

Create the Filter - dilanj
http://dustincurtis.com/the_filter.html

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tyohn
"CEO, or the design director, or someone with a huge amount of power at Heinz
should personally use every one of its products for some arbitrary amount of
time before it is approved to be sold."

Do you really think the CEO doesn't use Heinz Ketchup in the new bottle? I
love the new bottle! It has never "jammed" up for me and its a huge
improvement over the glass bottle. I guess you should use those tiny ketchup
packets if you're having a problem with getting ketchup out of the bottles.
Did you know that Heinz is in the process or might have already released a
bottle that doesn't let that "watery ketchup" come out when you first use it.
It was their number one complaint from ketchup users. That's customer focused
innovation!

I know that your an Apple fan boy but believe it or not - not "everything
Apple" is god-like in fact I find the iPod Nano lacking and it was the first
product I ever bought from Apple.

Getting back to the Heinz ketchup bottle - I eagerly await your better re-
design...

~~~
dcurtis
I was referring to the bottle that has liquid-reduction technology you are
talking about. There appears to be some mechanism that only lets the viscous
liquid through, but it keeps jamming and preventing anything from coming
through. Not a big deal, but still annoying.

I respect Apple as a company. Making the assumption that I would blindly
follow every move Apple makes just because I mention Steve Jobs is a good CEO
is a low attack and also incorrect. Why are you attacking me personally?

~~~
tyohn
Sorry if my comment came across as attacking you. I was trying to state that
your "attack" on Heinz and it's CEO.. is unwarranted. I'd don't work for the
company but I am a fan.

You are absolutely correct about bureaucratic crap getting in the way of
innovation. I even agree with your point.

But I must say I am tired of hearing about how great Steve Job's is... He is
great but Apple can't be the only company that has a focus on design and
innovation.

Once again - sorry if I came across as attacking you - I didn't mean to...

~~~
grinich
_He is great but Apple can't be the only company that has a focus on design
and innovation._

I'm quite tired of this as well. Lost in the mix are companies like Braun,
BMW, Philips, and P&G. Their products are often just as well designed, if not
more for the fact that they create things outside of consumer electronics.

Apple has some of the best advertising and branding in the world, and
subsequently has a cult-like following. But I doubt many of its "fanboys"
recognize the letters TBWA.

~~~
pg
Of the companies you list, Braun seems to me the only one that reaches Apple's
standard.

There are lots of companies that produce great design. Artemide, Knoll, Bang &
Olufsen, and so on. But these are a lot smaller than Apple. It's not easy to
find a company with revenues as big as Apple's that does design so well.

~~~
grinich
_It's not easy to find a company with revenues as big as Apple's that does
design so well._

I've noticed that too. There seems to be an inverse correlation between
company size and the quality of design. I think Apple is almost pseudo-
exception to this though, since their ID team has less than a dozen people. Or
maybe it's just because their CEO has taste.

But a lot of the best design still goes completely unnoticed. An object as
simple as a Band-Aid might not evoke the same emotional response as a sleek
aluminum MacBook or a Porsche 911, but I'd argue that its design is just as
revolutionary and even more influential to the world.

Braun to me seems like Apple's older brother. Or at least just Dieter Rams.

------
swombat
_The only thing that matters to a company of any size is its product and
customer experience._

That's a load of crap. What is true for a small start-up is not necessarily
true for a huge behemoth.

There are many other components to the mechanisms for making money (which is
what businesses are - human machines to make money), and although product
development and customer services are very important in the early stages of a
company, the focus shifts, later, to other areas (like sales or value chain
optimisation). Those can make a much larger difference to the company's
profits, once it is at scale, and so they deservedly get more attention at
those scales.

This article represents a very narrow-minded, naive view of business. Perhaps
you should work in a wider variety of companies before making such grand
statements. Maybe read a book or two about corporations. I recommend
"Management" by Peter Drucker as a (heavy, but excellent) starter.

~~~
dcurtis
Of course those things matter, and they're part of the customer experience.
Your marketing and sales strategy should be of the same quality as your
product. Don't think of them separately. You're providing value with the
product and convincing people to buy it with the sales and marketing strategy.
Sure, the budget allocations shift back and forth, but both should always be
above some minimum threshold of quality.

If you think of your entire company as providing a "customer experience," then
you only have one threshold, and everything is held to that standard.

The companies I am angry at are the ones sacrificing product quality and value
for sales and marketing. (And also companies that just ignorantly release
crappy products and ignore their customers/employees.)

~~~
sanj
But if crappy products _sell_ and don't sell any worse than better (and more
expensive) products, then it is a mistake to invest effort into making them
better.

customer experience != maximizing value to shareholders

I wish it were. I really do. But it isn't.

