ApplyingMaslow’s Hierarchy of

Needsto Technology

or

“545 slides in 30 minutes, about people”(no, seriously)

Rolf Skybergrskyberg@ebay.com

Disruptive Innovator for eBay, Inc.Wednesday, 25 July 2007

January

yesterday

Web 2.0++

[not the same]

doubt

HAICAN HAS STDIO?VISIBLE "HAI WORLD!“

KTHXBYE

Disruptive Innovator

and my first task in being disruptive,

everybody getsGUM.

and to give you a little sample,tonight I’ll be talking about:

people,

pelicans,

power,

horses,

dishwashers,

France,

badgers,

drinking beer,

hooking up,

and maybe software.

(actually, the badgers are just a joke)

this is in fact,a badger-freepresentation.

and because there areno badgers,

let’s start with pelicans instead.

What is the Model?

year 600 ad

we have a problem with

every year, hundreds of thousands

of birds migrate throughNorth and South America

creating the“Pacific Flyway”

Alaska to Patagonia

primary problem:

not very much…

and with no water,

no habitat

and no fish.

which is important,

200+ lbs./year

luckily,

Colorado River

big, fickle, unstoppable

as it empties into the Pacific Ocean,

carries sediment from the

western plains

this sediment builds up

occasionally, blocksits exit to the sea

causing it totemporarilyflow north

into, the“Salton Sink”

this has happened many times

700150018401849185218591891

but in the past,it evaporated

until 1905

canal from Colorado River to Imperial

Valley

new agricultural needs

burst

again emptied into the Salton Sink

creating the“Salton Sea”

so,

not long after…

in 1908it was noted

nesting:comorants, white pelicans,

other species.

now being fed by agricultural run-off,

Salton Seadidn’t evaporate

1930

established as aWildlife Refuge

has become a habitatfor 400+ species.

in a way,

this sudden explosion of waterfowl in the Salton

Sea

not unlike the explosion of traffic to sites like:

the

Salton Sea was an experiment

showing us birds’ twoprimary needs

and what would happen if their needs

were met.

sand and cactus

+ water

=

and translated tolingua franca,

this discovery could be summarized as:

OMG, BIRDZ!!

but how are pelicanslike people?

the alteration in thebirds’ migratory path

completely driven by their fundamental

goals

to seek suitable,hospitable habitat.

knowing these goalshelps us predict

their future behaviour.

humans have similar goals

which we can understandby looking at our actions,

becauseour actions reflect

these goals.

Tom Standage

200 years ago

Claude & IgnaceChappe

built a network

transmitting

military & governmental information

their system

optical telegraph

(556 nodes)

(4,800 kilometres)

swinging arms

“telegraph”

“far writer”

fast!

indeed,

fast-er

s l o w

2words

perminute.

the concept behindoptical telegraphy

laid the groundwork

Samuel Morse... .- -- ..- . .-.. / -- --- .-. ... .

initially used byrailway lines & government

also commercialized

private entrepreneurs

speculated

business people would be willing to

pay

for thisrapid

communication

so they launched

pay-per-wordservices

[only] businesses

high costper message

nonetheless:

expanded

interesting thing happened:

some people

free,

un-metered access:

the operators.

young,

talented,

very bored.

when you don’t have to pay…

jokes

stories

friends,court,marry.

we start to see a progression of human

priorities:

(1) support your military

(11) make a dollar

(111) “chat”

we see the same pattern,

with telegraph’s successor:

radio

rich history in thestory of radio,

but we’ll start at:

1944

Motorola

“Handie Talkie”

infantry field radio

after the war,

business saw the value of wireless

connectivity

commercialized the technology

built acellular network

1984

Motorola“DynaTAC”

8000X

“the brick”

pitched at the business market,

pretty much itsonly market,

with a $4000 price tag

21 years later…

Motorola

RAZR

in pink,commonly sported by

adolescent girls

for almost entirelysocial purposes.

if we trace the priorities again,

1. fear money initially funds a

technology

2. business money expands the

network

3. the network is adopted for social

needs

and what’s the arc in 60 years?

