Ask yourself one question: "Am I living in a clean home?"

Did you answer "Yes, of course! I'm not an animal!" or something similar? If so, I have one piece of advice for you.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should you buy a Dyson Gen 5 vacuum with the Fluffy Optic? cleaner head which has a green LED to show up dust.

No many how times you look at the floor, each new pass with the Dyson Gen 5 detects more dust and debris on the floor. As the counter increases detecting each particle, your self worth plummets by an equal amount.

You want to stop, but you can't. You keep vacuuming, each meter of newly clean floor showing more of your shame. Slowly, with each pass, you realise that you are, in fact, an animal living in squalor.

My review: "5 Stars. Would buy again!"

Why post this on LinkedIn? Surely it's not work related? I beg to differ, kind reader.

It's a fantastic example of product leadership, design and excellence.

In a similar vein to Henry Ford's (alleged) response about the Model T.

Steve Job's had a similar point of view.

If you consider the trusty vacuum cleaner. Surely it doesn't need an LED on the cleaning head? You can see where you need to vacuum, right?

Well, no, you really can't. It's surprising how much unseen dust and debris exists and the implementation of this design is a game changer.

Dyson consistently look outside the box to rethink how products should work. They've taken their leadership in a core technology - high power compact motors, and applied that capability to a wide range of applications outside vacuums - hair care, fans and air purifiers, hand dryers and even headphones with personal filtration systems built in!

In each application, constant iteration is key. I can't profess to being a pro-user of their hair care range, so I'll stick to the Vacuum. A decade ago, no-one would have imagined that the hand held stick vacuum would be sufficient to complete a whole home. The handheld vacuum was great for a quick clean up, but then you'd grab the "real" vacuum to do the rest of the house. Through advances in motor technology, battery technology and improved efficiency, this is now absolutely possible. So much so that 5 years ago James Dyson noted the company no longer invests in developing corded models. All development efforts will be focused on battery based, cordless handheld vacuums.

The iteration and innovation extends across many features in the range. The Gen5 model also includes a digital display showing how many particles the vacuum is collecting segmented by particle size. Surely, that's just for show you might think? But in reality, it does make vacuuming fun. Yes, I can't believe I said that either.

But it has a more practical use too. It also allows you to determine how clean the specific floor area is. If the readings are high, keep on going. If they are low (or nil) then it's fine to move to the next area. Innovations like these don't naturally come to mind, but are excellent examples of keeping the Customer front of mind and thinking differently.

I do feel sorry for the tiny person inside each vacuum that has to count each particle before entering it into the display, but hopefully #AI can solve that soon.

Naturally, the Dyson product evolution continues with recent releases of the Dyson 360 Vis Nav? robot vacuum. I haven't got one of these beauties - but if there was a vacuum bucket list, it would be on it. Robot vacuums have been around for ages and one might argue Dyson were very late to the party. However, I've no doubt that the performance of the 360 Vis Nav would make it worth the wait. For every Dyson product we've owned, the quality of the product has been outstanding.

At NEXTDC we strive for the pursuit of excellence and bright ideas each day. I don't have Dyson's specific corporate values, but I'm sure the team operate with a very similar mindset. How can we make tomorrow's product even better than it is today? Providing a premium product that delights customers is an exciting challenge. If you're doing it right, each small step forward should bring a small smile, an appreciative nod or squeals of excitement. Not just for the Customer, but for the team developing these innovations.

Are Dyson products cheap? Definitely not.

Are they great value? Absolutely!

To avoid turning this into a Dyson advertisement, I'll keep the cost vs value discussion for another time. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Dyson , NEXTDC #productleadership #productinnovation #productdesign #productmanagement