~~~
dcurtis
Can you provide a real world example of where this is the case in a healthy
market? I do not think this is true except in very poor market conditions like
with monopolies or odd social situations.

~~~
jnorthrop
My brother was the brand manager for a dying food brand (well known national
brand). The first thing he did when he was hired to improve the brand was to
improve the quality of the food (better cuts of meat, fresher veggies, lower
sodium, etc.). You know what happened? The customer complaint line was jammed
with pissed people. He did a complete 180 and removed the higher quality items
(the healthy stuff like vegetables), increased the quantity and sales started
to climb.

That is a clear case of people wanting crap... in fact demanding it instead of
the better quality product.

Note: Sorry for being vague about the brand but he is still there and might
not want the full story public.

~~~
michael_dorfman
The key point of your story is that your brother's definition of "higher
quality" didn't mesh with the customer's. That's a problem.

If people were satisfied with the product, changing the ingredients is
definitely going to add risk. I worked for a food manufacturer, once upon a
time, and we did extensive triangle testing even when sourcing ingredients
from a new vendor.

People want quality. That doesn't mean their taste is the same as yours...

~~~
jnorthrop
The point I was trying to make is that the customer didn't want "better," they
wanted the "same" even though it was crappy. The post I responded to seemed to
want an example of that.

On your points, I agree mostly but in this case people didn't want better
quality. They liked the taste of the lower quality product.

~~~
michael_dorfman
In that case, it's not "lower quality product" now, is it?

It may use ingredients that score better on certain metrics (low sodium, etc.)
but these don't mean"better quality" in the sense that these consumers are
interested in (the taste that they've come to like.)

------
jcromartie
This is why startups exist. Those large companies that cite politics as the
reason for a crappy product _do_ have a valid excuse. People and politics are
_real forces_ and they have _real power_ in the organization. Overcoming them
for the sake of good design is a lot harder, and probably not worth it,
compared to just creating a startup to build great things.

Also, what is this "you should follow me on Twitter" stuff? I _should_?
Really?

------
JMiao
the glass bottle isn't concerned with usability. it's a branding thing.

~~~
ken
I disagree. I don't find either bottle hard to get ketchup out of. But the big
difference is what happens when you're done getting the ketchup out. With a
glass bottle, I'm left with a plain glass bottle (and metal screw cap) that I
can recycle anywhere, or use for just about anything. With the plastic bottle,
I'm left with a weird plastic bottle that's really only designed for
dispensing one thing.

 _Re_ usability is a big part of usability. Generic glass bottles excel at
this.

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jfarmer
I like the new ketchup bottles. They've never clogged for me, and they rest
upside down so you're never trying to get ketchup from the bottom of the
bottle.

The rest of the article is right on, though.

------
TrevorJ
The problem with the airline industry in general is that the old axiom "Fast,
Cheep, Good - pick any 2" doesn't hold up. Tickets are so cheep the airlines
bleed money. The whole point of flying is the speed. As far as "good" goes
they can't compromise on safety so it's an industry that sort of has to pick
"all three". That is a challenging business model to say the least.

~~~
ahoyhere
This is a crazy thought but bear with me here.

What if the _expenses_ could be cut by, oh, reducing layers of crufty
bureaucracy in, say, web site interaction design? And hiring designers and
developers who will make it happen, and then... trusting them?

If there are 15 committees that must be appeased, that's Very Very Bad.

And this is just the web site. The web site cannot cause planes to fall from
the sky.

But it can cause customers to have heart attacks... Look at this stinking
pile, I mean, testament to the power and usefulness of multiple stakeholders:

<http://aa.com/women>

~~~
joshu
Probably correct, but I bet you a nickel that the expenses of useless
bureaucrats are a miniscule fraction of capex and opex.

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edw519
"The only thing that matters to a company of any size is its product and
customer experience."

Many things matter. Although every company is different, the 3 most important
are almost always:

\- Profitability

\- Cash flow

\- Owners wealth

Of course, product & customer experience are important. As means to get to
higher objectives. But certaintly not the only thing.

------
robryan
The same would be true of startups that become big companies. For example I'm
sure it would be a nightmare at somewhere like Google to make UI changes to
the core search listings.

I think someone who has worked on both sides would provide a better insight
into the problems faced at large corporate companies compared to the startup
environment.

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hcayless
Sturgeon's Law (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturgeon%27s_law>) seems worth
invoking here. The thing is, if big companies didn't get weighed down by their
own bulk and bureaucracy, how would small companies ever compete with them?

------
edw519
"...this kind of email really angers me..."

Chill.

One of the most important things in business is knowing when and where to
expend your energy and passion which, believe it or not, is a limited
resource. If this motivates you to change something, great. If it angers you,
get a grip and find a better outlet. Anger is a waste. Don't allow them to let
you do that to yourself.