1944

you could use your field radio

to…

2007

in simpler terms,

the order ofthe market’s priorities

seem to be:

1. safety

2. prosperity

3. socialization.

luckily, we’ve seen this pattern before

“Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”

Abraham Maslow

his paper:“A Theory of Human

Motivation”

1943

model

describes theneeds, wants, desires

of individuals.

the model itself:

“levels” or tiers

survival

security

belonging

esteem

enlightenment.

lower levels supersede upper

levels

for example:

you wouldn’t want to

be socialbelonging

security losing your job

similarly,

you probably wouldn’t care

security drop your wallet

survival chased by wolves

the tiered system enforces an “order” to priorities.

markets as a whole,

follow this same hierarchy.

if we look at a market

market == collection of individuals

each individuals’ actions

combine to create

“market pressure”

markets actlike the individuals

in that market.

this helps explain the past 20 years

and maybethe next 20.

if we look at the

Internet

first, something everybodycan agree upon

Web 0.0 (ARPANET) defense

protects everybody’s basest level of needs

now that we all feel like we’ll survive,

“ensure our future, make a

buck”

commerceWeb 1.0

Web 1.0 focused on selling things,

because things are easy to count

and therefore easy to prove profit-

margins on.

lastly

“individual needs”

social beingsWeb 2.0

any guy can put patterns in a pyramid,

so let us get someconcrete examples

with business impact.

remember, these priorities are innate to all humans,

so these motivations apply both online and offline.

highly successful businesses

carefully factor these needs

for example:

(here’s the audience participation time)

what thing?

all sell,

not related to their core business?

hot dogs.

why?

because they want you to participate

commerceshop

but as a human you still need to

fulfil

survival eat

two at once:

survival eatcommerceshop

“profit!”

“rounding error”

consideringhuman needs

increases business

by enabling their users

to focus ontheir product.

we can see this also in the Starbucks in

Safeway

and eBay offering a payment processing

engine, PayPal.

now that we’veunderstand the model

let’s look at:

How to usethis model

(for fun and profit)

going back to MySpace for a

second,

the model helps us frame some

“miraculous” things we’ve seen.

while at the Web 2.0 Expo,I overheard:

“MySpace--- and who would have

guessed that would take off?”

their target is morefocused towards thetop of the pyramid

esteem

enlightenment ideals

expression

belonging social beings

belonging

esteem

enlightenment

social beings

ideals

expression

be social

be myself

help others

now, for this certainportion of the population,

putting food on the tableand paying the mortgagearen’t the most important

things,

so they have a lot oftime and energy,

to focus on these two needs,

be social

be myselfMySpace sweet spot

we’re surprised that teens are drawn to a place where

they can:

listen to music

talk loudly

and express themselves without parental

supervision?

we had MySpace before,

but it was called“Tastee Freeze”

or the arcade,

or “down by the river”

or the hayloft.

even as adults,we seek places where we

can

talk loudly,listen to music,

and possibly act like a fool

we call this“the bar”

if you don’t believe in the possibilites of this business

model,

consider the“Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem”

since 1189.

if you want to,

we could also force software

into this pyramid

run (no seg faults!)

be useful

be pretty

it would be easy to assume that the take-away from

this is:

worry about being pretty after you’ve finished the functional

coding

[wrong]

and this is where it’s important to remember

where you live in the food chain.

as much asyou’d like tobelieve so,

your appis not the be-all and end-

allto your users’ needs

so don’t get stuck on the “functionality” level

and make one of those

hammer, pliers,

nail pullers multi-tool

in their lives,your app may be

about “being pretty”

after all, how much money to people spend

on couch pillows

which serve no discernible function value

whatsoever?

an example for the need for both brawn and

beauty:

Apple released the iPod in

October of 2001

when I already had aCreative Nomad II

and to methe iPod was missing things:

an FM radiovoice recorder

A/B repeatexpandable storage

a user-replaceable battery

(and still doesn’t have this functionality, BTW)

but we all know who haswon that game

because Apple focused on the interface rather than

the functionality

knowing that their product needed to fit into their

consumers’ lives as part of a total package

iLife, anyone?

a detail that always bothers me in the model

“entertainment” isn’t a strong theme in Maslow’s

hierarchy

yet definitelya driving force

in humans.

if you don’t believe me,let’s look at someprimetime shows:

“So You Think You Can Dance”

“America’s Next Best Thing”

“Don’t Forget The Lyrics”

“Big Brother 8”

some of the oldest forms of entertainment:

singing,dancing,magic,

and house arrest

to illustrate how this influences product:

(more audience participation)

(a show of hands)

who took a piece of gum,

knowing that there was a comic inside?

