Re: Re[2]: Understanding v. instruction

["Huber, Mike" <mrhuber -at- SOFTWARE -dot- ROCKWELL -dot- COM>]

Well, when I buy a hammer, there are two ways I might look at it:
1) I'm buying the "in-the-woodness" of some nails. And when I buy the
nails, I'm buying the togetherness of some wood.
2) I'm buying an enhancement of my personal power over nails and wood.
Either way, it's not the hammer in-se that I want.

Is it information I'm buying? Well, there are information components.
Perhaps I don't need a manual because I already learned how to use it,
but based on my own (admittedly old and unreliable) memories and
watching my own kids, I think it doesn't need a manual because the user
interface is clear. A hammer is well documented by it's very shape and
balance.
I'm also buying information in the sense that I'm buying the knowledge
(which, oddly enough, I won't receive as knowledge) of shape, weight,
type of steel, type of wood, etc. that makes the thing a good hammer as
opposed to a pile of balsa wood and pot metal. I do, in fact, pay extra
for tools that are made by people who's knowledge of technology I trust.

Every product has information components. A brick has it's dimensions.
Every purchase involves desires that go beyond the thing purchased.
Freud was wrong - a cigar is never just a cigar. The buyer of a cigar
wants to smoke it, or smell it, or give it to someone, or sell it for a
profit (minds out of the gutter, please, this is a professional venue).
To take our job beyond mere competence, we have to look at the
information components of our products, and at what it is, exactly, that
our customers want from those products, and consider what information
they need, beyond what they already know, to get that. We need to
consider how to get that information to them in the best way we can.
(Hint: manuals and help files may not be the answers.)

Mike Huber
mike -dot- huber -at- software -dot- rockwell -dot- com

>-----Original Message-----
>From:  Walker, Arlen P [SMTP:Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM]
>Sent:  Monday, June 30, 1997 8:13 AM
>To:    TECHWR-L -at- LISTSERV -dot- OKSTATE -dot- EDU
>Subject:       Re[2]: Understanding v. instruction
>
>      The product is a
>      symbol for all or part of the solution to their problem, and the
>      information associated with the product is what actually sells the
>      product and tells the user how to solve the problem.
>
>This is true in some cases, but not others. For example, I go to the
>hardware store and buy a hammer. Now, I'm sure somewhere along the line I
>learned what a hammer was for and how to use it; frankly it's been so long
>I've forgotten. There's no need for any sort of information to accompany it
>(though perhaps some marketingspeak to justify paying more for a different
>kind of handle).

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