November 9, 2010

People Have No Idea What they Want

When British Airways introduced the mini-fridge on long international flights, they held focus groups to figure out how to best stock these cold goodie bins.

The results? People wanted light salads and apples. But, what did people ask the flight attendants for when they woke up in the middle of the night? Candy bars.

People have no idea what they want. Steve Jobs talked about this recently in an interview regarding his predictive technological ability. And Jobs' replied that you should never give the customer what they ask for.

Because all a consumer can think of is how to slightly improve existing technology. Adding more features or performance to current laptops and phones. It's what you see Dell and HP doing. They're listening to their customers.

Apple is creating technology that people have no idea they need.
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