who took a piece of gum,

took a piece of gum because they wanted

some gum?

who took a piece of gum,

knowing that the gum is terrible, but you still

wanted to see the comic?

who took a piece of gum,

knowing that the gumAND the comic were

both terrible

but couldn’t help yourself because you wanted to

see the comic?

in the hierarchy of needs,

the gum is practically useless

but the combination ofa little gum,

and a little fun

is priceless.

this combo has been selling bad gum for

nearly 70 years.

so does that mean that I can create something successful by having a

gimmick?

yes, and no.

it means thatyour product is a more

careful balance

offeatures,

functionalityand fun

than you probablywant to believe.

also,if you’re going to try to pull

off a gimmick against so little value,

you’d better make sure that it’s your gimmick

because how many kinds of bad gum with bad

comics can the market support?

apparently,

one.

this also brings to mind:http://

uselessaccount.com

“change your password one thousand times a

day!”

which is fine,

but don’t go out and register:

account-of-no-value.biz

I’ve been talking about how it is important to consider the many levels of needs

with respect to your product,

and perhaps the most important needs to

consider

are the ones you think you aren’t even

considering,

because there is a danger of unknowingly having your customers’

time

shanghai’ed.

sometimes their time gets diverted somewhere

else

in the model,

as tiers increase,expendable resources

decrease

because total resourcesare finite.

illustration

ten below zero

eleven at night

$65

hotel: $55

dinner: $5

the movie channel: $10

survival

security

belonging

esteem

enlightenment

$55 + $5 for lodging and food

survival

security

belonging

esteem

enlightenment

all our money spent right here

the more energy our members waste in finding the basics,

such as

help

search

login

and “contact us”,

the less energy they have to actually enjoy

your product.

and if you don’t want them spending their precious time

there

make it so they neverneed to ask for help.

I should warn you,

the pyramid has strong influences that arenot to be ignored

at even the most fundamental product level

I’m not making this stuff up!

an example fromeBay’s own experience

“eBay Blogs”

we thought we were building:

esteem expressionbe myself

so let’s look at a typical blog entry from last

night:

“nighty nite all >*o*<sweet dreams my friends i have towork early so i prob wont see yas tomorrow morn. have a good night

”

>*o*<

and the“blog comments”

on that entry?

• good night

• SWEET DREAMS

• Nite - new banner - nice - sleep well dear - catch ya sometime tomorrow.

• Good night dd. Have a nice day at work tomorrow.

• Have a good night!

• Nite!

• Good Night

[not] eBay Blogs

eBay chat.

eBay chat.a very terrible

unfulfilled

belonging social beingsbe social

new tool?

my needs.

If all you have is a hammer,everything looks like a nail.

we gave them a screwdriver,

which is found to be apoor hammer

(but that’s not going to stop anybody from pounding nails

with it).

and because you can’t stop them,

use this as your most important product development tool.

you put it out on the market, but what are people actually

using it for?

ever heard ofAvon Skin-So-Soft?

an urban legend started that it was an effective mosquito

repellent

people were buying it in droves to protect themselves

yet,laboratory tests showed it

really didn’t work

so what did Avon do?

they launched:

Avon SKIN SO SOFT BUG GUARD PLUS

includes insect repellantand SPF 15 sunscreen

by paying attention to their customers’ needs, Avon was able to enter an entirely

new market

how does this apply to other products?

considerMySpace vs the “adult version” of

MySpace

AdultFriendFinder

we can look at the same pyramid

belonging

esteem

enlightenment

social beings

ideals

expression

be social

be myself

help others

but we also notice that there’s a new “goal” for this older

audience

once you get past a certain age,

there are more “needs”in your pyramid.

survival sex

be social

be myself

help others

a little sumthin’ sumthin

which has consistentlyput it in the

Top 20 most traffickedsites on the web.

this comes back to perhaps the most vital message in my

presentation:

make products that delight and empower your users.

your members will continue to be

humans

and human needsaren’t changing

so success will goto the products,

that fulfills themost needs,

with the leastamount of waste

waste =

“anything which doesn’t delight or empower your

users”

because anything else, you’re stealing

their time

you can only get by stealing for so long.

now that I’ve given yousome new tools,

lets sum this all upby applying some of them

New Ways of Looking at the

World

let’s attack the old“Linux on the

desktop”debate

there is a conception that Linux is a perfectly suitable

substitute for Microsoft windows

unfortunately that isentirely wrong,

and not of any fault to Linux,

but because the comparison is

framed wrong.

