Post #5

This past week, I read a very interesting chapter from the book The Art of Innovation by Tom Kelley.  The name of the chapter was called Barrier Jumping, and it went into full detail of all the types of barriers innovators and entrepreneurs sometimes face when designing and marketing a product.  Like a lot of the other chapters, Kelley gives great examples from his and his colleagues' experiences.  One of the first "borders" that Kelley described "jumping" is cultural barriers.  He gave the example of a vacuum cleaner, and how American and Japanese consumers are looking for two very different products.  In Japan, the walls are much thinner and more compact, so the quieter the vacuum is, the better.  Americans, however, believe that greater power means more efficient and it is doing a better job at picking up dirt.  The louder the vacuum, the more power.  These types of barriers affect many other products in the world.  This reminds me how important it is to know your audience when selling an item before you start designing and making it.  During the first semester in the class, we spent a lot of time on asking the audience what they wanted.  I remember interviewing students about the food truck, and how different groups of students will want different types of food.

Another border that I had never thought about before was how hard it is to get people to change their rituals.  For example, many people born in the 50s and 60s wash their plates and silverware until they are almost clean before they put them in the dish washer.  I watch my parents do this all the time, and it has always confused me.  Apparently, the machines would break if any food was in the process.  Nowadays, washing the plates is totally unnecessary, yet [parents still do this because it is how they grew up.  When I was marketing the new BHS logo this past fall, I faced this same type of ritual.  Everyone kept telling me how our logo is the native america arrow, despite it not being our logo since 2005.  It will be at least another four years until a new four grades of students will be in the high school and they will accept the new logo as the truth.  But even still, there will be students who will want to go back to the past.