Re[2]: Understanding v. instruction

["Walker, Arlen P" <Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- COM>]

      I think you missed my point.

The point I was reacting to was the one which stated that the information
was more important than the product. If you read my answer to that as
saying that information was always irrelevant, then I apologize for not
making myself clear. That's not my POV.

We can all point to instances where good products have suffered from bad
information. If you can't figure out how to use it, a good product won't do
you much good. But, likewise, the best information in the world won't make
a bad product work. The common techie argument is that some people can
figure out how to use a good product even when we give them no information,
but if the product itself doesn't work, then even if the information we
provide is perfectly delivered, the product still won't work, therefore the
product is more important. While I don't bow to that reasoning, I still
must admit that there is some force behind it.

      Information helps customers make a
      buy/don't buy decision.  Information helps them continue to use a
      product correctly, and talk about it to others. (And believe me, any
      marketer worth his salt will tell you about the value of word of
      mouth.)

No argument there. The only quarrel I have is the leap from there to "the
information is more important than the product."

      I'd be very annoyed if I didn't get that informatio with the purchase
      of the car.

I'm afraid I just don't see what you're arguing with. You make a masterful
case that information is important, but I'm hard pressed to see how that's
disagreeing with me, as I've never said it's always unimportant, or even
that it's significantly less important than the product. You and I agree
(seemingly) that there are some cases where the information provided by the
manufacturer is insufficient or irrelevant to the intended use. So again
there doesn't seem to be a point of disagreement.

Let's ask one more question concerning your car analogy: if the average
person on the street had a choice between a car with the owner's manual
intact and one with flawed docs, for the same price, they'd probably prefer
the former. Now give them the same choice, only when they turn the key in
the one with the manual intact it won't run, and which choice would they
make? A defective product vs good information provided by the manufacturer.
(Go ahead, try to call that information. But you're still left with the
root cause of that decision being defective product, not the information
accompanying the product -- unless "this car doesn't work" is written in
the sales lit or owner's manual somewhere.)

Again, I'm not questioning that information is important. In a previous
post I asserted that information and product are like matter and energy,
each is convertible into the other. That would be a hard position to
maintain if I thought they were of dissimilar importance, now, wouldn't it?

Perfectly produced and co-ordinated information (docs, sales lit, you name
it) is nearly useless if the product doesn't work. Oh, the company may get
a short-term sales gain, perhaps; indirectly proportional to how far short
the product falls. An excellent product surrounded by faulty information
will also fail. (It is sometimes feasible to discover how the excellent
product works without the info, because competitor's products often work
similarly. It is seldom feasible to fix a faulty product even when given
excellent information about what it is supposed to be and what it is
supposed to do, because the same reasons which have us shopping for a
solution hinder us from fixing it ourselves.) To me, that doesn't indicate
*either* is of primary importance.

Which is more important to life, hydrogen or oxygen? Which is more
important, product or information?

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen -dot- P -dot- Walker -at- JCI -dot- Com
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