LOTD is a perfectly suitable operating system

but end users don’t buyoperating systems.

they buy software to make their computers useful to

them

and if they can re-use the skills

and software they already have,

alternatives pale in comparison.

Apple is approaching a similar problem with

“Apple on the Desktop”

and they’ve attacked this with their “Switch” ads.

they don’t focus on the fact that OSX is a “perfectly acceptable” operating

system,

they focus on the fact that Apple+OSX can help you get the exact same things

done

(better)

right now,

LOTD strategy to me seems like it is focusing on

cheaper (free)

and more open(free, as in liberty)

but “free” isn’t a draw when every PC already comes with Windows

installed

and “open” isn’t a draw

if “open” means

less functionalto the end user

consider this:

every digital camera includes software for

Windows,but not Linux

but, but, but gPhoto handles most digital

cameras!

yes,but it doesn’t come

in the box with the camera,does it?

and there’s no“works with gPhoto”

logo on the box.

now let’s attack“the internet”.

we should stop being fascinated

that our phones and cars and toilets are ‘internet

enabled’

just like you’d never say,

OMG, UR DISHWASHER RUNZ on

ELECTR1CITY??!!!

the most successful of us

will stop looking at the internet as Web

X.Y,

but as a tool tohelp us cope

with our inability

to store, process, retrieve and

transmit massive amounts of information

with other humansnot near me.

another lesson from the pyramid,

what about the social aspect of what you’re

doing?

imagine reading a book,but you couldn’t tell your

friends about it

or playing solitaire without someone looking over your shoulder telling

you“you’re doing it wrong”

the pyramid shows us that we are

fundamentally social creatures

and where it makes sense,

interweaving that social nature can dramatically add to our experience

so here’s the tricky part:

building a product is like building a house

water and electricity are useful things to nearly

everybody

the skill lies in knowing what rooms

need what

and the last one(which is really more of a

warning)

it is important totemper hype

with clear thinking,

there will be many ill-conceived uses of recently

“discovered” aspects of computing

on the web, I’m talking about discoveries such as:

AJAXsocial networking

community filteringbadgeswidgets

RSSviral apps

just because something works in

one place,doesn’t mean it has a use every place

consider an advertisement from 1909

during a similar “2.0” time of history:

FOR NERVOUS DISEASES of all kinds in men and women, to reach the nerve centers for the cure of all nervous disorders… For weakness in men and women, personal exhaustion bringing back lost strength and power, over brain work, vitality, impotency, rheumatism, lame back, railroad back, insomnia, melancholia, kidney disorder, Bright's disease, dyspepsia, disorders of the liver, poor circulation, weak heart action and almost every known disease and weakness. The constant soothing alternating electric current is ever at work touching the weak spots, building up the system, stimulating the circulation.

ALL THAT ELECTRICITY WILL DO FOR YOU WILL BE RECEIVED!

why do we get so excited about things?

what we can do

what we can’t do

inflections in expectation

inflections in abilityto fulfill expectations

?

the bubble

does this mean that every new is crap?

no, but who’s telling you it is cool?

marketers and pundits?

you know all about“usability studies”

but what about“feasibility studies”?

I’m sure your product is technically feasible

but will it survive in the market?

Starbucks knows how to setup coffee shops

but before theyplunk one down

they study the streets, the demographics, the foot traffic, and their

location to competitors.

they do this because installing a business is a costly experiment,

so they need it to stick around for awhile.

ask yourself,

am I investing in something that will last

in the long run?

luckily, there is an easy way to think of these

things:

“does this make me laugh or help me out?”

building tools, services and experiences

which empower and delightyour users and employees

not only makes sense,

it’s good for business.

I believe:

in “life, liberty andthe pursuit of happiness…”

and together,

we can bringthat spirit

to everyone.

The End.

Rolf Skybergrskyberg@ebay.com

http://rolfskyberg.wordpress.com

Thank you to:Lawrence Lessig, for the presentation style

Dick Hardt, for the inspirationInkscape, for a wonderful vector graphics

toolthe Disruptive Innovation Teamand you, (yes you), for coming

Slide #548

Rolf Skybergrskyberg@ebay.com

http://rolfskyberg.wordpress.com