When MP3 rolled around and Sony's walkman customers were clamoring for a solid-state MP3 player, Sony let its music business-unit run its show: instead of making a high-capacity MP3 walkman, Sony shipped its Music Clips, low-capacity devices that played brain-damaged DRM formats like Real and OpenMG. They spent good money engineering "features" into these devices that kept their customers from freely moving their music back and forth between their devices. Customers stayed away in droves.

Today, Sony is dead in the water when it comes to walkmen. The market leaders are poky Singaporean outfits like Creative Labs -- the kind of company that Sony used to crush like a bug, back before it got borged by its entertainment unit -- and PC companies like Apple.

That's because Sony shipped a product that there was no market demand for. No Sony customer woke up one morning and said, "Damn, I wish Sony would devote some expensive engineering effort in order that I may do less with my music." Presented with an alternative, Sony's customers enthusiastically jumped ship.

I sat through meetings where we were asked to research ways in which to increase the amount of time that users spent in Money. Increase the amount of time! Users always ask for the exact opposite. Users want a Navy Seal relationship with Money -- get in quietly, do the job quickly, leave no comrade behind, maybe smoke a little afterwards. We got busy making Money into a needy girlfriend. "Let's make it so fun and engaging people won't want to leave!" Users would rather be scheduled for a root canal than to spend another minute trying to balance a checkbook.

...

Money is no longer laser-focused on beating Quicken. We realized that the PFM pie is much bigger than just getting upper middle class folks to read reviews and buy Money for their favorite uncle. There's now much more focus on getting simple things done.

When an artist is in the strict sense working, he of course takes into account the existing taste, interests, and capacity of his audience. ... Haughty indifference to them is not genius nor integrity; it is laziness and incompetence.

- C.S. Lewis, from his essay, "Good Work And Good Works" published in: "The World's Last Night" (out of print)

The following story is true, but the names have been changed.

A company conducted focus groups for their Product X, which had as its main competitor Product Q. They asked people who were using Product Q, "Why do you use Product Q instead of Product X?" The respondents gave their reasons...

Armed with this valuable insight, the company expended time, effort, and money ... sat back and waited for the customers to beat a path to their door.

But the customers didn't come.

Why not?

Because the customers were lying.

Strive for stories that are:

Independent (of each other)
Negotiable (have some "wiggle room")
Valuable (to users or customers, not technologists)
Estimatable (not very precisely but generally)
Small (Not all stories but the ones you'll do soon)
Testable