this is why marketing them is so difficult: you have to discover a need for the thing, or convince people who don't think they need it that they do - when the truth is that the thing is irrelevant to them. In this sense, relevance is a filter that helps sort out the ideas that are not worth pursuing from the ones that are.
In another sense, relevance can be applied to give a goal to researchers. If the research problem defines a human need that is not being fulfilled, research and experimentation have a clearer purpose that, once accomplished, will result in a product that people value, at least to the degree that they wish to have the problem solved.
Coville specifically mentions the Segway, which was a terrible disappointment. After months of mystery and vague promises about a device that was going to revolutionize the world and redefine cities, the end result was a very bizarre device that nobody needed. Niche markets were eventually found, but after almost fifteen years the company has yet to become profitable.
Defining a Market
You may create a product that is very good at doing something - but if you are the only one who thinks so, then the product will not become commercially viable. It is difficult to sell something to someone who doesn't believe in its value.
Consider the example of correspondence schools - colleges that offer degrees without having to attend the physical campus. These have been around for years, offering lectures on tape and tests that are mailed in, but the Internet made it possible to attend lectures, participate in class discussions, take tests, and do other activities via the Internet rather than by postal mail. It is a far more efficient way to get a degree.
Unfortunately, this hasn't worked out very well. Correspondence schools still bear a stigma and an "online degree" doesn't impress many employers, and often feel that it speaks poorly of the character of a candidate who would present one. (EN: The problem is more than one of image. Having worked with people whose credentials are from correspondence schools, it's been painfully evident that the education they received is not of the same quality.)
There remains a high demand for college education and the cost of attending a brick-and-mortar college is soaring, and online learning seems to be a perfect solution. But until such programs are relevant to the interest of employers, they will be of little value to students.
Marketing New Products
Simply building a better mousetrap won't bring the world to your door - you have to tell them about it. And more importantly, you have to convince them that it really is a better product than the one they are presently using to fulfill a need. (EN: even in instances when there is no product that does something, you will still have to answer customers who ask "why would anyone want that?" to sell your product to them.)
The approach to selling that simply states the facts and leaves it to the audience to recognize the value of a product is not going to have much success - particularly in the modern world in which people are bombarded with commercial messages, they do not have the time to ponder every commercial to figure out whether they really need a product - your marketing must make the relevance clear.
That is, the message today is not "here's what the product does, so do you think you need it?" but instead states "you need the produce because it does this" - and "this" must be something that is relevant to the customer's needs and interests.
Remaining Relevant
Being relevant once results in one sale. Assuming that the customer is immediately habituated to your product and will consider no alternative is, in today's competitive marketplace, extremely foolish.
Another form of foolishness is in changing the product and expecting the market will still believe it to be relevant. There are many brands that eroded their markets by making many small cost-cutting decisions, the net effect of which was to diminish the quality of the brand.
Back on topic: it is a constant struggle to remain relevant to customers in a competitive market. Competitors are struggling to be more relevant, and customer tastes and preferences change.