Recently, Rob Walker posted about Wal-Mart greenly pushing the the single-bulb-fluorescent (from the NYT) while Mike Wagner posted about how to help the Des Moines Kiwanis Club grow. The substance of the NYT piece and the response to the Wagner entry typify something that is increasingly surprising to me (but maybe shouldn’t be). People (at least in the corners of the blogosphere that I hang in) want to sell ideas. They want to persuade, influence, advertise, manipulate. I sometimes feel a lone voice in asking for i) a user-centered view of what the product or service could evolve to and ii) innovation and development to fix the problems in the product or service.
It’s easier to talk about how to push the idea out there, it seems.
Wal-Mart is working to get these bulbs adopted. But they know what people don’t like about the bulbs. How’s about working on that? I mean, jeez, you already know what the problem is! That seems like an easy one. And the suggestions for the Kiwanis group are strongly focused on how to attract members, without anyone trying to understand what (just to take one of many questions they need to be asking) the current members love about their experience with the organization. No doubt there’s a mismatch between what story is being told to prospective members and what story is desired by those prospective members, as another angle. But no, let’s just focus on how to shout about the existing story.
Push, push.
Tags: bulb, cfl, fluorescent, green, ideas, kiwanis, lighting, listen, persuade, tell
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Steve, this post is so very good.
Does this count as a “rant”? If so, do more. I learned a lot in this keen set of observations.
Thankful to be part of the conversation with you.
Keep creating,
Mike
Thanks, Mike, for getting what I was getting at (and for the big-time encouragement). Hopefully you didn’t feel personally criticized, because that wasn’t my intention.
It didn’t feel like a rant when I wrote it, but yeah, it sure reads like one!
Comment by Steve Portigal 01.09.07 @ 3:54 pmSteve,
I didn’t feel criticized, I felt helped.
Keep creating,
Mike
[…] SP: I was reminded of Method; each are focused on creating very desirable solutions and that will appeal even if you don’t care about the eco-benefits. It’s a fantastic application of design and a great example of rethinking a problem. No doubt there are other categories waiting for this. This is why I’ve complained before about the push approach to fluorescent versus incandescent bulbs in the home. […]
Pingback by All This ChittahChattah : Blog Archive : Dan and Steve write: Connecting07 trip report 10.22.07 @ 4:07 pm
Why CFL Doesn’t Sell, a piece in the Washington Post last year back about the “wife test” for CFL, Fluorescent Bulbs Are Known to Zap Domestic Tranquillity, and Steve Portigal has a few posts, e.g.I wanna push you around, well I will, I will, too. Wrong story, bad story, whatever. It needs work CFL industry. I fear for you CFL industry. Need I remind you of another industry that thought it was OK forcing people to use trivia & jargon? That
[…] Just over a year ago I blogged about the push approach that Wal-Mart was taking to drive adoption of energy-efficient fluorescent lighting, spending money on persuasive marketing rather than addressing the known barriers to adoption. A year later, it seems to be okay to acknowledge the problems with the bulbs. The New York Times recently looked at the problems that people have with the quality of light created by those bulbs (nothing new, of course, but the fact that the angle of the story has changed is thought-provoking). Most recently, they offered up this this interview with a Sylvania technologist who speaks to the ongoing work to improve the quality of the light that people experience. […]
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