Old Bread Trucks & Other Disruptive Innovation...
Yesterday I stumbled upon a five-year old article from the Harvard Business Review called “Know Your Customers – Jobs to be Done.”?It’s co-authored by Clayton Christensen the father of disruption and widely thought to be one of the most influential management thinkers in modern history.?The premise of the article is that to truly serve your consumers (audience) superficial research that provides general demographic and sociographic info just isn’t going to cut it.?The relationship needs to be much more intimate.
As I read it, I couldn’t help but take a trip down memory lane to a time a few years ago (ok, many, many years ago) when my wife and I were executive producers of a national news magazine for NBC called Real Life.?It was an extremely chaotic time in our lives.?In addition to the show, I was overseeing newsrooms in Boston and Miami.?We also had two small children.?During this time, outside of my family of course, the most important person in my life was our handyman. I loved that guy. If something was broken at our house, he fixed it. If it didn’t look or sound right, he investigated.?If the cable installer could only show up while we were at work he’d let him in.?Not to be weird but even though that was a few lifetimes ago, I still miss him…a lot.
This is kind of what Christensen is talking about in the article.?My handyman was NOT in any way passive in his interest to do his job.?He sought out my needs in many cases before they became my issue to handle.?Invaluable.?The only way he could do that was to get to know me, the house, my tolerance level for annoyance, etc., all things that required a deeper dive on his part.?An approach so different than the typical “if something breaks call and we’ll get to it when we can,” that we run into normally.
There’s a great case study in the article about a construction company that couldn’t sell its condos to retirees despite having researched the needs of the elderly and creating their design accordingly.?They made assumptions based on superficial research and generalized findings.?In order to change their fortunes, they had to take a much deeper dive into the lives of their potential clients.?It involved meeting needs they had never considered, and that basic research would have never uncovered.?This story alone is worth the time spent reading the article (link below).
A few days ago, I posted the story of WUOT-FM/Knoxville that used an old bread truck to go meet and listen to their community. Their approach was completely in line with what Christensen is talking about.?The radio station wanted to get to know the needs of their audience, their community, so they found ways to engage and, most of all, LISTEN.?They discovered things like when people talked about healthcare and family concerns, they often meant addiction to Opioids or an inability to care for small children without the benefit of health insurance.?It allowed them to produce content that was relevant and meaningful and, in many cases, provided a pathway for audience members to have their needs met.
Much like my handyman, that’s a brand I’d invest in and wouldn’t want to be without.? How does yours compare? #cheatwoodmedia