Today’s post is a bit different. I am mashing up three books. Each book stands on its own. However, I was not personally blown away by any of them. That said, they each have some nuggets of wisdom that made me think. While these books are on three completely different topics, those topics do converge… at least in my mind.
First, Jobs to Be Done covers a methodology for innovating from a different perspective. It takes the ‘Jobs to be done” approach and attempts to add additional structure to it to fit into a marketing and product development process. I feel like this overcomplicates the idea of Jobs to be done. It also felt like some of the examples in the book were reaching hard to pigeon-hole them into this methodology. It is a very broad book. If you are unfamiliar with the jobs to be done (j2bd) philosophy you might be a bit lost. The short version of j2bd is that you should look at why a customer is buying your product, then work backwards to understand the buying decision. This is centered around the thought that people don’t buy drills because they want a drill, they buy drills because the need a hole. This book walks the reader through a meticulous methodology for embedding this thought processes into an organization’s product development efforts.
Second on the list is the book Reclaiming the Conversation. It is a verbose manifesto on how technology is ruining the human experience. It is basically 450 pages of the author screaming “turn of the effing devices.” I think the real problem here was that I was not the target audience for this book. The generations after mine need a much more significant reminder to unplug than I do. Regardless, there were interesting points and plenty of reason to worry about how people will communicate in the future.
The final book for today is Woo, Wow, and Win. It is paced full of good advice for designing an enthralling service strategy. For me, I found the structure annoying. The books talks about SD2 squared which has 10 elements and 5 principles. I felt like the title should have been SD2 + 10E + 5P. Again, I feel like the authors tried to apply to much structure to the topic to provide a framework for the reader. Beyond that, there were great examples. Also, if the reader is new to the service design concept, they might be a little lost even with all the structure.
So how do these 3 books fit together within the concept of this Priceless Geek blog? Well, this blog is a juxtaposition of technology, sales, leadership, and communication topics. Within the structure of my mind, using the Jobs to Be Done methods and actually communicating face to face as part of an organization’s service design strategy is a path to success. J2BD can really help an organization understand their customers. Once an organization truly understands their customers they can modify their products, processes, and customer experience to leverage those needs. Good customer experience is more than an eager CSR and a knowledgeable sales rep. A well executed service design and delivery strategy can create more than just a customer for a brand. It can create an evangelist for a lifestyle.
Click the image to buy it on Amazon.
